It feels like I was laying on that rock for hours. Like I got there in broad daylight and left as night approached. However long it really was, it was a long time. I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t catching fish after fish. I wasn’t exactly having fun laying on the rock. I was trying to figure something out.
I saw fish. Probably a half dozen of them. Knowing the stream, they were most likely brook trout. The largest of the bunch could have been a brown. Regardless, they were in the pool right below me. They were right in the center of the pool, but they were deep. I guessed them to be about three feet down, with another two or three below them. A log, with bits of debris stacked in front of it, cut across the hole. That probably gave them a greater sense of security. It also did a great job of concealing me and what I was attempting to do.
Cast after cast, fly after fly, I couldn’t figure these trout out. I can remember using a prince nymph. I can remember using a hare’s ear nymph. I can remember the woolly bugger, the egg pattern, and the hornberg wet. I’d try to cast at different points at the head of the pool, seeing which currents would take my fly in front of the fish. A few inches difference at the point of entry translated into very divergent depths, trajectories, and speeds. It was hard, from a prone position, to cast with enough accuracy to effectively replicate any particular drift with precision.
