Difficult to wake up for the fourth day
After three days of crawling in the river in search of marmorata trout, we start to get tired, but we don't lose our objective, to catch at least one trout each! The first shots of the morning and evening having smiled in Ghjuvà (see previous article here) it is now time for Stella and me to touch our fish too. The alarm clock rings in this fourth day of fishing, and we have slightly more difficulty to get up, the previous days having been exhausting. Putting on the wet shoes of the day before is not the best way to start the day with a strong mind, and we get over this inconvenience.
We decide to change the course, and to do one with a rather changing river profile, i.e. big and calm holes interspersed with very small and fast currents.
In spite of the difficulty of waking up, we arrive at the water's edge at the first light of the day, and start fishing. After only a few casts in a huge basin, Ghjuvà takes a big hit, still with the Skeleton, but nothing will happen at the moment of the strike... So he calls Stella to tell her to come and insist with him on the area, hoping that she can get a hit and fill in her turn her objective.
The long awaited touch of the marmorata trout!
After several minutes of insisting on the same area, Stella takes a huge hit and announces "Boys!!! Fish!!!".
Ghjuvà hastens then to go back up her lure and to put down her rod, while I arrive running with the landing net. We try to guide her orally on the directions to take with the rod, the brake is well adjusted, the fish rushes and we have difficulty to estimate its size in the half-light. The time seems interminable and the realization so close... The surface explodes a first time. It is a nice fish ! I enter then in the water with the landing net while Stella moves back slightly to make her trout come towards me, a last rush on a few tens of centimeters will prevent me from taking it out, then after having recovered a little wire while keeping her calm, she finishes by stranding this superb marmorata in the net.
A real explosion of joy invades us, with shouts and smiles up to our ears, making us forget the fatigue and the difficulty of this fishing!
This marmorata trout is absolutely sublime, generous proportions, a strong head, incredible marbling! A photo and a release which will have almost made shed a tear and especially a concretization which proves that it is never necessary to give up anything!
Hanging, hanging, hanging... Hanged!
After recovering from our emotions, I decide to continue up the river while fishing, when a small calm behind a rock catches my eye. Bordered by two currents, it seems to be a perfect spot for a trout. Without hesitation, I throw my skeleton in the current as far as possible to not make noise, and let it enter the small calm zone, while maintaining my rod high to make it swim during its drift. The first pass gave nothing, just like the second and the third, but I keep on insisting, the inspiration for this spot being inexplicable.
The punishment will be waited, but will eventually arrive, after five or six passages, I take a huge discharge in the rod, and at the time of the strike the lure comes out completely of the water and I see only the reflection of the fish ... Missed! Ghjuvà joins me at this moment and I tell him that I just missed a trout, without knowing if it was a marmorata or not. He then asks me where, and I show him by doing exactly the same cast. Once the lure arrived in the area of the first hit, it is a new discharge in the rod, I strike, and nothing happens, the fish is still missed ... Starting to get a little nervous, I try to stay focused and repeat my operation once again. Boom! Again a huge hit at the same place, once again missed, under the eyes of Ghjuvà who looks at me and thinks like me: "it was not a bow, it was well brown and seemed marbled!
The following cast, always very precise to pass exactly at the place of the touch, will result once again in a very powerful touch, except that this time, at the moment of the strike, the rod bends and the surface explodes! The fish is hooked!
A powerful fight, and a landing net that will be remembered!
No need to announce fish, Ghjuvà saw everything. The trout starts to run slightly down the river, I keep the rod high while following it, trying not to slide in the rocks. She finishes her race in a rather calm flat, and I then ask Ghjuvà to take the landing net which is hung in my back. "She is not there" he says to me a little panicked. I turn my head over my shoulders and I don't see the net handle, it must have remained on the ground at the edge of the water when we fished out Stella's fish a few minutes before. We try to call her by shouting, but the noise of the river completely prevents her from hearing us!
Ghjuvà announces me then that he is going to catch the trout, and I see him taking off his backpack, and emptying all the contents of this one on the ground in the rocks... He then approaches me, puts himself in the water with his bag wide open in order to fill it, and moves towards the trout.
"It's good, make her come inside" he says to me! I am then divided between the desire to explode with laughter, and the fear to lose this fish awaited since several days! I move back then by directing the trout with my rod towards our net of fortune, and strand it inside. Ghjuvà then lifts the bag and puts it in the water on the shallow edge. The nerves give way and we are taken of a huge laugh while thinking of this surrealist scene which we have just lived!
This trout, in addition to being desired and having an incredible story to tell when it leaves the water, is absolutely sublime with marbling turning to brown in the middle of a golden coat. Another fish with generous proportions and an aggressive head!
Luckily this one was perfectly poked in the top of the mouth and didn't manage to come off.
We immortalized once again this catch by some pictures and let this beauty regain its element under the eyes of Stella who just joined us. For the little anecdote, the landing net was never found, which remains a mystery at the moment...
That's it, the objective is reached, everyone has taken at least one marmorata trout during this stay, to fish much more serenely from now on!
