Making lemonade out of sour grapes.

Yesterday the stars aligned. Heavy overcast with an on and off again drizzle, olives on the water with fish eating them. Fishermen had targets all over the river. Todays weather forecast promised clouds with a chance of a shower and maybe some sun. Well, there were clouds this morning, no shower and just when I started to wade out in the river, bright sunshine in a cloudless sky with a wind strong enough that I had to pull my hat down to my ears.

Yesterday I had the river to myself, today, even further downstream, two drift boats, four pontoon boats and numerous kayakers went by (not a one bothered my fishing even a little bit). Shortly after my arrival there was a brief hatch of olives that I thought would surely get the fish going, saw two rises, neither of which I could get to and poof, the hatch was over. Fished from 3:30 until 7:30 and cast at two fish I saw rise. One ate and came unstuck, the other was apparently unimpressed with what I thought was a reasonably good cast of a fly that I thought he should eat (I told him so to).

The fishing - You know the bad part.  You also know by now that I don't stand around waiting for a rise. The fly was in the water most of the four hours that I fished. If there were a lot of fish where I was you'd never know it, but enough quality fish came up and ate my fly to make it a good day under the circumstances. The fish of the day was a hot 18 inch rainbow.

If your day to fish turns out to be bright, sunny and windy, do not despair, concentrate on the shady side of the river. Fish from the side of the stream that lets the wind blow the fly away from your body.  Keep your fly in the water. Trout don't have eyelids, they see everything and they are always looking to eat. It's perfectly ok to throw streamers and nymphs if you want to, but know that there are fish to be caught on top every day, all day long.

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