The Dog Days

It's days like this, with the temp pushing ninety and a bright sun
burning down, that you gotta love tailwaters. Five hundred cfs of
forty one degree water pouring out of Cannonsville, cooling off wade
fishermen, stimulating the bug hatch and sending the trout into a day
long feeding frenzy.

What?  Not where you were? Well, not where I was that's for sure. It
being Friday afternoon I elected to fish downstream to avoid the
crowds. For starters ten boats went past me. Then little  pool I was
saving for the late evening feeding frenzy was filled first by one,
then three anglers (who came in three cars all from different states).

I was boxed in, had no risers AND couldn't even raise a fish blind
casting. When I am fishing, I never sit down. Today I sat down. I
watched an osprey defend its turf when each of the ten boats went by.
A little green heron flew off the grass island I was sitting on and
kept scolding me from an unseen branch on shore.

When the sun went behind the hills the olives started to hatch.  The
trout took their sweet time, coming to the table half an hour later
and being very fussy about what they ate when they did. It was at
least eight thirty when I hooked and landed a matched pair of sixteen
inch browns who shared the "fish of the day" award.

Hope you fished farther up stream, had better bugs and dumber fish.