The Seatrout Tree

[Traditionalist]

Stretching its large network of roots, like long gnarled and weathered fingers, into the stream at the side of the pool, the tree stood, seemingly unaffected by the floods, storms, and even one or two lightning strikes, which had simply split off some of its larger branches.
Nobody knew how old it was, but it had stood there a long time. Known as the "seatrout tree", by those who were aware of its secrets, although it was in fact an oak, it was a very difficult but usually rewarding place to fish.

If one managed to allow the fly to drop into the space beneath the tent of roots, a sheltered eddy with a clean gravel base, and then retrieved along the side of this eddy, it was very unusual not to take a fish. Many were lost, as they immediately bolted through one of the openings in the roots, but some were landed.

Even if one managed to extricate a fish from the roots, landing it was also quite difficult, especially larger fish, as the bank was steep, and the water deep and powerful, making it extremely difficult to hold even a played-out fish in the current, and many fish were lost here as well. Standard technique was to fish with fairly heavy tippet, and on hooking a fish, attempt to horse it straight upstream out of the roots. This technique was sometimes successful, more often not. Nevertheless, of all the spots on this stretch of river, this was the most promising.

After a while, most anglers who knew of it, simply referred to it as "the tree", and "shall we try the tree?", or "let?s meet at the tree", became fairly common phrases, absolutely meaningless to an outsider, but known to most of the skilled anglers who fished the stretch.
Remarkable also, was the fact that one might take a sea-trout here in broad daylight, presumably the darkness beneath the roots sufficed to quell their suspicions.

Most takes here were confident, not the usual tentative plucks. Dark flies of medium size, such as the Mallard and Claret, or Connemara Black in size 6 or 8 being proven patterns. On this particular occasion, I had agreed to meet a fellow angler at the tree, and we arrived almost simultaneously. He had not fished the tree before, but had heard quite a bit about it, and he was anxious to discover the best method of doing so.

Staying well upstream of the tree, I played out line until my fly was well past the tree, and then manipulating the line allowed it to be pulled into the eddy just before the roots. one or two mends were thrown in, to get the line out of the main current, and the fly allowed to drop back under the roots.

Having spent some time with scuba gear in this spot, I knew it pretty well, and this knowledge was of inestimable value in fishing the place. Allowing the leader to straighten, a little more line was fed in, and then yet another mend was thrown into the main line, causing the fly to swim up the eddy under the roots, somewhat faster than the current.

Without any warning whatever, the water beneath the roots seemed to explode, and a huge fish leapt straight up between the roots, my angling companion almost fell into the water in surprise. My own surprise was no less, as I discovered that the fish was firmly attached to my line, and heading back to sea at a considerable rate of knots. My taut fly-line was wrapped around at least two of the roots, and there was nothing I could do apart from hang on, listen to my reel screeching in protest, and hope for the best.

Moving slowly down towards the tree, with my rod tip beneath the water surface, and hanging by my left arm from a convenient branch, I started to thumb the reel, with my rod hand, hoping to slow the fish somewhat and in meantime find some way of poking my rod through the roots, and regain some sort of control, however minimal.

Completely careless of my precarious position, and apparently attempting to give me a heart attack, the fish leapt again about thirty yards downstream, coming down with a large and noisy splash. What a magnificent fish!  My companion was jumping up and down on the bank in excitement, in severe danger of falling in, and bawling all sorts of interesting ideas and advice, laced with curses, in my general direction.

Such advice may have been quite useful under other circumstances, but hanging as I was from a branch with one hand, my left foot slowly slipping off the bank, my rod tip down among the roots, and a large completely uncontrollable fish on the end of my line, I was not particularly enamoured of most of it. Ignoring his cursing, and also his quite astounding imitation of a ballet dancer on speed, I bawled back at him to get the " Blooming" ( or words to that effect), net, at which point in time, I realised with a sinking feeling, that the net was slung over my shoulder on a cord, and folded.

