44 Wind Knots And Tangled Lines

Whitecaps On Lily

44. 44 Wind Knots and Tangled Lines . No, not 44 Howard's from Wind Knots And Tangled Lines. That would be the end of the world. This wasn't quite so bad, but it was close. 44 wind knots. That's how many I had to untangle. I got to Lily lake at around 1 in the afternoon, and there were over 100 people there. There was a wedding at one end of the lake which accounted for about 80 people, but the other twenty were all fishermen. 15 were spin fishermen, all catching nothing. The other five were fly fishermen, all around the lake casting dry droppers. Well, I wouldn't call it casting. The 40 mile per hour winds were preventing that, so it was more like waving a stick. That 7 weight carp rod I left at home seemed really nice right about then. But I was there, I had taken the drive, and I was ready to fish. I stood down near some rocky structure and false casted for a minute before the wind calmed down. I laid in my cast with Erin's Lily Bugger, started stripping, and repeated. I managed to sneak a few casts in, with no luck. Then the wind kicked up once again. What kept running through my head was, "You can't catch fish here unless you see cruisers." Dang. That thought kept running through my mind as I snuck casts in through the wind. It went through my head right as a red flash went off behind my fly. Wait, what? Another flash. Wow. Then a second later, whack! Fish on! I fought the big pretty fish for a minute, brought him to the net, quickly took a picture, and let him go.

Little did I know this was the only fish I would catch all day Little did I know this was the only fish anyone caught all day. Of course, until I went around and asked. Nope, no one else had caught a fish. So a couple hours later, once I had enough of fighting the wind, we headed home. As we drove by, a line of cars appeared on the road. From staying a week in Wyoming, I knew what that meant. But I had never seen one in Colorado before! Bear! Yes, that's right, bear! And not a usual Black Bear, either. It was a BIG Brown Bear. I went on down the road, leaving my parents and all their worrying behind. Sadly, the zoom on my camera was jammed. Good thing I got close enough to take this shot :)