The Cottage Chronicles: Episode 15 - Lost & Found

Intro

Welcome back everybody. My name's Neil and you're watching the Cottage Chronicles. When we left off, I had just caught a drum that was the biggest freshwater fish that I've ever landed. It was beginning to feel like things were coming together. It was like I'd graduated from being a weekend warrior to a real bonafide angler. I was full of excitement for the season to come. And I really thought that the game was more about patience than one about wit.

When It Rains, It Pours

I had a chance to put that theory to the test as soon as I got home. For 13 weeks, it rained nonstop. The cloud cover lingered and lingered. It was the kind of weather that makes you want to stay home and watch guys in Florida catch snapper and snook on YouTube. But still, I went out to the river half soaked, just camera rolling, convinced that it would be worth it as soon as I caught an epic fish on camera.

Well, when the day finally came, a giant pickrol took my jerkbait. I got it to the boatside thrashing and splashing. And as soon as I went to lift it, the line snapped. My epic footage, my awesome new YouTube video, was now a story of loss rather than one of triumph

The Reel Dilemma

The season carried on this way. I fished through the rain until early summer. My reel started to succumb to all the silt and slime of the river. It was my lighter reel, the one that I normally use for finesse lures and for spinners, and it was beginning to grind. I couldn't make a full turn of the handle before it would stick, and it became jerkier and jerkier.

So, I did what any self-proclaimed tinkerer would do. I stripped it down on the kitchen table. I wiped everything clean, and I greased it and oiled it. I even swapped in new Carbontex drag washers. I'd seen enough YouTube videos to convince myself that I could do it, so I thought it was going to be a piece of cake.

The trouble began as soon as I opened the reel. The spring in the bail arm shot across the room. Then I opened the clutch. The bearings spilled across the counter like birthday sprinkles. When I finally assembled it, I couldn't turn the handle a full rotation without it jamming up. I took it apart again, tried a second time, but still no improvement. So, the third time I decided I'd replace the clutch, try brand new parts. Still, it jammed solid.

At this point, I had a decision to make. I could continue fussing with this reel or I could use the one that I had, my heavier reel. This meant changing techniques. It meant changing lures, but it would keep me on the water and it would keep me on fish. So, with my heavy reel spooled with braid, I started experimenting with new techniques. And that's when I remembered a tip from an old friend of mine.

The Tale of Mother Al

Mother Al and I hadn't been in touch in a few years. Actually, the last time I went to look him up, I found an obituary from a couple years earlier. I knew Al from my summer job back at the train station. Back then, I'd start every shift with a call across the station. Mother Al, Mother Al, tell me a tale, and he always did. He was a sturdy guy, average height, with an intentional 5:00 shadow and slight pattern baldness. He kept his uniform crisp and his sneakers sparkling in spite of the janitorial job that sometimes had him ankle deep.

His stories were wild. Half of them you couldn't believe. The other half I definitely could not share on this podcast, but he was the kind of guy that lived to make people laugh. He would keep a story going long after it should have ended. He would like to drop tips every once in a while, totally unsolicited and sometimes total nonsense. But now and then he'd leave me with a real gem. And one of them that stuck with me was his tip about using Senkos. He told me you could cast one anywhere in the river and you'd have a fish on your line before it hit the bottom.

At the time I brushed it off. That's Mother Al for you. A little bit Mother Goose, a little bit Anie the spider and an absolute legend. At least in his own mind. But now with the reel broken in pieces at my kitchen table with one remaining reel to use and no fish to show for it, his words came back to my mind. I had dozens of packs of Senkos in my shop. I'd never actually fished them, so I thought maybe now it was time to tie one on.

The parking lot at the lake was full and I couldn't go for bass there, so I decided to hit the river. Everyone was making up for lost time after the spring rains. So I slid quietly into the current, paddled upstream, and looked for the first emergent patch of grass where I saw bass rising. I threw a Senko, and it was as much a Hail Mary as an actual plan. As soon as it tipped out of sight, the line went tight. The bass began to run, and I set that hook hard. I thought about the whole time. For once, he'd been right. He told me the absolute truth. It was an honest tip.

Every time I found a grass bed, every time I found a shallow drop off, if there were bass, pickle, or pan fish around, that Senko would surely lure them out.

A Familiar Foe

By July, the weather had finally settled. My new reel had arrived. I'd spooled it up with braid and switched over the smaller one to fluorocarbon. On its maiden voyage, I tied on one of the jigs that I'd assembled last year. It's a weedless swim jig with a chartreuse head, a perch colored skirt, and a large orange trailer. I picked this combination specifically for fishing this area right along the edge of the pickerel weed.

First cast landed a bass right out of a TV show. It leapt through the air. It ran and it fought like a fish twice its size. Cast after cast revealed many equally eager small fish throughout the day. The fishing was so good, I convinced my dad to join me the next day to try to relive the magic. The river had other plans. We paddled and cast until our arms could not take it any longer. I'd landed a few small fish and dad had nothing to show for his efforts.

As we were at the launch, getting ready to load our gear back in the truck, a small piece of metal caught my eye. Buried halfway in the sand near the edge of the water. I saw a silver black tab that looked like it came off the top of an energy drink can. I sighed, thinking it was more litter. Another cleanup chore before I packed up. But when I picked it up, I froze. It was the lure. The haunted one. It wasn't the exact same lure, but the same pattern, the same color, even the same style of dressed hook.