Ceasing his demented curse punctuated jig for the nonce, my partner approached, and attempted to deploy the net.

After a fairly short time, it became obvious that there was no way I was going to be able to get the cord from around my neck, this was rather difficult to communicate to my partner, as he was at this moment engaged in strangling me with it!

Gently murmuring something along the lines of "it might be better to cut the cord you know", ( I can not remember the exact phrase), before losing the power of speech altogether, my partner finally dragged his knife out, and cut the cord. Unfortunately, he had been supporting himself on the steep and slippery bank, by holding the net, which up to that point had been firmly attached around my neck. This support was no longer available as he cut the cord, and he slid feet first down into the water, with the net in one hand, and the knife in the other.

This sudden lack of strain on my neck also caused me to lurch forward, lose my hold on the branch, and start to topple irrevocably forward towards the water. My descent was less than graceful, and the phraseology employed, as I came gasping to the surface in the freezing cold water, does not bear repeating here.

Pressed against the roots by the current, up to my shoulders in the stream, I calmly and collectedly reviewed the situation.

My rod had taken on a curve for which it had never been designed, but at least my reel had stopped screeching. Having at least a hand free now, I reached down and pulled some backing from my reel, to release the pressure on my rod. All went slack, and certain of defeat, I grabbed one of the heavy roots, and hauled myself up into the tree.

Perched precariously directly above the roots now, I looked down into the water, in hopes of being able to find a way of extricating my line.  My companion had in the meantime struggled onto a gravel spit almost level with me, and further out in the stream. "Bloody hell", I said, ( demonstrating remarkable restraint I thought), " No idea how I am going to get this lot sorted out", peering down into the water swirling around the roots.

At this precise moment, the water immediately below me erupted, and a large object hit me in the face!

Two things occurred, I wet myself, and fell off the roots into the water again.

Laughing like a maniac, my companion helped me struggle up out of the fast water,  onto the same gravel spit where he was standing, a few seconds later. Resigned now to fate, albeit not a little resentful at the turn of events, I began reeling in my line. All my backing and most of the flyline came in, until only the last few yards of flyline, which were pointing down into the roots, stuck fast.

Handing the rod to my friend, I proceeded to haul the line hand over hand, expecting the leader to break, or something similar, when the line started moving upstream away from the tree!

"F"?$?%&% Hell, its still on!, its still on!" screamed my friend, and recommenced his demented jig, and snycopated cursing.

"Let go of the F?&%?&& line for God?s sake!" He bellowed, and somewhat dazed, I complied.

Most of the rest is fairly boring really, the fish jumped a couple of times, and headed for the roots a couple of times, but after a while my companion managed to subdue it, and I managed to net it rather riskily, as it swam slowly down past us in the fast water.

Magnificent it certainly was, a fresh run seatrout of not quite nine pounds. We administered the last rites, and decided that we had had enough fishing for the time being, and made our way back to our cars. Our soaked clothes were exchanged for "falling in kits", making us look even more disreputable, and we repaired to the local pub, which also happens to be the pub where our club usually meets.

A couple of the club members were at the bar, and the fish was duly admired, various ribald comments made on the state of our apparel, and drinks proffered and accepted.

"Mike showed you how to fish the tree then?" one of the older members asked my companion. "Obviously successfully as well".

"Well", said my friend, " All I can say is, if that?s what you have to do to catch a fish at the tree, it will be a while before I fish anywhere near the F$&&&$ thing again. It is a very nice fish though".

We wandered off home after awhile. On a number of occasions since, I have heard variations on this story from members, and even from people I did not know, most of them endowing me with the abilities of a circus acrobat, the skill of a perfect angler, and the luck of the devil.

Such an experience may never be repeated, the tree is now gone, it disappeared during the winter floods at the end of that season. I wonder how long it stood there, and how many epic battles or comic interludes it witnessed?

Might be a good idea to come back in another life as a "seatrout tree" ?

TL
MC

[johnsd]

Nice story Mike cheers John