A three shirt, two bear kinda day.

With the temp struggling to hit 60 mid afternoon, I threw a third shirt in the car.  Put it on when the sun went behind the hills and was glad I did.  The car's thermometer reported the temp at 53 when I called it a day. Weather wise today was a big upgrade from yesterday.  There was very  little wind which made casting a pleasure.  Another big plus was the water was free of all the wind blown leaves and seed pods that a dry fly is magnetically attracted to.  There was enough  warmth from the sun to get bugs hatching and spinners flying. In short, it was fun to be on the water.

The fishing?  Funny thing, I saw far more bugs and rising fish yesterday than today.  The big difference today was that the fish were looking up and were far more willing to eat a fly with a hook in it.  Started out on the BR.  Never saw a bug hatch.  One fish rose but paid my fly no mind.  What I did see, however were countless shad fingerlings many of which tried to eat my fly.  They are migrating out to sea and provide a hearty meal  for the trout on their journey. Makes getting a trout to eat a  dry fly a lot more difficult.

Left the big river and fished the upper reaches of the BEB.  Saw no shad fry, a mix of bugs and a very few risers.  Spent most of my time blind casting and had lots of fish come to the fly.  The takers and refusers were about equally divided and I ended up catching a mix of two and three year old fish.  Not a spectacular day but a very solid and satisfying one..

Anyone who spends as much time as I do on the river has bear encounters.  Last year there was a  bear by my porch dismantling the bird feeder, I almost hit one in downtown Hancock and one ran down Lordville Road in front of me.  Until last night, I'd only seen one bear this year.  Yesterday just before dark I heard a splashing noise upstream from me, it was a bear wading across the stream.  Tonight I was fishing down a steep bank from route 30 when I heard something coming down the bank crashing through the knot weed.   When I saw that it was a bear I hollered and clapped my hands but he was making so much noise in the dead knotweed that he didn't hear me until he was about 50 feet away.  When he finally heard me he stopped, did a u turn and ran up the bank, across route 30 and up the hill on the other side.

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