Greetings —

The brook looked in fine shape Saturday and Sunday, May 2-3, running at about 40 cfs, a little under the median flow.

I saw nothing in the Gillespie-Botchford pool except a half-dozen suckers Saturday, which were gone Sunday. The nymph clinic stretch, across from Nakamoto’s, looks flatter to me — not as many big rocks in there.

I got as far as the Colony pool.

Encouraged by reports of goodish rainbows in the brook, I had high hopes for the weekend.

But the only fish I caught was in the public stretch, half way between Herdman Road and the USGS gauge pull-off.

This was a decent, healthy brown of about 14 inches, who took a beadhead Prince (size 14) as the bottom fly of a three-fly rig.

It was also the first serious fish I have caught with a new 10-foot, four weight rod I took a chance on. (Another $150 special.)

Driving over to Woodland from Pantherkill Sunday night, I spotted some nice-looking water in the public area just downstream from the Woodland Trout Fund water. I snapped a few photos while down in there.

Still didn’t see any trout, though. There was a sporadic Hendrickson-ish hatch going on, but no surface action. I didn’t eve see shapes darting away when I waded right in.

That doesn’t mean the fish aren’t there. It just means I can’t see them.

In the early part of the trout season, before the brush grows up, it’s possible to get to places that in a month will be protected by a dense jungle of thorny, wader-shredding, tick-harboring vegetation.

So the other day I made my way into the Blackberry River, starting just over the town line in Norfolk and working downstream.

The stream runs along a cornfield on one side, with woods and then cleared fields on the other. To fish it, bring a) a short rod  b) a box of soft-hackle wet flies and c) a willingness to stoop, bend, crawl, scootch and adopt otherwise undignified positions.

So here’s a run ending in a logjam. Standing on the left side looking downstream toward the hole, I swung a green soft-hackle wet in there, with a Stimulator as an indicator fly.

I had something take a swipe at the wet fly. Then I waited for what seemed like hours but was probably five minutes. Then I tried again, and to my surprise, hauled this brook trout out. Almost certainly a recently stocked fish, but why the state boys would put a brook trout in here I don’t know.

Here’s another look at the hole

It was a crummy sort of day — chilly, mostly cloudy. I figured by early afternoon the water temperature might get up to the point where some bugs might start moving around, so I went over to the Blackberry River in East Canaan.

There was nobody at the big pool off Lower Road downstream of the bridge — the one where the spin and bait guys congregate.

This is unusual for a weekend. So I suited up and rigged up a three fly system of: Hendrickson dry up top; Hendrickson beadhead nymph in the middle; giant heavy woven green Czech thing on point.

All this on an old Orvis 8 foot 6 weight graphite. You can tell it’s old because that’s the model name: “Graphite.”

A long leader and some nifty wrist work allowed me to fling these things in such a way to achieve maximum dredging on the giant green thing, without sinking the dry.

Nothing happened and nothing happened some more, until something large and energetic took the GGT.

He ran one way. He ran the other way. Figuring he would spit out the barbless hook before I got him in the net, I took exciting photos of splashes with one hand while hanging on the the rod with the other.

I also noted the complete dearth of kibitizing nimrods who always seem to be around when I fall in or have to take a leak.

Finally I got this hawg in the net and snapped these not so hot pix before getting him back in the current. The fish was tired but got off under his own steam.

I estimate this bad boy at 25 inches long and 4 inches wide in the middle. He pretty much took up my large net. For reference, the GGT brought this 14-15 brown to net 100 yards upstream — normally a half-decent fish, but it seemed like a minnow compared to Mongo.

I had high hopes for Tinto Brass’ Salon Kitty (1976). I had heard through the underground film grapevine (i.e. fellow sickos) that it rivaled Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS in the Naziploitation genre.

And it could have, too. The “Salon Kitty” was a Gestapo brothel; the Nazis got the idea to bug the place and listen to the pillow talk as a way to ferret out spies, potential deserters and dissenters, and the like.

But somebody got the idea they were making a serious film, albeit one with lots of nekkidity. It’s the same notion that sank Caligula.

So what you wind up with is two hours plus of sporadic weirdness, some of the most annoying Nazis in screen history and entirely too many cabaret numbers.

The big ol’ orgy scene near the beginning is noteworthy, if only for the sheer number of writhing young members of the Master Race.

And one musical number would have been okay to set the decadent tone. But four? (Or was it five? I don’t remember, I used the fast-forward.)

And Brass does not miss an opportunity to editorialize against the Nazis, which is not a particularly bold or unusual stance.

We’re talking massive orgy, filmed a la Stanley Kubrick with a rigidly symmetrical long shot to establish the thing. Pubic hair trimming. Dwarf sex. Amputee sex. Breasts galore (lost count after a dozen). Nazi in Ubermensch/super hero outfit. Toe sucking. Bread dildo. Sex with “Triumph of the Will” showing on the wall. Shouting Nazis. Mincing Nazis. Cape-wearing Nazis. Luftwaffe brains blown out in shower by vengeful hooker. True love. Interminable musical nightclub intervals, and somebody took the time to write the songs. Way too much plot getting in the way of the story.

A grudging two coils, with a fast-forward caveat.