By the end of April, I would be the toast of the rivers, from the West Branch if the Farmington to the Winnetuxet. Before I could fully visualize myself standing amidst an admiring throng, a full stringer of trout sagging to the ground, I lost my lure on a small twig across the stream. It sure doesn't take much of a tug to snap two pound test. Only slightly discouraged, I went back to the truck, where I had a beat-up Blue Fox spinner on the dashboard. Now that I more fully understood the immense capabilities of the professional ultralight gear that I had bought at the Expo, I tied the Blue Fox on, and crossed the street in the direction from which the two fly-fishermen had come.
People say the stupidest things in order to avoid conversation.
The lovers continued on without incident and, as the air temperature climbed into the mid-forties, I found a somewhat quiet pool in a bend of the swift flowing river into which to cast my lure. One the third cast, the lure found a low shrub on the opposite bank, and was irretrievably lost. Left now only with those damned salmon eggs, and some number 10 hooks that I had bought at Gazo's Bait Shop just the day before, I decided to settle in for some serious early season stream fishing. I had read in a magazine that certain baits could be used to entice early season trout from their torpor if presented in just the right way. That was about all I could remember of the article.