Thank God for the Mitchell. We drive right past it in the spring and summer, noses held high, headed for the High Country, for the wild fish of the Blue Ridge and the gone-wild holdover Browns in the Watauga. But the truth is its the absolute closest thing to backyard trout water we have here, about an hour and a half from the house, so close to the interstate you have to take five minutes after you get there just to remind yourself that rush you hear is not the rumble of long haul truckers headed south from West Virgina, but of water.
It was tough fishing, but who cares? They were there. Mostly they were ghosts, hanging in the shadows of overhung banks, in muskrat holes and tangles of roots, spooked by the onslaught of cabin fever. The rules say a day like this calls for midges and no. 18 copper johns, but somehow I couldn't do that. And he agreed with me, one huge, fat rainbow who couldn't resist the no. 8 black bead-head flash-a-bugger that landed splat right one top of him.
Batteries, recharged.
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