11/14 - Clinton Lake "Thirty Minutes of a Fine Fall Day"

Thirty minutes of a blustery ,overcast fall afternoon. On this day that'd be all the time I had to cure the ache that had gnawed at me for the last week. With my wife on vacation this week we had decided to head over to Clinton State Park and take advantage of the nice weather by hiking a couple of our favorite trails. Somehow I had managed to sneak the flyrod and a box of flies under the seat of the truck unnoticed, so the plan was set in motion from the beginning. I'd heard a report or two of some wipers being caught on windy points of the lake and with the conditions the way they were today I hoped to take advantage of the situation if given the opportunity. We spent several hours hiking through the park and seeing as it was a Monday we had the place pretty much to ourselves. As always, our fearless trail guide Joe led the way into the unknown.

I couldn't think of a better way to spend the afternoon...well , maybe one. As we began our trip back home I decided to drive across the dam and look things over ,still in hopes of pulling that rod out from under the backseat. When I saw a couple groups of gulls working the open water on the windy side of the lake I knew I had to give it a shot.


After a little convincing the wife agreed to sit and read while I spent 30 minutes fishing.
Most of the action appeared to be out of reach of the seven weight , but I managed to fool a few stragglers.



Chalk one up for the old "Blind Squirrel" theory. Three whites and two wipers if my identification was correct , they were all under two pounds and at that size it's not always easy to tell. Regardless of what exact species or sub-species they belonged to ,the tug was sufficient to take the edge off until the next fix.

When I got back to the truck and announced my success ,five fish in thirty minutes , I was given a shake of the head and informed that I'd been down there for an hour and fourty-five minutes. It took some doing but I finally convinced her that fishermen have their own understanding of time that doesn't neccessarily fall in place with what the standard timepieces of today are capable of calculating. I like to think we're one step ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to time management , give me thirty minutes and I can somehow turn it into two hours almost effortlessly. She wasn't impressed , but nonetheless what a great way to spend thirty minutes on a blustery fall afternoon!!