Humbled

So it starts out perfect.  Cloudy, 40's, no wind.  We're set, right?  Over the ladders we go.  Not so fast.  Hatch didn't start until around 1:00, and then it was all those tiny little mother fuckers.  The bug formerly known as Pseudo. I was on some picky lower pods, and was taken to school a bit.  I did get eats, but it was just one of those days of misses, lost fish, lost flies in fish, and poor execution.  Got my ass kinda handed to me.

The first fly I'd cast into a pod or to a new fish would often get eaten.  Then the rest wouldn't take it, so I'd change and get another eat.  Then I'd fish that fly for a ton of drifts with no love, change, and get eaten again.  Each fly would only work for a fish or two, I never did figure out what the trigger was, if there was one.  Hooked a decent number of fish with lots of effort and fly changes.  6x gets a better drift with dainty flies than 5x.  These fish have enough time to get rid of a fly when you can't put much pressure on them.  The break 6x when they go into the weeds.  Oh ya, still a ton of weeds both floating and anchored.  I wonder if the weeds all die by, like, the end of February?  Probably not, its a tailwater. 

The flies that got the most eats from the tougher fish on the slower slicks were one material, sparse, and small.  Throw-away looking shit.  The regular 20's (Adams, parachute emergers, etc) only got ate in faster water, late in the hatch.  I did some pre-hatch fishing, but I still can't get that figured out.  I don't think they eat much before the hatch, but how would I know?

What the hell is that shiny thing in my lip?

I tried . . . 

Old floater from muskrat and dun hackle.  

Hatch was decent, but no bigger baetis.

Hackle on a hook.  They kind of liked it a few times!

The ole one CDC feather on a hook.  Why do they eat this, its all hook!

Some kind of little #22 mosquito

This was good late with multiple hook-ups

Worked a little in the faster water.