Paddled a ways this AM, figuring I'd explore some beaches I'd never fished that sure looked promising, spied a lonely figure far off casting to a predator's rip. As I paddled closer I saw the Wizard land a nice cutt so figured I'd anchor out of casting range and hit the flow some 70 yards downtide...Asked his permission, got his assent, yet flailed there. The sort of micro-noobed effort that betrays unfamiliarity of time, tide and location. Too deep, wrong angles, a wind like a tickled dervish. The kind of flailing that betrays an initiate.
The stranger waves me over, suggests I take his spot, he was moving on, or so he said. So I drag the Yak up the beach and start talking, but even before the conversation gets going I realize this wizard is firing casts with a mint bamboo rod...
This thing - the rod, not Tom,was a light blond. A kind of dun that suggested fresh 'boo unsullied by lacquers and the crusty nicotinic yellowing I had erroneously assumed meant an ancient fragile tool of great preciousness and limited practicality. Stout, precisely dressed, minimal, like fresh sanded maple almost, and capable of punching a beach cast into oncoming wind, capable of handling pinks, coho, chum. This was no mere rod, this was a wand. I introduced myself to the wizard. His name was Tom, Tom Bowden, and he gave me some pointers, which I will keep to myself, and walked South into the tides and other bay waters, a place of sands, weeds and slow currents.
I knew I'd heard that name before...nagged me all day it did...
Anyways, third cast, fish on, sixth cast another, a few more strikes then the wind changed and the bite was gone. It's a legend indeed who walks from a fine spot where the spring bite is still on, to let someone else fish... Kudos Tom, I promise I will pay your kindness forward!
That's how I like meeting cool folks from this board, chance, happenstance, a little mystery to it all....
The stranger waves me over, suggests I take his spot, he was moving on, or so he said. So I drag the Yak up the beach and start talking, but even before the conversation gets going I realize this wizard is firing casts with a mint bamboo rod...
This thing - the rod, not Tom,was a light blond. A kind of dun that suggested fresh 'boo unsullied by lacquers and the crusty nicotinic yellowing I had erroneously assumed meant an ancient fragile tool of great preciousness and limited practicality. Stout, precisely dressed, minimal, like fresh sanded maple almost, and capable of punching a beach cast into oncoming wind, capable of handling pinks, coho, chum. This was no mere rod, this was a wand. I introduced myself to the wizard. His name was Tom, Tom Bowden, and he gave me some pointers, which I will keep to myself, and walked South into the tides and other bay waters, a place of sands, weeds and slow currents.
I knew I'd heard that name before...nagged me all day it did...
Anyways, third cast, fish on, sixth cast another, a few more strikes then the wind changed and the bite was gone. It's a legend indeed who walks from a fine spot where the spring bite is still on, to let someone else fish... Kudos Tom, I promise I will pay your kindness forward!
That's how I like meeting cool folks from this board, chance, happenstance, a little mystery to it all....