The Scantic River is, for lack of a more poignant definition, my home water. If nothing else, it's the stream closest to my house, a place I fish frequently though reluctantly and often out of low grade desperation. There's not much good to say about the river. Really, it's nothing more than a put-and-take suburban brook bordering the back yards of a rather well-to-do bedroom community. The state dumps a netful of rubber rainbows in a few traditional spots late March, maybe early April, and the local VFW sponsors a stocking around Mother's Day for the worthy cause of a kid's fishing derby. Towards the end of June, however, there's little left because the meat fishermen have raped nearly every hole by then.
I know the beck far too intimately now, having solved most of its mysteries long ago. Like an old dead marriage wherein the husband and wife take each other for granted, the romance is gone. I've learned what to expect and surprises are rare. In the Spring, I can always count on catching dozens of dumb stockies. Later in the season I'm happy to land a stupid creek chub. It's the same old routine year after year, but I never become truly bored. Despite the serious drawbacks, the Scantic is still a convenient respite when life gets suffocating and opportunity is limited, a phenomenon which seems to happen with irksome regularity ever since I became a responsible adult.
One afternoon last September the need to breath was particularly acute, so I drove out to the stretch above the hardware store in Hampden. Customarily on these jaunts I swing by the Blue Collar Cigar Company in East Longmeadow for a cheap stogie. My friend Mr. Berard usually has something suitable for any outdoor excursion. After roaming around his walk-in humidor for awhile I finally picked out a discount Churchill, paid the price, and resumed my fly fishing mission. Along the way I stopped, again, at a gas station for a diet Dr. Pepper and a pastry. After all, the physical demands of our sport require appropriate attention be paid to the nutritional needs of the body.
From where I park it's but a short path down to a pool which may at times harbor a small brown or the scarce rainbow. I invariably string up by the car so I'll be prepared to do battle at the slightest provocation upon stepping into the sanctuary of, hopefully, the isolated uncaughtgame fish. Then, before making the mini trek through the woods, I'll light my Blue Collar purchase to keep the predatory insects at bay. The smoke always smells good.
Normally I start off with a nymph pattern of some sort, typically a Woolly Bugger. It took several exploratory casts downstream before raising the ire or interest of perhaps the only resident in the neighborhood. The trout--I could tell by the hit--held steadfastly under the groping branch of a ravenous maple. Naturally, I missed. In due course I fed three successive flies to the hungry tree before setting the hook on my speckled quarry. The fight was violent and the fish's reluctance to be brought to capture was resolute, but unprevailing. Within the brief span of thirty seconds I held in my hand seven inches of squiggling brookie, beautifully tinged with bright orange which, in turn, complimented the milk white edging along its fins.
For some bizarre reason, after releasing the catch of the day, I began to realize what that minnow had actually cost me. If you figure $2.00 for gas, $3.14 for a cigar, $2.69 for a snack and $4.73 for the Woolly Buggers, I had approximately thirteen bucks invested in a two ounce trout. I was astounded. How could I possibly justify such an expenditure on one diminutive Salvelinus fontinalis? Well, the answer my friend was forthcoming and simple: it was, after all, a native.
John 14:6
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
�copyright 2001, Perry S. Fuller
