I Love Mayfly Hatches!

Mark departed early this morning for a family reunion celebrating his mom's ninetieth birthday, (if Mark shows you this, Happy 90ith Carol Hellen). 

Woke to a frost covered back yard with the thermometer on the back porch at 31 degrees. With bright sun the frost quickly disappeared and I was able to spend an hour raking up areas of dead grass from the grub invasion of last year and then planting grass seed where the grass was killed.

The frosty night dropped the water temps into the low forties, but by one this afternoon the sun had the water back up to a temperature that both paraleps and Hendricksons will hatch in. Morphed back into my wade fisherman persona and headed for an area in the middle section of the WB that I am comfortable wading at current levels. Walked down to the river at 1:30 expecting to sit streamside and wait for the hatch to begin. Wasn't there two minutes when a fish rose not 100 feet out from shore. On her third rise I was close enough to make a cast and the fish ate my little paralep.

I was fishing an area where almost all of the boats follow a route down one side of the river. As the hatch grew in intensity I fished the side of the river away from the boat route. Cast at six fish, every one of them ate my fly, (four the paralep, and two the Hendrickson). With no more risers on "my" side of the river, I crossed over to the drift boat side. With the water covered with bugs, it was easy to find feeding fish. Stood in one place for a half an hour throwing at a about a dozen rising fish. How'd I do? Got two refusals, flossed one, and landed one. Just maybe there's a lesson there.

If you are here this weekend there are several things you should know. First, the BK, BE, and the lower portion of the BR are into the doldrums, (the period between the Hendricksons and the March browns when there are seemingly neither fish nor bugs in the river). If your "spot" is in one of these river areas, go somewhere else or, bring along a good book and a bottle of your favorite libation 'cause there most probably won't be anything else to do there. The action will be on the two tailwaters where in the last three days I have seen more paraleps and Hendricksons than I've seen in the last two years.

Departing for home in the am. If you have any questions, I'll try to do a Q&A while I'm home, (don't want anyone posting a premature obit).

I see that I've written what might well be a record number of paragraphs. To save you from reading more reports, "Lotsa luck", and know before you go that "It's a great day to be on the river".