I paid attention this morning. There was a breeze and ripples on the pond. There were still fish swirling. They wanted nothing to do with the footballer. I called my friend and he said there can't be any wind. You cast it, let it sink, and you watch your leader. The fish will take it, spit it out, and you'll never know they were on. He said he bet people more than once that he could catch trout on a bare hook and did it the same way. It has to be quiet though. No waves. I then went to plan B which was to strip flys on a floating line pausing to let them sink. I used my new 4 weight and caught a couple fish on the black and red leach. Either on quite literally the first strip or on the drop. I saw a very light colored caddis come up from the bottom and I tied on a light Hare's Ear and tossed it out the same way. Strip, drop, strip, drop... I got one, two, three. I was on to something. The swap flys came out.

I got Sharps modified bugger out and caught a fish. It didn't drop like my weighted. James "fly" too. Strip. Stop. Strip. Stop. Line goes tight. Lift rod. Pretty simple. It got so good I got 3 fish in 4 casts. Then, an hour of nothing. I got about a dozen nice fish 2 or 3 pounds. I let them all go. One bellied up and an osprey grabbed him right in front of me. The canoes around me thought that was pretty neat. They were stringing up fish. Doing a little culling. It's the law here that you have to kill your fish immediately if you are going to keep them. Nobody was doing it. Fish were flopping on stringers everywhere. Man, I hate it when they do that.

The wind got up today, and as luck would have it, I had a reel spooled with 6wt line in my bag. I put that on and after fighting the wind all day with a 4 wt, that puppy boomed out. I had to let out more running line. A 6wt would have been better to throw it but it went flying on the 4! It's supposed to rain and blow tomorrow (whaah) but I get to stay home and rest my shoulders. Lugging around the canoe and paddling the last few days has found old muscles rusty. I've also got line stripping cuts on my first 2 finger. Typical for early season. Well, I tied some caddis for next time, anyway. People keep stringing up fish, the fun might not last for much longer.


"I didn't get the sophisticated gene in this family. I started the sophisticated gene in this family." Willie Robertson