Supermoon Trout and Natives

"I went out to the hazel wood, 

Because a fire was in my head 

And cut and peeled a hazel wand, 

And hooked a berry to a thread 

And when white moths were on the wing, 

And moth-like stars were flickered out, 

I dropped the berry in a stream 

And caught a little silver trout" 

- more Yeats, Song of the Wandering Aengus 

    I was standing on a grassy bank upstream of an old stone bridge, overlooking the soft and winding valley of Penn's Creek. A classic singing Pennsylvania freestone stream studded with boulders and conflicting currents whispering to the groves of armed honey locusts that guard both sides. They're tired of the creek, heard all she's had to say, and simply stand stone-faced and spiky to the world. 

    All of a sudden, a stiff breeze flies over the valley, parting the curtained clouds as a harbinger to the opening act. The supermoon shone on through, a rounded silver apple that lit up all that lay between mountains. The three hours past sundown melted away to an hour before, it was as bright as dusk. Instantly, a yip and a howl broke through, sending twisting whirlpool'ed ripples through the night air. The rest of the coyotes joined the fray. 

    I stepped down into the stream beneath the bridge and begin to let out fly-line. Hearing a trout rise directly across current, I made a cast with a deer-hair sculpin, slowly began to strip it in, before feeling a sudden stop, from the male brown trout that came off the opposite bank and gulped down my fly. 

    Bright nights aren't typically ideal for trout fishing, yet tonight proved an exception. I heard fish slurping food off the surface everywhere, casted to risers by sound and silhouette. I picked off two more trout as well as a pair of large native fallfish. 

    

    Night-fishing for trout has been something that has made me a much better angler, improved my fly-casting out of pure desperation to not throw streamers into trees, allowed me to look at trout streams in a way not many anglers get to know.

     In this day and age, too many people take in information simply from information. The connection between information and experience has been severed. Fishing and other outdoor pursuits has grounded me, allowed me to learn from experience, fail, make mistakes, triumph and always come away knowing more. Some days you catch, all days you learn.