The air temperature was about the same as the water. It didn't seem to matter to the newly stocked Rainbows there; they were hitting the surface pretty hard. The "bathtub" section was low- too low for fish, but just above, under and below the Sodom road bridge the water was boiling with regular risers. Their choice for food was a minuscule midge. Too minuscule for imitation. I tied on a #20 Griffith's Gnat with high hopes that a trout would decide to seize the opportunity. No luck. No lookers either. For the next 25 minutes I changed flies and false casted without a single rise in my favor. Then I remembered a sunny day in early May about 10 years ago with similar water conditions on the very same section of the "EBC." Lots of stocked fish taking tiny flies off the surface but no one was fooling them. There were a lot of anglers on the water that day and I remember tying on a #10 bucktail just to see what would happen. First cast, across and down, one swift retrieve and whammo. I landed fish after fish and infuriated every other angler within 200 yards.
So I tried it again. And it worked, again. This time I landed four or five of them before I decided to move downstream to find something bigger. Something a little more challenging. A holdover. Two season fish are very selective on the East Branch. But they have to eat, don't they? So like I said, I was knee deep in ice water, freezing in every extremity. My knees were locked in place. My toes could have fallen off, I wouldn't know it. But I was determined to land something besides a cookie. I tied on the 50/50 nymph, a little split shot and went into the faster, deeper water. Cast, drift, repeat. Cast, drift, repeat. For two hours. Same spot. Over and over again. The occasional weed bed or twig would yank the line to provide me with an occasional twirl, and twice I brought my fly to hand to find it had a small living pupae or nymph wrapped around it. So I knew I was on the bottom, and I knew there were insects in the river, and I knew for certain that I was thinking too much about it. These goddam East Branch trout would be just fine without my company. Their loss, I thought. I decided to waddle to the car. I played the "5 more casts game," and as the indicator picked up speed through a thin eddy, two tiny twitches brought me out of my daze and I yanked the rod sideways- a fish! A good fish! Not a long fish, but a fat fish, and a bit of a scrapper, too. I landed him. Took a picture. Reeled up my line, clipped the fly and stowed it in the little Wheatley nymph box. I lumbered up the trail as if I were a stone man, started the car and tried to thaw my knees. The Yankees were on the radio. Then I drove home.
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