Storm Chaser
May 5th, 2009
By Chris H3ller
You all would have been really proud of me yesterday: As the clock ticked closer to my 2pm closing call…..I stared out windows at the hard rain pelting the sides of the buildings in the business park where I work. My fingers were like a trigger on the mouse button…checking…and re-checking the river levels….in the back of my mind wondering if I could make it to a river before the rise shut the fish down. I knew finding fish wouldn’t be an issue…..I could feel in my bones they were on the move but probably didn’t have their heads all the way ‘down’ yet. More than anything else I’ve felt in a while….the feeling of needing to fish….needing to head out into the storm against all odds of the rising levels….I just had to go.
I told myself I would run home after work and as I was loading the truck, I would power up the work station and check the river levels one last time……..no change/no change/.03 drop/rise……NOAA was giving me the gamete. As it was, I was toeing the line with each river…..I figured I might have a couple hour window on one of them 
before the mouths of these fish I chase buttoned up and their heads pointed down…if I was lucky. It didn’t matter though. I knew I was going to go. I ran the routine as planned…..wincing the whole way home at the power and volume of rain that was falling. I would end up fishing in the hardest falling rain since my trip to Key West with Sal ‘01. I halfway expected to see a slide up there.
With the truck loaded, rain gear packed, sweat suit on for driving comfort…I hit the rainy roads………Hydro-planing the whole way to the river. Zoned in, no music on the road…just getting there. Truth be told, it was raining so freaking hard I damn near turned around once I reached my exit off the freeway…but luckily for my fish-fighting jones….I kept on.
After rolling up to the river and seeing only a coupla rigs parked….I was dearly hoping the river was not out of shape yet. I had some pep in my step and not even getting soaked with rain in the first ten yards of my hike was going to cause me to miss a beat. Especially since I spied the water looking real good from above. The clarity was decent enough that even without my polarized lenses I could still easily see boulders a few feet under the surface….perfect visibility. Question was; had I beaten the rise?
I came around the corner and saw two guys in the slot that I like. I figured that was a sign I should fish somewhere else. Nah, how about I just buddy right up. Actually, how bout I just buddy right up and hook a fish out from under their feet? Yeah, that works. It was pretty sweet. Even though the water was high, the rise so far had been clear…which meant I still needed to run small stuff. Which meant Bob D’s customized hand poured pink worms weren’t going to get the call today. Now they know how Jared Bayless feels. I digress. I recalled the colors that ICE was using under his float on Saturday. Then I thought about Sal banging that nice fish on his gawd-awfully effective ’spin under bob’ rig….and decided to replicate the yarnie under the float. Not a tough decision, surprisingly.
I pegged three shot along my 12 lb Maxima leader, trimmed the yarn up to a round shape as I always do…..and (different from Saturday) I added one single plastic Jensen egg to the rig…..so that the yarn fell over the egg like a bad, punk rock, white trash hair cut. I acknowledged the other two anglers with a head nod before I pitched my rig out over the finger..letting it swung in front of a boulder which happened to be acting as host to a nice big male winter: My float shot sideways at the very end of my drift as I slowly lifted and dropped the line through the slide in front of the rock. The water was moving so quickly though, that I could only lift and drop once, before having to reel in and do ‘er all over again. I’m sitting in the strike zone for like 2 or 3 three seconds, is all, with each cast….the recipe for success?? Switch your depth constantly, change colors…move your split shot around for different presentations….and cast a lot.
Just a toad of a winter fish….this measured 34 inches!
I proceeded to land this winter fish, but lost two other beautiful summers. I’ll take it though. As you can see, it still cut pumpkin red.
Ah, you gotta love it when a plan comes together. I would’ve liked a limit, and almost had it two different times! But the memory of hooking three fish in two hours after work is branded in my mind and I am already craving a repeat run. Now we just need the rivers to come back down.
H3lcat
