April 20, 2016 – Not Just another Morning on the Wissy

A solid brownie chewing on my weenie on this momentous day....

What do Luther Vandross, Joey Lawrence, Crispin Glover, Ryan O’Neil, Andy (Gollum) Serkis, George Takei, Joan Miro, Hitler, and yours truly have in common?  Well, we were all born today.  Flies are getting smaller, streams are getting swifter, drives are getting longer, or maybe it’s just my eyes, my muscles, and my stamina.  I am doing alright, though.  I am 47 and fishing like I was 25.  I did work most of the day today, but I had to sneak down to the creek for a couple hours on my birthday.  

I forgot they stocked on April 19 until I saw all the fishermen!  The new stocking didn’t make fishing any easier, though, as a lot of guys got the skunk that I spoke too.  With water this low, and midges and other sporadic hatches going on, it is a fly fisherman’s game.  I got 7 or 8 and just as many sunnies on an array of flies, from the green weenie, to the white scud, to the zebra midge, to a midge-sized pheasant tail.  I don’t think I caught more than one fish on any of them, either.

The only one I could find fishing...

With the exception of one rainbow who buried the indicator in a fast run, fish were very inactive, but they would mouth a tiny fly if I got it down to them.  The brown at the top of this post was the best of the morning, a good 14 inches.  The rest were average rainbows between 10 and 12 inches.  I hope we get some rain soon, as the creek is low, muddy, silted-up, and getting warmer every day.  The stretch in the city is faring betting so far, but that is pretty low too. Regardless, I am glad that this old man could sneak a couple hours in so close to home on a perfect spring day.  Jazz great and legendary vibraphonist Lionel Hampton would be proud.