Western US Road Trip Summer/Fall 2016: Day 2, Tuesday September 20, 2016: Montauk State Park

We had no grandiose plans for this trip except to relax and enjoy a little fishing. Around 5:00 am this morning, I was awakened to the large “pop”. My first reaction was that it was just the ice machine dumping its load of ice. Then I remembered we don’t have an ice maker in the cabin. I listened intently for several seconds and, not hearing anything more, went back to sleep. The balcony on our cabin faces southeast so that the morning sun serves as our wake up call. Around 7:00 am I arose to start breakfast. We are having bacon and basted eggs. I started the coffee and opened the door to the refrigerator. There I discovered the source of the “pop” I heard at 5:00 am. One of T’s bottles of sparkling water had exploded. The interior of the refrigerator was littered with glass fragments and frozen sparkling water. Interestingly, nothing else seemed frozen. There was a case of soda sitting right next to the doomed bottle of water and it was fine. My theory is that the bottle of water was sitting just in front of where the cold air comes into the compartment. Anyway, it could have been worse…it could have been a bottle of Champagne.

I got the coffee and bacon going. T got up and showed me the proper technique for basting eggs. We finished breakfast and left for the Montauk Spring at 8:30 am. Fishing officially is between 7:30 am and 7:15 pm in September at the park. We did not know how crowded it would be. It wasn’t crowded at all.

We started on the segment of the current river just downstream of the Montauk spring. This is a fly fishing only section with fast moving cold water. The depth of the stream, for the most part, allows you to wade into it up to your waist. We found a good looking spot. There were a lot of fish in the water. You just wanted to reach in and grab them...but that's not fair or legal. We started fishing and spent the remainder of the morning re-learning the techniques of fly fishing. T lost two flies. I lost none but spent a good portion of my time repeatedly untangling my line. We saw quite a number of fish but they apparently were not hungry for what we had to offer. T said she got a few nibbles. Whenever I cast my lure in among the fish, they all just scattered. I got to test out my new waders. They did well. T when “au naturel”, not using waders but just shorts and her new shoes. She said the water was exhilarating.

By 11:30 am, the sun was bearing down on us and we were tired from wading through the fast moving water. We packed up and headed back to the cabin for a rest and lunch. T got to hold up the result of our first morning out.