Dry Flies, Rivers, Trout & Tarpon.: Back to "Normal"

Jul 5, 2022

Back to "Normal"

Sometimes this little journal is good therapy. Maybe I got it all out last night. So I get to the creek at 8:30, wait a few minutes, and here comes this big beautiful male rainbow to the surface. Then again, and again. I cast, hook the fish, and its gone in 15 seconds. Oh shit, here we go again. But what followed was like the first day at Armstrong's, maybe better.

What was different? Well, it didn't rain here last night or this morning. Not a breath of wind until 10:30. A spinner fall from heaven, or actually, the dry bushes. A good PMD hatch starting around 10:00 to compliment the still-falling spinners. The best hatch I've seen here so far.

There were pods of fish up, with risers all around them. Literally everywhere. Pick your fish. So I'm changing my story, there's still just as many fish in the creek after the flood, and the lower in the run I got, the bigger they got. A second support belt around my waist and back helped, as did the double dose of Aleve.

Of course, I blew my three best picture fish. That first one I lost, one right at the net after seeing my backing and chasing him 100 feet down the bank, and a gorgeous male in my hand with the camera not turned on. I just can't win on getting one or two of those killer underwater photos of a big beautiful male rainbow. The water isn't clear enough anywhere else except Silver Creek, and its too cold when I come back to either in the fall. So its this trip, or next year.

But today is why I come here. Its why I have a week, not a day. I wish I could book a few more days consecutive. I ask, they say not a chance. I guess I'm lucky to have 7, and a bonus day upcoming at Nelson's.