I've Learned My Lesson, Now All I Have To Do Is Remember It.

Today was the longest day of the year, tomorrow will be one second shorter. Strangely I only fished two hours today and the last half hour was in the dark. Love long days and am always bummed when we take the first step towards the dark days of winter. On the other hand I find joy on December 21st knowing that the days will be getting longer.

A frontal system pushed through today with north winds in the 15-20 mph range and it wasn't hard at all to find other things to do. Did some pruning on a peach tree, cut off low hanging branches on the rhododendron out front, vacuumed the rugs and at 2:30 took a drive. Explored parts of the river system I haven't visited in a year or more, took a couple walks, and by about five-thirty I was ready to fish. Sadly the wind was still blowing and I couldn't find a fish rising anywhere. There were fishermen out on all the streams but for Friday afternoon I would have rated the pressure as light.

At seven I was in my waders on the bank of the EB watching the water go by with nary a riser to be seen. Waded in and watched what was on the water, a crippled olive, two  crippled caddis caddis and lots and lots of those copper colored spinners about half the size of a trico that the trout seem to ignore. By seven-thirty there were a few fish rising, when one rose within casting distance I offered him an olive which he came up slowly and ate. It was a big brown that jumped twice and came unstuck. Fifteen minutes later another big brown ate a little rusty spinner and broke the knot between the five and six X tippet. The rising increased as did the ignores and refusals. Finally hooked a third fish which was a 15/16 inch rainbow, one jump and gone. A couple casts later a rainbow of the same size ate and stayed on all the way into the net. There are now lots of fish rising and they are making it clear with every cast that they don't like what I'm serving. Finally in the dark a big rainbow ate a sulfur, ran 50 feet into the backing and came unstuck. Left the sulfur on and got several  more refusals. 

It wasn't until I turned my flashlight on to walk back to shore that I saw that the water covered with little Dorothea spinners. Had the same thing happen three weeks ago on the WB with an invaria spinner fall. Lesson to be learned - check the water with your flashlight when fish are feeding in the dark and won't eat your fly.

It was still an exciting two hours of fishing. A bit frustrating maybe, but not a single shout of all fishermen's favorite word "excrement " was to be heard.