If you want a test against the best.

I've always felt that if you get fish eating duns off the surface, you can't ask for anything more. Well over on the UE late this afternoon there were olives and there were rising fish (lots of 'em - good ones too). The roofs of their mouths were so far out of the water you could have checked for cavities. They were happy, relaxed and feeding steadily. I slowly worked my way into casting range without alarming them and made my first cast. It floated down to a nice fish that rose, opened his mouth and when he started down I hooked - nothing. The half dozen fish rising around him all stopped feeding. My next cast was to a fish a little downstream. He ate the fly and tore all around the pool. When I landed him there wasn't a rising fish to be seen.

The fish settled down and began cautiously feeding again (some not more than twenty feet away). In the next two hours I cast only at rising fish. Changed flies many times and got a total of two more refusals and one take by a fish that broke me off.

If you're up for a real challenge, wander over to the Upper East and give it a try. You'll have your pick of the pools (saw but one other angler). There were 0 cars at Long Flat and 0 cars at power line).

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