Arriving at Tunkwa Lake as the sun crept over the vast horizon, everything seemed in place for a memorable day. The fish were rising only a few hundred meters from shore, and hardly a soul disturbed the skin of glass that mirrored the morning sky. The board slipped into the water, the cooler was placed on top, the tackle bag was strapped to the front, and the diving reel with anchor rope and 5 lb downrigger ball was clipped to the bow. Now to just put in the rod holders... hey, where are they?
Some say that 80% of your fishing is done off the water, and I agree with them. I don't know how to convince myself that I need to put more effort into simply being organized. Maybe some electroshock therapy, controlled starvation, light beating, or resorting to actually working on it may help.
I had apparently taken them out of the cooler to make some huge space for something else when I took my wife out paddle boarding - And yes, now I had someone to blame but it wasn't going to help me for the moment...
Inspired by such influences of mastery as Red Green and Tim the Tool Man, I decided to use the bungees on the back of the board to help secure the rods while I had them in the water to fish. This worked quite well and a few fish helped test the merits of the improvised 'system'. When I would move from one spot to another, I would make sure to more securely wrap the bungees over the entire rod and in front of the reel so there was no risk in losing anything.
Perhaps it was the heat, maybe it was the wind and waves that would arrive to challenge a perfect day, but the last time I moved spots I did not ensure that the rods were wrapped securely. After anchoring, I turned and realized in angling horror that my 6 weight Scott and Hardy CLS reel were somewhere on the bottom of the lake. I tried to trick my brain in to thinking that the rod was somewhere else, or that there was some kind of attainable solution, but I just couldn't bend reality enough.
Knowing that there was a floating line and indicator on the setup, and that I hadn't even given my faithful friend the dignity of reeling in the line, I thought it was possible to find the indicator floating. All good in theory, but after shoveling the board back and forth over the angry water, it was clear that I was going to have to concede to the indifferent depths.
I anchored upwind in the spot I was planning on initially, hoping I may see a fish leap in the distance, taunting me with my line in its mouth. While waiting I caught a beautiful scrappy rainbow that I somehow killed after what I thought was a brief fight and a quick throat pump. As it turned over for the third time and the eyes became focused on a very distant horizon, I knew to keep it. When the water is 71 degrees and incapable of holding on to as much oxygen, you just can't mess around with trout. All my fault for sure, just like leaving the rod holders at home.
As I sat there feeling like the schmuck that I was, a boat plodded up towards me and I could see a familiar face aboard. My friend Neil and his wife Tammy smiled, said hello, and asked how it was going. Like a 6 year old that just dropped his ice cream, I described in broken 'poor me' English what had happened. I may have asked how they were doing as well, which would have been nice.
Since I knew the fishing had been a little temperamental, I led them back up to a spot where I knew there was some fish and gave them the fly off my line before having one more look around. Oh, and I convinced them to take the fish, marinated in summer algae, thereby dumping the obligation to not waste a beautiful animal on a scorcher of a day to someone else.
The next day I had to go to the office to do stupid office stuff, so I'm sure my coworkers would have some interesting words to describe my level of chipperness - yes, that's a word because I just used it.
Of course when there's a screen within our periphery, we all have one addicted eye kneeling to the constant trickle of e-garbage that gives our cubicle-days a sense of purpose.
Somewhere between the promise of a larger penis and the last notification of the closing of my PayPal account I saw an email from Neil, and it read as follows:
Hi Wayne
you aren't going to believe this but Tammy and I went out looking for your gear this morning and I still don't believe it but we found and retrieved it!!! I think giving me that beautiful bloodworm was good karma.
we will be returning Friday afternoon,you can email me ur phone number and I'll call u when we get in to arrange the return. Or if you come back to tunkwa you can have it sooner.
i suppose the only question remaining is how many flies is it worth
Regards
Neil
Well I couldn't believe it either. And not only did they find the rod and reel, but there was a 2 lb fish on the end of the line that was strong enough to break the barbless (so why do they get off when I'm trying to reel them in?) fly off and swim away thankfully.
I was up at the lake bright and early the next morning, anchored like a stalker just off shore from their camper. I thought it would be nice if I was able to figure out what the fish wanted that morning and be able to just hand them a magic fly, but that didn't happen at all. When they made it out and handed me the rod, I couldn't thank them enough though.
Neil used a fancy word to describe the white glazing that had formed on the coating of the guide wraps, after being in the water less than 24 hours. I thought it was strange that water could do that, but I'm pretty sure it's something to do with the sediment at the bottom. Either high pH or some anoxic concoction that brews way down there. On some of the wraps, only half was white. This must have been where the one side lay on the bottom. The wraps toward the tip of the rod are still clear and must have been angled upward
So now my rod has some scars, marks that tell a story, to remind me of a day out and to be thankful for good friends.
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