Like I needed a reminder...

...seems lately I'm not having any trouble remembering to go fishing. It's getting other things done that's getting harder. Today, with the kids and wife at a movie, I ran over for just an hour to one of the reliable, little, local creeks.

"Take a worm can."
"No, I don't want one. If they won't take a fly I'll just flick it around."

—Ernest Hemingway, from The Sun Also Rises

Across the 10' wide, knee-deep stream along the micro eddy fence on the other side, I saw a soft, understated rise. My first few casts had just been prospecting with a #18 copper john - there was nothing buzzing in the air but mosquitos - so I switched to a likewise small stimulator. Two casts later I landed a nice little 11" rainbow. Just down stream, a few minutes later, I saw a much larger trout rocket up through a stony, flat run after some little minnow or something, pin it against the bank, strike, then bolt back off down stream. This fish was easily twice as long as the water it was in was deep (making it a 16"+ fish), and it was aggressive. But I couldn't find it again, much less coax it back into its fury with one of my flicking (swinging, actually) old-school wet pattern flies.

Then I also saw a pretty good size Berkshire Bonefish rummaging in the one spot of muck in a pollen crusted backwater eddy formed by some rocks and a recent tree fall. I was on my ultralight 00wt...but still couldn't help casting a light brown woolly bugger to it...thinking it was probably likely I'd actually hook it (since I was on my ridiculously light tackle) gave me mixed feelings...the renewed possibility of actually finally pulling off this silly mission and the legend-making story if I did it on the 00, while also trying to remember how much backing was on my dinky little, plastic pawl drag Sage 3100 reel tugged at my judgment as the bugger drifted into postion...I thought better of it...pulled the woolly bugger in, retied the stimulator, and cast a few more times for unseen trout in the riffles before heading home...

Don't need a reminder why I fish...