SPALT! On a hot August afternoon the sound of a wind-blown grass hopper smacking the water along a shaded undercut riverbank is a dinner bell to trout waiting in ambush. The hopper kicks and twitches as it struggles to make its way back to the closest firm thing it can cling to. If it makes it.
Count down!
What is your favorite drift? Where does your head go when your mind checks-out and takes a road trip?
Maybe watching a strike indicator drift perfectly into a nervous seam along a boulder strewn back eddy? Counting down as the unseen fish below yanks it down. Seeing an indicator dart upstream is exciting, not knowing what’s down there and about to take you and your rig for a ride.
Hammer time!
Or chugging a big bass popper right past a protruding tip along a warm water reed line? Big shiny bubbles twinkling behind it as it gulps along. Waiting for the crashing take from a big bucket mouth bruiser. The bull dog intensity of a big bass crushing a top water fly sets up for a heavy-lifting battle royal.
Maybe your dreams take you dragging a big streamer on a sink tip down over the edge of a choppy shelf? A quick nip can turn heavy, or a swirling rush in the opposite direction can tear the line from your hand and burn the fly line as it shoots right through your stripping fingers. It’s like pulling a mouse on a string through a room full of cats. Anything can happen.
Step and swing...
Swinging your favorite steelhead pattern right into the sweet spot of your favorite run? Perfecting your two handed snap-t cast and dropping the fly right above the guts of the best run on your favorite river. The steady tug of the fly swimming in the current is pre-curser for the heavy slam you are anticipating. Your fingers just begging for the small loop of line they’re holding to get yanked away and make the drag on your trusty reel really work and sing.
Or how about gripping the salt and sand coated cork of a 10wt and stripping franticly through mangroves? Maybe and adrenaline fueled flurry of casts to deliver the needed cast to get your fly in front of tailing permit or group of bonefish.
Warm waves of salt and water.
Whatever your idea of the perfect drift is, day dreaming about it is time well wasted. Gets folks like us through the work week and into the weekend. Maybe closer to your next trip on the books, as you watch the clock crawl closer to the end of another work day. One more X on the calendar, and one day closer to the block of time circled in red… when your hand is holding cork and not that mouse and key board.