I laughed this uneasy laugh halfway between exhaustion and disbelief. "Here we go again," I said, showing it to dad. He didn't know the story. Not really. He'd listened to me tell it in person or on the podcast, but he hadn't lived with the curse. He hadn't tried to return the lure to the depths. I slipped it into my tackle tray, waiting for an opportunity to throw it when the pickle or perch were biting.

The River Rambler

It was a quiet day the first time I saw him. The air was thick and I was fishing the densely shaded brush piles upstream from my favorite kayak launch. I was playing cat and mouse with a stubborn bluegill when I heard a faint splash behind me. A canoe, old and worn with a spiderweb of paint that was almost flaking off, rounded the bend. In it sat an older man, upright but comfortable with a couple of fishing rods on either side. He came from downstream and paddled with a clear destination in mind.

When he reached me, he slowed down, nodded once, and asked the question that every angler asks another on the river. "Any luck?" We traded small talk. He told me about his favorite smallmouth lures and few other favorite local spots. And after a few minutes, he kept paddling upstream, disappearing around the bend as quietly as he'd arrived. I headed back downstream to my truck, hooking a beautiful largemouth over a grass bed where the old man had appeared shortly before.

Weeks passed by before I saw him again. By then, the jig bite had slowed. The Senko had lost his magic, and I'd started catching trout again — three of them over two trips. The first was a thin hold over, the next two were fat, and their sides were vibrant and rosy. It didn't make sense, though. The state hadn't stocked yet. At least they hadn't updated the stocking map.

And then on an afternoon like any other, I heard the sound again. That slow familiar rhythm of paddle and hull. He came from the bend. The eggshell cracked paint caught the light and I recognized it immediately.

I told him about the trout. He nodded like he'd been expecting me to say that. Said they used to stock the area long ago back when the water wheels still turned and the biggest fish always held beneath it.

We talked for a while, longer than fisherman usually do—about trout, seasons gone by, about the water that used to be colder and clearer. It felt oddly familiar, like he thought I was somebody he used to know.

That night, I couldn't stop thinking about the water and about the fact that I'd now seen this man twice. Both times when I was alone and exhausted, he began to feel less like a person and more like a presence.

The Dam and the Water Wheel

But before I knew it, the weather began to cool and September was here. That's when Mike joined me. We went to the dam late one morning, both of us expecting a full skunk session. Last time we went out, he got skunked and I lost half of my rod. This time, he barely started fishing when he hooked into a big clump of grass.

I was casting idly, not really expecting anything. Then my spinner bait disappeared. I set the hook hard and told Mike to get ready. He grabbed the rod from my hands and guided the bass out of the dense grass. When it got to the wall, I netted a ball of muck that was equal parts fish and river bottom. I was beaming. I'd put Mike onto his first bass and he helped me land the biggest fish that I've caught in 20 years of fishing that spot. It felt like the curse had been lifted.

The next day, I went back out with my dad. Another dam, same spinner bait, same result. Another big bass, and then a pickrol that measured 23 and 1/2 inches—my personal best.

Return of the Rainbow Trout

Things got busy after this. I caught a couple more trout and a fall fish on one of my lunch break missions, but the river got quiet.

It was early October when I decided to take my fly rod out again. I decided to target trout or see if I could find where the fall fish were holding now that the weather had cooled off. There were no signs of life, so I moved on to the railroad trestle on the other side of town.

That's when it happened. As I was getting my spinning rod out of the back of my truck, I shut the door to feel a thump and a sharp rebound. When I looked down, I saw my old glass fly rod crushed and hanging halfway out the rear driver side door of my truck.

I just stood there stunned. Not angry at first, just numb. Then it hit me all at once. The absurdity, the timing, the sense that the river was just laughing at me.

Humble Pie

Honestly, I'm not sure I ever really did lift that curse. The lure's gone again, but there's no story to it. I don't know if I broke it off on a big perch or snagged it on a stump somewhere. I'm sure it's on the river bottom waiting for me to find it again next year or waiting to taunt the next unfortunate angler.

I think back to the drama at the beginning of the year and how confident I was. I was going to have an awesome YouTube channel. I was going to have the season of a lifetime. I had some awesome catches along the way and some really great misses. And from all of this, I've tried to take away a few lessons.

I think there's a story in everything. That's part of why I have my podcast. And the best I've come up with is this: Mother Al reminds me of old lessons I already knew, but ones that I forget from time to time. He always tried to teach me about laughing at yourself and laughing at the situation around you, not letting the world get the best of you and not taking yourself too seriously. You know, be part of the joke. Own your narrative.

The old man, he taught me that there are stories that are older than me. Ones that I'll never know, but ones that I can learn a little bit more about by engaging with other anglers around me and just observing, paying attention, being a more studious angler, and being a more patient student of the world.

And as for the lure, you know, I still haven't quite figured that one out. Maybe it's just a gift from the universe, something to help me keep telling my story. Whatever it is, I know I've got to keep going with the flow, making every cast, studying the results, and doing better the next time around. Sometimes the lessons from the river are only clear in hindsight.

Outtro

If you made it this far in the episode, thanks for sticking with me. If you're not already, follow along with the show on Spotify or on YouTube. I'd love it if you leave me a comment or review. Tell me what you liked about the show and what you'd like to see in a future episode. And if you want to support me and my business, check me out at newdawnntackleco.shop for all your freshwater fishing needs or follow along with the adventure on  Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky and Reddit.

'Til next time, tight lines and happy fishing.

Neil Colicchio
Owner, New Dawn Tackle Co.