Let me start off by thanking all of you
guys at the clave for a good time.
Mike Makela, Gene Cyprich, Lou Teletski, Walt Winter, Tim Carter, Bill Claspy,
Jeff Miller, "Indian" Joe MacIntosh, Handyman Mike Shaw, Bruce Fisher, Frank
Reid, Wolfgang Siebeneich, Joel Axelrad, Tom Gibson, Vince Norris, Dave PA, John
"asadi" Baker, Dave LaCourse and Allen Epps.
Tom Littleton did a great job as Clavemeister.
Dave LaCourse was just the friendliest and generous guy, putting me up for the
night before and after the clave and also seeing to that I got there.
Handyman Mike went out of his way to see to that I got back to Boston and also lent me a place to sleep that last night, thanks.
Gene Cyprich lent me a place to crash
for one night so that I could spend that one night at Hemlock Acres to be able
to socialize with all of you over a beer or two, thanks.
Jeff Miller was very generous letting me stay at the Carolina cabin, thank you
very much Jeff.
Mike M, Lou T, Frank R, Gene C, Tim C (I
might have forgotten someone) thanks for guiding me around.
Indian Joe, you cook excellent breakfast (a bit too much fat for my taste, but
excellent none the less) thank you.
Joel and Frank, the raffle night was great fun, thanks.
Rabbit food is good for you, sugar and fat ain't (Wise words from a Swede).
Where do I start? So much happened during this week that I have a hard time too
take everything in. The first three days I only caught 14 fish and was outfished
by everyone, to say the least fishing at Penns was way different than anything I
ever done before. The surroundings where beautiful with all that lush
vegetation, and the rivers seemed equally high on nutrients.
What did I learn during those days? Well, fish at Penns are educated, not as
sensitive to presentation as they are at home but very sensitive to what fly is
at the end of your tippet. Penns have some spectacular hatches and I did at one
given time see the spinner fall of three different mayflies with one other
mayfly and three different caddis present and hatching, just amazing. The flies
are generally bigger at Penns, for example the March brown over there is twice
the size of the same fly in Sweden. The stonefly is enormous compared to the
ones we have but the caddis flies are in average slightly smaller.
Mike Makela invited me to the art of nymphing the big stonefly nymph with the
help of split shots and I caught a nice 18,5 inch brown and several more on
that. Too bad that fish had to run into the shallows, not much of a fight.
Nymphing the big stonefly nymph with a long line isn't recommended since it will
get snagged very often, due to its weight and size. What we did was very close to Czech
nymphing.
Several fish were caught on a black wooly bugger, but most fish on sulphur
emerger and spinner, march brown spinner and tanned caddis. Too bad the hatches
were so short. Well actually, one night it almost went on for two hours, but I
really don't want to talk about that event. NINE I tell you......nine.......
More on that later...............
So what happened during the week?
Well for me it started with Dave and his lovely wife meeting me at the Boston
airport. I probably needed to sleep after the flight but the fact that I had to
subtract 6 hours from Swedish time made it more or less breakfast time before I
got to sleep.
Early next morning we were off to Penns. I must confess I felt a bit bad about
dragging the pirate all the way to Penns when he obviously wasn't going to fish.
On arrival I met Indian Joe, Waldo, Jeff and Mike at the Carolina cabin. Since
Waldo was heading home I started out fishing with him but caught nothing at the
beginning (afterward I can see that my nymph fishing needed no small amount of
adaptation). Waldo lost a big fish down at the riffles above Blue rock hole and
then we moved upstream. I caught 6 fish on a dry
tanned caddis that day but they were all small, at least I thought so at the
time. Someone told me that the 12 inch brookie I caught wasn't bad for Penns. In
any case it was my first ever wild brookie.
Met with Tom and Bill for the first time on our way back to the cabin. Both nice
guys and sincerely missed at the end of the clave.
The first night started out with me hunting *June Bugs* in the bedroom. I went
to bed but after getting one in my hair and one in my face I went up again and
killed six more of them. The reason for these bugs proved to be the same as for
the continuous hatch in the bath tub. The windows had bug nets but those weren't in a
good enough condition to keep the bugs out. My window stayed shut for the rest
of the week.
Next day went even worse with only three fish caught.
The first days are a bit blurred by what at the time was a mixture of seeing new
waters and meeting with new people but I do vividly recall the first hatch at
Three streamer Stan's. I had never before seen such an enormous hatch but was
about to see even bigger ones.
During the week I got to fish Big fishing creek, Spring creek and Penns.
Explanation of the NINE thing:
I had after several failures at the earlier evening hatches noticed that the
fish were a bit leader shy started to mend midair so that the leader came
downstream after the fly when we for the first time fished the run beneath
Cherry run. I guess what happened was a "turning point". I had NINE fish take
the fly that night, among those a very big one spotted about three hours
earlier. I guess I was successful in a manner, since I hadn't been able to fool
that many fish before. If I had only checked the fly.........the tipped had
caught around the hook bend and I was pulling the flies out of the fish mouth
backwards. It was getting dark very fast at night though so I really wanted to
try for as many fish as possible and thought that it was something wrong with my
timing. I wasn't smiling when I walked back. Am I a sportsmanlike guy or what?
Fishing with the hook backwards ;-( they ought to rename that run to Fool's run.
I remedied myself at the same run two nights later catching two nice fish on the
same spot.
Martini night:
I didn't drink any Martini but got to socialize a lot and had a good time. Met
with Wolfgang, Gene, Joel, Dave PA and Asadi for the first time. Got to speak
with most of the guys that night and really enjoyed myself.
Raffle night:
That Barley stew stuff was tasty and exactly what I needed. Thank you Wolfgang
for the red wine, it made the good stew even more so enjoyable. Got the pig hat
and two books, one from the raffle lottery and one from Wolfgang, again thanks.
Sorry that Lou was heading back so early, would have liked to stay for a bit
longer. No one got the Duck butt award, but someone should have.
Sorry Frank, but I just got to spill the beans on ya =)
The last day of the clave only me, Frank, Mike S, Mike M and Bruce was still
there. So me and Frank goes down to Weikert to fish another day with the Green
Drake. Up at the topmost pool that I fished the day earlier with Tim, Frank,
Mike S, Mike M and Bruce I was watching Frank wading back towards the shore when
he suddenly fell face forward into the water catching himself with his arms on
the bottom. I guess this would have been a half Reid by the notorious Mr Reid
himself, and this right in front of my eyes. God, I wish I had had my camera. I
might have been able to finance the next trip with the income from those
pictures. Anyway Frank, since Reid's luck is such that bad luck is followed by
good luck, buy yourself a lottery ticket. I mean, broken down car, bear shredded
tent, bitten through cooler and punctured waders. After that you're bound to win
on the lottery.
Lobster night:
I'm a fairly well trained guy, but I swear to god that my stomach muscles were
aching bad the day after. I had a great time with so much laughter that I hardly
had time to eat. Asadi and Dave PA provided the most hilarious entertainment
accompanied by comments from Tim, Joel and Wolfgang. For a minute there I
figured they would end up having us thrown out of the restaurant. Wolfgang is
BTW the only American that ever pronounced my surname correctly.
Sportsman's club night:
We were all late from the hatch but had a good time. A lot of talking about a
lot of things made the evening one worth remembering.
I was a bit saddened at the end by the fact that the week had ended so quickly,
but decided there and then to try and make it another year again.
Thank you all for a great time.
/Roger