The water's droppin', the bugs are poppin' and the fish are nobody's fool.

It was an eventful day. Woke up a 5:30 only to find that I changed bird feeders too soon. Start the year with an old beat up wooden one that the bears can take down and empty without doing damage to the feeder. When the squirrels start eating all the seed (and no bears have come) I switch to a squirrel proof feeder given to me by a departed friend. The feeder was expensive and comes with a lifetime guarantee on parts. I've replaced most all of the parts with no problem after previous bear encounters but this time it looks like it got run over by an 18 wheeler.

Spent about 45 minutes at war with the peach tree stump. May have to impose sanctions - its still firmly entrenched.

The fishing: I have a long term contract with the Troutfitter, but apparently somewhere in the fine print is a clause that I failed to read. Basically it says: If I fail to catch a fish for three consecutive days, Troutfitter can terminate the contract with no "golden parachute. This morning there were even veiled threats from Dave and Rick: "Over the hill, no pictures of monster browns like DRC, several guides have said they would write the blog for free and finally, zero for Monday and Tuesday.

I was shaken. With a bird feeder to replace and a peach tree stump still firmly in the ground, I had to produce. Went further east than I probably needed to, got into a mix of hatchery and wild trout feeding on caddis and for an hour and a half, had fun. With the threat of contract termination no longer an issue, I opted for some excitement. It turned out not to be hard to find. Spotted rising fish with my binocs from the road and on my first cast (after putting down two fish with my wading wake), I was into a nice 18 inch brown. The water was covered with bugs (the little Hendricksons that come at the end of the hatch, emerging caddis, Hendrickson spinners and caddis spinners). Because I hadn't seen a Hendrickson this week and because I had seen March Browns, I (today) switched out the Hendrickson box for the March brown box in my vest. Didn't matter, the fish both ate (and refused) everything I threw.

The "fish of the day" came on a "blind cast" late, when the fish had basically quit feeding. The fish was in the slow water behind a big boulder and I'm not sure who was more surprised, me or the 19 incher that ate the fly.

It's good to see rising fish again.

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