Rainy Days And Mondays Seldom Turn Out Bad.

It had to happen, and today it did, drove through Hancock, got on route 97 and was halfway up the big hill outside of town before I remembered that the bridge on Lordville Road was being repaired. Turned around, drove back into town and drove down route 191 in PA  to Equinunk and then took Lordville Road over the bridge to the Lordville Estate without further navigational errors.

Left Lafayette at 8:00 am to give myself plenty of time to tie a new fly that I dreamed up over the weekend. Tied eight of them and like all new flies there were both design and production problems. Tied a couple on the wrong type hooks, then put materials on in the wrong order, got things too close to the eye and finally on the last three flies I got my excrement together and made what I hoped were presentable flies.

Got to the "Sulfur Zone at 12:10. There were more bugs and rising fish than fishermen, (by quite a bit), so I was able to try the new fly where I thought it would be most effective, and it was! Hooked six fish, (all but one were rainbows), landed four and lost two all in less than half an hour. One broke me off and one came loose and the fly stuck in a submerged log. Waded out to the log, lifted the end of it with my landing net, soaking my arm in the process, and was able to retrieve my seven x tippet, (forgot to tell you that I started using it late last week), and one of my new wonder flies, (remember I only had 3 good ones, and one was already swimming around in a fish's mouth). So much for the wonder fly. Fished it in a nice run, a quiet pool, and the acid test, the red barn with fish up feeding everywhere, and it never got another sniff, let alone a refusal. 

By 3:30 the hatch was waning and it was raining. Walked back to the car, had lunch and must have dozed off to the sound of rain on the roof, because the next thing I knew, it was 5:45 and the river was covered with fog. Drove along the river looking for risers and hit the jackpot at the red barn, an empty pool, rising fish, and the water covered with sulfurs. My wonder fly never got a sniff, the trout were eating duns and when I did finally put one on a few were willing to eat it. By 8:00 the fog was thicker, the bugs were thinner, the fish quit, and so did I.