The First Miss of 2012

Each of the last two years, Mother Nature has been generous enough to provide wonderful weather to serve as the backdrop for New Year's Day fishing.  2010's outing featured multi-tasking via spinning tackle & Tenkara USA rod on some brookies on Stony Creek, and in 2011, the Fountainhead Caddis found itself catching some Valley Creek browns.

2012 Licence...check!

Surprisingly, the weather was even nicer for New Year's Day 2012; a mild 55 degrees, sunny blue skies, puffy white clouds, absolutely gorgeous...

Picture perfect

Being a little fatigued from a 16 hour drive from Orlando, Florida back to Pennsylvania the entire day before, I wasn't really in the mood to spring out of bed and hit the water right away.  Instead, I kind of lounged around the house a while, hung out with Lilly, and did much of nothing most of the morning.  However before I knew it, it was 2:30 in the afternoon and...well...it gets dark around here early these days!

Tossing on a hoodie and darting out the door, I hustled down to Valley Creek with Sakura Kongo in hand, determined to get 2012 off on a good note.  Wadered up and in the water by 3:00 PM, I had my my first fish, a really colorful brown trout, hooked by about 3:20 PM.  Unfortunately, said fish also decided to release itself about 3 feet from my wading boots as I reached for my net.  Didn't get it to hand, so I guess it didn't count.

What happened in the next 15 minutes, well...I think a higher power was trying to tell me something.  

C'mon rain, are you kidding me?

As soon as that fish kicked the hook, those puffy white clouds turned grey, as did the sky around them.  Then the rain decided to start. The rain wasn't falling that hard and there was no lightning, but it reminded me of Caddyshack.  I tried to fish through it for a bit, but honestly, wearing just a hoody, I wasn't dressed for the weather and without the benefit of the sun any longer, the temperature started to drop quickly.  And let's be honest, I'm not badass like Kent Klewein.  

The goal being to catch a fish on New Year's and not pneumonia, I decided to pack it in and head back to the car.  By then, it was almost 4:00 PM and I spotted the Park Ranger doing his slow cruise of the nearby parking lot in his car, a not-so-subtle suggestion that people should be leaving.

So New Year's 2012...one fish hooked but not landed...and an upper body drenching.  But don't mistake that for complaining.  I'll take 45 minutes of fishing any day of the week.  Oh, and I finally got to use my boot bag.  And yes, they did fit inside.  More to come on that...

Had to remove the puppies though....