And the thunder rolled - - -

With the yard still wet from last nights rain I was unable to cross the yardwork items off my to-do list. Copied some flies that appeared on my screens last night and at about 1:30, loaded up the trash and headed for the transfer station. Figured as long as I was on the road I might as well see if anything was going on. It was.

First bridge I walked out on had sulfurs flying all around it with fish rising as far as I could see. It's Friday before the long Fourth of July weekend and at 2:00 pm people were already here, lots of them.  Two couples were gearing up and one fisherman was walking down the shore.  The two couples never got far from the bridge and the fisherman walked way downstream leaving me lots of room (and fish).  The ONLY complaint I had was that the sun kept coming out. There were fish (more than you can imagine), that were eating sulfurs (on top) and there were lots of sulfurs. When the clouds ruled there were fish up everywhere, when the sun was king the fish bowed and stopped eating. The hatch lasted until four and then everything just shut down.

Drove around looking for more  rising fish but saw only fishermen. Finally found an unoccupied piece of water and waded in. In two hours I saw: two men on the bank who gave me a thumbs up when I caught a couple fish blind casting and two guys who waded upstream in the middle of the river right into the water I was fishing.  They were done fishing and never gave a thought to anything but their loud conversation and taking the shortest route back to their car.  There is no gilding the lily, there are just as many rude waders as there are driftboaters.

At 6:00 I was back in the car looking for a place to fish.  Took a while to sink in that it was (a) Friday and (b) Fourth of July weekend. Fishermen and pontoon boats everywhere.  Contemplated calling it quits and heading back to the LVE but stayed on 17 and drove up to Upper East Branch. Arrived about 7:00 and had no trouble finding an empty pool.  From seven until about 8:30 the only thing I had to do was count the seconds between lightning flashes and thunder. There were neither bugs nor risers. With a marked increase in both the lightning and thunder (found out on the way home that the increase was fireworks at East Branch), I was ready to reel it in when a couple fish started to rise. There were 0 bugs hatching and only a few spinners on the water. Put on a spinner and hooked a beautiful 18 inch rainbow that was no doubt using the UEB as a thermal refuge. With the fish landed and lightning flashing in the sky I washed off my net and headed for the car.

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