Skunked

When I use the word “skunked,” I am not referring to an incident of being sprayed by a skunk, although Donna and I endured an incident this past winter when her dog, Sage, was sprayed by a skunk in the middle of the night. Donna knew what to do, mixing a solution of Dawn dishwashing liquid with some other cleansers to get rid of the odor. It was not a pleasant night.

Normally when I refer to being skunked, it means that I have failed to tag a turkey during a season or have failed to catch a trout during an outing. This happens more frequently than I’d like with turkey hunting.

For instance, last fall my son, Bob, and our friend “Scout” tagged turkeys on the opening day. I proved to be a little slow on the trigger. I got close only one other time and ended the one-week season skunked.

I guess I would be bragging if I told you that I do not often get skunked when fly-fishing for trout. I shouldn’t get skunked: I’ve been fly-fishing for trout for 55 years and have developed a number of strategies to fool them throughout the season. When I was young, experienced trout fishermen such as Michael “Pike” DiBartolome suggested places and times that would help me to be successful. Ralph Haney showed me how to tie flies and recommended a set of flies that were helpful. I still use a number of these. I accumulated a fly-fishing library of several hundred books that helped me understand trout habits and develop tactics that would fool them in various types of streams while using a variety of flies. Most of all, I have spent thousands of hours astream matching wits with mostly wild trout. So, I shouldn’t be skunked while fishing.

However, one late-spring afternoon it happened. I had chosen to probe a favorite section of “Black Midnight Creek” that takes me about an hour-and-a-half to fish. I began the outing with a nymph that generally works there, though I was hoping to encounter a hatch of mayflies. When this nymph did not work, I switched to another and then to a streamer as I fished up the creek without getting a bite. I did not run into any hatching flies either. When I got close to my parked truck, I discovered a pile of discarded beer cans and filled my net with 15 of them. Maybe toting the cans to my home recycling bag allows me to discount this outing as one where I was skunked.