Keep you eye on the prize.


For a fly-fisherman there wasn't much to look forward to today. On the weekend the weatherman predicted two cold days (Monday and Tuesday) with a nice warmup today and another 80 plus degree day scheduled for Friday. As of last night, today's prediction had gone steadily down hill. The predicted high of 47 offered little hope of fly hatches and a second straight night with the lows around freezing has my two apricot trees (with all their blossoms exposed) shaking in their roots.

I used up a significant portion of my weekly gas allotment yesterday and was resigned to doing crosswords, sudoku's, and tying apple caddis today. At noon it seemed my plan was a good one, porch thermometer was stuck at forty-two with the water temps below 48 everywhere and falling. At three (Hendrickson hatching time) I called it a day. Sun was out but the temp was still below 45. 

Finished tying my dozen apple caddis (a few weren't too bad) and at 4:00 I checked the temp. It was up to 50 on the back porch. Looked at the USGS stream info and saw that the water temps were rising. At 4:30 I went fishing! Saw bugs on the water at the home pool (paraleps and a few Hendricksons) but no risers. Took a short drive (honest Jean, not more than a gallon of gas today), and there were bugs at both stops. No risers, however, until the third and last stop. 

The wind was blowing briskly and even with the binoc's I couldn't be sure if I saw rises or just the wind blowing the tops off the waves.  Put on the gear and waded in with a trip to the bench at stake. There were risers, not lots of them but enough to keep me busy for a short hour. No, I wasn't "the best angler in the world", the fish had seen flies with hooks in them (two out of five) but the only two refusals were to flies with a tail fiber neatly tucked under the bend in the hook. Two 18" browns (2018ers, I suspect) tied for fish of the day while three rainbows 13/15 inches helped fill the creel.

An unexpected treat, with the promise of better weather and bigger hatches to come  (just wish I had a winter coat and ear muffs to put on  the apricot trees. 

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