I used to love to fly fish for trout using dry flies. Brookies were the most fun, but Rainbows and Browns provided the biggest challenges. Never really caught a large one, biggest being about 16" Brown.
Story: When I was going for my MS in Wildlife Management my study was on the Penobscot River in Maine. The task was to develop an ecological data base of flora and fauna that would enable folks to track environmental changes to the river due to pollution/pollution abatement which was to contribute in helping bring back the Atlantic Salmon to the Penobscot River basin. My study partner and I were out in a brand new Old Town canoe "sampling" the fish species one day above an old damn that had deteriorated over the years from its original height to a nominal 3 foot drop. Being stupid college kids we decided that we could shoot the falls and continue down the river without having to portage the canoe around the white water area. I mean, what the hell, it looked navigable with just a little churning and a light mist rising above the drop off point which was sort of beckoning us to give it a shot. Although we were dumb college kids, we were not total idiots, and we donned our kapok life preservers and lined up in the current to negotiate the drop. Next thing I remember I was airborne, momentarily hovering above some nasty looking brownish white topped waves, there was no canoe, no study partner and, in what I am sure was a classic olympic class entry, I was underwater turning and churning around like I was inside a huge glass of iced tea being beaten with a large wooden spoon. Realizing that the spoon was the paddle, I grabbed it and used it to fight to the surface only to find myself 50 meters down stream adjacent to an upside down canoe and a sputtering lab partner. We shook the water out the canoe, hauled our dumb assess back in and paddled to shore praying that we had not done any real damage to the Wildlife Unit's new canoe. What we did not know was that there was some little old lady sitting on her back porch observing this fiasco. She had seen the canoe and "two idiots" disappear under the Stillwater Spillway and had called the State Cops for a rescue team. Still ignorant of that fact, we stashed the canoe in a safe location out of sight on the bank and made our way to the road to hitchhike back to the car. We did notice a couple of boats racing up the river to the Spillway where we just
exhibited our expertise in navigating white water rapids ,but really did not pay much attention to the activity. By the time we reached the road we were dry and we got a ride from one of the local lads. We got to our car, turned the radio on just in time to hear about a massive rescue attempt that was being launched to find two kids that had been sucked under, canoe and all, by the Stillwater Spillway that had claimed yet additional victims. Having one of those "Oh S..t" moments I got to a phone, called the cops, told them we had seen those two jerks drag their canoe out of the water and drive away. Didn't catch any fish, but did find a good deep hole below the Stillwater Spillway for future fishing endevours-this time in the Unit's Boston Whaler and approached from downstream.
