Often enough in Maine, trout and salmon fishing in so many of our rivers means one of two possibilities, particularly in smaller flowing waters. Either fish have dropped from lakes, ponds or dead waters into tributaries or outlets -- or not.

When brookies, landlocks, browns or rainbows have moved from deepwater sanctuaries into rivers and streams, fishing action can rock.

When salmonids are still hanging in still water, an angler with the skills of an Ernest Schwiebert would have trouble catching river fish because their populations are scarce. In short, no fish ... no tugs.

This past Tuesday morning began chilled and sun-splashed without a cloud in the electric-blue sky -- way too cold for late May.

My oldest daughter, Heather, made the first cast into the sun-dappled pool and watched the submerged Prince nymph swing in a tight arc in the smooth current. A brook trout whacked the fly near the end of that presentation, but much to Heather's disappointment, she missed the strike. However, one cast-one strike looked promising.

Heather was using an 8-foot, 4-inch, 3-weight rod and casting the peacock-herl nymph quartering across and downstream without a belly in the line -- traditional fly fishing from a past century ago. It still works when trout are not rising and the fly rodder is just searching for hungry maws.

The first pool seemed dead after the missed rise, but at the bottom lip of the second pool, Heather had a very large salmonid hit the fly at the end of the swing, maybe a landlock, making a huge swirl. The knot came unraveled, though, so the hookup lasted but a second.

The fish's hard tug had loosened the hurriedly tied clinch knot, a tough lesson for someone who has spent the spring in graduate school, studying and not fishing. The angling gods should be more forgiving.

Just as a quick digression: Many people think clinch knots don't hold and tout more modern designs, but the clinch can hold up big time when tied properly.

Just how big time?

About a dozen years ago on the Medway River in Nova Scotia, I landed a 28-pound Atlantic salmon with this old fishing knot. Tied properly, this knot can land a fish far larger than most salmonids that anybody ever tangles with in Maine. Tied improperly, it comes apart in a blink, as Heather had discovered.

The angler must pull the knot smoothly, using a lubricant like water or saliva on the twists. Without the smooth pull, lubricant and another trick (that I'll mention in a moment), it has virtually no strength.

Normally, for Atlantic-salmon wet flies or streamers and bucktails, I use a turle knot, but this particular time on the Medway, a cold Nor'easter and approaching darkness influenced me to tie the simple clinch knot, which held like a champion during the one-third mile trek downriver through rapids, chasing the demented greyhound from the Lake Pool to the Greenfield bridge.

There, I brought the salmon to hand long enough for a fisheries biologist to weigh the brute on an official scales and get a scale sample, showing the fish had returned to the river for a third time to spawn.

Last Tuesday morning, I gave Heather a quick knot-tying lesson, complete with one of my theories about clinch knots:

The tier shouldn't pull on the tippet and tag end to tighten the knot, but rather, smoothly tug on the tippet and hook, pulling them in exactly opposite directions. The only reason the tier puts a hand on the knot at all during the tightening process is to keep the tag end from coming out of the loop next to the hook eye. This precaution results in a strong knot.

Vagaries in the current were putting a belly in the line on the second pool, so I took Heather's rod and with just one cast, showed her two tricks for keeping the line straight after the cast so the arc stayed as tight as a pendulum, swinging in the air at the bottom of a wire.

1. I showed her how "to mend" the fly line when the current caused a sag in the middle, a fly-fishing term that describes flipping the shallow C-shape of the line upstream to straighten it again.

2. Then, after that maneuver, I swung the tip along at the same speed with the fly so the line stayed tight without a downstream sag. This second tip often eliminates the need to mend.

While I was showing her the proper swing of the line, a brook trout hit the fly -- once again showing that a straight-line arc without sagging fools hungry or curious trout into hitting every time.

Last Tuesday, though, there were darned few fish in the river. It was flowing a little low so the heavy infusion of stocked brookies from earlier in the month had moved back upstream into the pond as had the wild browns and landlocks. It was destined to be one of those bad fishing days.

The previous May when Heather had graduated from college, she and I had fished the river earlier in the month, and we had slayed them -- a lifetime memory of landing one trout after another. Last year, our day had duplicated the one that I had experienced on this very river during the day of my college graduation.

Last year, her fast fishing struck me as symbolic because it had mimicked my same experience during one of life's education milestones -- the passing of the torch from one generation to the next.

This past week, though, the day proved disappointing because on Wednesday, she was starting her summer semester back in New York and the fishing gods hadn't smiled upon us -- a dismal fishing morning. She wouldn't get a chance to fish again for a few weeks.

I too remember how college had interfered with my fishing and hunting, but when college finally ends, a serious angler will have time to pursue the sport.

In the meantime, a slow day of fishing makes the next successful one just that much more precious, and that's what the sport is all about. One day you feel like Schwiebert and the next time like an incompetent dub.

As the old saying goes, that's why folks call it fishing and not catching. Last Tuesday, we were "fishing" all right, and it was tough on one young graduate student who had but one day to get on the water this month.

 

Ken Allen, of Belgrade Lakes, is a writer, editor and photographer.