When Will I Ever Learn - - -

 

With the rain scheduled to arrive at 10:00 this morning I got what little yard work I had to do out of the way early and when it did start to rain, just before eleven, I made a sandwich, sat out on the porch and listened to the rain on the porch roof. It rained hard at first but then settled down into a light all day soaker that lawns and gardens were in need of.

Gave the olives a chance to get started and at 2:30 drove up the PA side, no bugs at the usual stops along the way up Hancock.  Drove down to the Men's Club and saw but two waders and one pontoon boat in the water. Saw some rising fish by the sewage treatment plant with no one in the water. Suited up and waded in. To my amazement there was now a fisherman with a spinning rod standing waist deep in the water right where the fish had been rising. Out of the corner of my eye I caught movement, it was another fisherman who was charging down the middle of the  river to cut me off from more rising fish just upstream - he was successful. I left. 

Drove back downstream and finally found olives, small, medium, and large. I've found that you can judge how hard a place has been fished by what size bugs the fish are eating. On seldom fished water the fish will gladly eat a large olive or even an iso. One place I stopped today there were S, M, and L, olives on the water and the fish had no problem eating my L offering. At another spot my large olives got ignored, and the mediums refused. It was not until I tied on the 20's that have been hatching all summer that the trout would eat.

The fishing - Paragraph 3 above is my excuse. I landed all but one of the brown that I hooked, and lost all but two of the rainbows. Big hot rainbows on tiny hooks is a no win situation. They run, jump, spin and with their relatively delicate mouth structure the little hooks just rip out. Lost six of them. Fell one fish short of a win, but hooked a lot of fish., landed an18 inch brown and a very carefully measured 19.75 inch rainbow. Except for my brief foray into the "Sulfur Zone" it was a great day.

Started out, as usual, with the vest on the outside of the raincoat, switched after the SZ. The woodstove fire is going, fly boxes are drying on the kitchen table and the vest is hanging by the fire.

Duke - Look in the UEB from Buckhorn down, the tricos are warm water bugs and are not found in the upper WB.  

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