I've Learned My Lesson, Now All I Have To Do Is Remember It.

 

Today was the longest day of the year, tomorrow will be one second shorter. Strangely I only fished two hours today and the last half hour was in the dark. Love long days and am always bummed when we take the first step towards the dark days of winter. On the other hand I find joy on December 21st knowing that the days will be getting longer.

A frontal system pushed through today with north winds in the 15-20 mph range and it wasn't hard at all to find other things to do. Did some pruning on a peach tree, cut off low hanging branches on the rhododendron out front, vacuumed the rugs and at 2:30 took a drive. Explored parts of the river system I haven't visited in a year or more, took a couple walks, and by about five-thirty I was ready to fish. Sadly the wind was still blowing and I couldn't find a fish rising anywhere. There were fishermen out on all the streams but for Friday afternoon I would have rated the pressure as light.

At seven I was in my waders on the bank of the EB watching the water go by with nary a riser to be seen. Waded in and watched what was on the water, a crippled olive, two  crippled caddis caddis and lots and lots of those copper colored spinners about half the size of a trico that the trout seem to ignore. By seven-thirty there were a few fish rising, when one rose within casting distance I offered him an olive which he came up slowly and ate. It was a big brown that jumped twice and came unstuck. Fifteen minutes later another big brown ate a little rusty spinner and broke the knot between the five and six X tippet. The rising increased as did the ignores and refusals. Finally hooked a third fish which was a 15/16 inch rainbow, one jump and gone. A couple casts later a rainbow of the same size ate and stayed on all the way into the net. There are now lots of fish rising and they are making it clear with every cast that they don't like what I'm serving. Finally in the dark a big rainbow ate a sulfur, ran 50 feet into the backing and came unstuck. Left the sulfur on and got several  more refusals. 

It wasn't until I turned my flashlight on to walk back to shore that I saw that the water covered with little Dorothea spinners. Had the same thing happen three weeks ago on the WB with an invaria spinner fall. Lesson to be learned - check the water with your flashlight when fish are feeding in the dark and won't eat your fly.

It was still an exciting two hours of fishing. A bit frustrating maybe, but not a single shout of all fishermen's favorite word "excrement " was to be heard. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fishing A Cold Blow From Out Of The North.

  Jean came down and we spent the weekend watching wildlife in the backyard, driving around the area and enjoying two "nights out", one with David and Maryann, (the apprentice Troutfitter Inn cleaning lady). A shout out of thanks to her for spending four hours on the road to have dinner with us. Not sure the company or the meal was worth the drive. We drove up to Stilesville to witness the hordes of anglers, and then along the reservoir all the way up to Walton, where we usually stop and go in some of the shops. It was threatening to rain so we elected to keep going. It was raining on top of the mountains but we took route 206?? to Downsville anyway. We hit the rain part way up the mountain and then drove down the other side to Downsville in a torrential down pour. Came out of the rain at Downsville and drove down route 30 with the intention of checking  out the trout in some of the BK's thermal refuges, saw the muddy water at "Jaws" and drove back to the Lordvi...
Read more

Don't let that that rain come down.

 My South Holston river friend, (one of only two people who will fish with me), (the other is currently on injured reserve), is up for a visit (he brought his boat) and today we floated. There might have been some question about where we chose to float (no one else launched where we did), but we enjoyed the fact that we never saw another fisherman, let alone another boat, on the river all day. The weatherman might well have gilded the lily a bit when he predicted a chance of showers and a high temp of sixty degrees. It rained all day, and the temperature peaked at fifty three degrees. When I read the forecast for the rest of Mark's stay (rain for the next four days) I was thankful that we got in the day that we did today.  How was our day? We sucked it up, paid an extra $5.00 to launch (didn't have the proper change), parked in the wrong place (got a note from the owner where we put in), never made it to the predetermined takeout place, and had a delightful day counting bugs (...
Read more

The closure.

 Picked one of the most beautiful November days imaginable to drive down to Lordville and shut down the estate. Bright sun, early morning fog, with flocks of geese on their way out to cut cornfields to feed. Temps varied from 45 to 35 depending on the fog density. The trees are bare, save for a few oaks  and larch with color but the hills are basically gray.  I've been busy in Lafayette. Spend an hour or two each morning and evening up in a tree hoping for a buck to come by. So far the only buck I've seen in real life has been what is now a unicorn. A week ago when he walked around not 20 yards in front of me he sported two slightly curved six inch spikes. Last night when he walked right under my other stand he was missing one of his horns.  In addition to the hunting we had loggers come and fell almost 100 dead and dying ash trees that had fallen victim to the Emerald ash borer. While they were at it they also took down a dying maple that leaned over the house and a...
Read more