My local water

Responding to my daughter’s question, I replied, “Well, you could go to church”. To which she replied, “Why? You don’t go”.  “I went to church last night, I was on the river,” I stated. “That’s not church,” she retorted. “It’s my church! I listened to the birds chirping, waiting for the sulfurs to hatch and the fish to rise. I watched the birds sweep down over the water, picking bugs off the surface. How do they do that? The nymphs are emerging under the water and they molt on the surface and are there for only a few seconds before they fly away. How do the birds see them and swoop down and pick them off the surface? I mean, I can see them, but the birds are flying around, while I’m just standing there and watching. It’s really amazing, so yes, I was at church last night,” I explained.

I expected sulfurs, but I got midges, the fish weren’t really rising, and I refused to nymph, I thought about it, but decided to drink a beer and wait, hoping that the evening would bring on a hatch like I’ve seen before. “Are they done for the season”, I asked myself?  I rigged up the ole Orvis Bamboo,  man, they feels heavy, especially after fishing with the One Ounce last weekend. Got into the groove, feeling the rod throw the line out there like only bamboo can do. I managed to catch a few of the smallest brown trout. An angler upstream from me, fishing the flat water, casting up against the rhododendron covered far bank, set the hook with a Bill Dance special, “A little less pepper on the hook-set,” I yelled. Laughing, he replied, "Too much slack in the line".

There were a few sulfurs but not many, and the midges were taking over. I sat down and drank another beer.

Finally the fish were looking up a little and I managed to catch a number of the regulars and a stocked rainbow too. This was the first rainbow that I’ve caught in this section of the river, I hope it’s not a sign of the future.

As the sun set a small number of sulfurs hatched along with a billion midges and a few more fish were caught. Nice evening of the river with the dog.