Ice Boxes, Windmills And Herter's, "Tenacious For Quality".

It's 10:00 pm on the dot, and with a PM on the table I will attempt to relate the day's happenings without once again making them disappear. Brian, you were supposed to smile, my wife says, "Not everyone gets your sense of humor", you did. I'm always open to learning new things like getting the ice cubes from the refrigerator instead of the ice box.

Hackelhouse asked if I measured the fish willy nilly, (or was it by gosh and by golly)? HH for the past twenty years it's been done by a laser fish measuring tool I got during the Herter's going out of business sale, (for selling illegally imported jungle cock feathers). Actually, unlike some guides who cut the first two or three inches off  their tape measure, I am very careful with my measurements. When my rod was refurbished by Winston I asked them to turn the butt section into a ruler by putting little white lines on the rod from 10 inches up to 24, which to my surprise, they did. After taking the hook out, I hold the fish up to the rod, tail at the butt end and record where the nose is. On fish under 17 inches I round off to the nearest inch. If a fish wants to be recorded at 17 inches or more, however, they have to actually get to the next line, no rounding up.

If a fish is of a size where I want to know exactly how long it is, (last night's fish for example), I take it to shore and lay it on my net. The net was custom made by Tom Stauffer, a friend of 50 years. The bow of the net measures 16 inches and there a ruler inlaid in the handel which measures up to 22 inches. Last night's fish actually measured 22.25 inches.

Today - The sun actually shined. It didn't rain, at least where I was. The rivers dropped. And the Cornuta's once again failed to show. Left the house this morning at 9:45 and returned at noon. Saw no Cornuta or any other bugs. Rose six fish, (five on an experimental iso emerger), and one on an iso. Two fish ate the emerger, lost one on a spin out, (hate it when that happens), the other came unstuck after first running into my backing.

This evening I ventured onto the WB after estimating that the drop rate on the USGS flow graph would have the river under my no wade line of 2000 cfs before I fished, it was at 2010 cfs when I got home tonight. Waded carefully and didn't venture as far as I wanted to, but had rising fish to throw at. Actually did better with the sun up than in that magic evening hour. Summer sulfurs, (Dortheas), were on the water along with black caddis, a few isos and a few unidentified mayflies. Was ignored by many, refused by several, (including one coming right at me with mouth open), but seven fish did eat my fly, only one of which was a rainbow, and all seven were netted. For the record, the last hour had bugs galore, but very few risers.