Silent Night

Date: July 5, 2008
Location: New spot, Bridge & Lawn
Air temp: 70s
Water temp: ?
Hatches: ?
Fish landed: 1 brook

Present members of the Fly Anglers Guild :|: Upper Midwest Chapter, for this outing were:

Booter
Xan
Scooter


Needing a healthy restocking of flies, I headed out to Lunds late on Saturday afternoon. After dropping a healthy amount of dough on a wide assortment of dollar flies, I decided to check out a spot high up on the Curd. QD, Timbo and I had driven here once, but did not explore the area as the river was high and muddy. Now, it was slow and clear, so I set up and headed upstream. The river was mostly wide and slow. The few riffles I saw were quite shallow, though I did scare some fish here and there. After a ways, I headed back and went downstream from the bridge to find more of the same. I tried fishing one riffle, but didn't get any strikes.

Having some more time to kill before Booter and Scooter would join me for some night fishing, I went down to the EPB&G spot to see if I could get some casts into my favorite run. Alas, the area was crawling with fishermen, so I got back into the car and headed to our rendezvous area, the Bridge Spot. The sun was setting behind the bluff, and I made a quick nymph run along QD's favorite spot. There were fish rising here and there, but I was too lazy to tie on a dry, and found no interest in my copper John.

Walking back to my car to get my headlamp, Boot and Scoot pulled in, and we had a beer. After finishing our round, we hit the river as the last bits of sunlight faded into night. I was able to pull a small brookie on a hex dry before I could no longer see my fly on the water. Now, it was mousing time. The absence of moonlight made the fishing even more difficult, and the action was slow. Perhaps the uneven barometric pressure or lack of moon had some effect, as the hits were few and far between for all three of us.

After fishing around the bend from QD's spot, we headed to the Lawn, where we fished two areas. More of the same. Tired, we called it a night and headed back home.