Yesterday I mentioned getting my moneys worth this summer – meaning I’m fishing like a madman. Today I’ll tell you I’m feeling it. I love every ache and pain and this kind of tired, but man, I woke up one minute before my alarm went off. That was 3:59 AM. And every inch of every muscle was sounding off. Four at least a second I wanted to reset the alarm for 7. The occasional angler may say there’s nothing strenuous about fly fishing. My response to that, “You’re not fishing hard enough”.
When Bob and I hit the river it was cool and overcast. The birds continue to sing but nothing like a month ago. Things are quieting down as summer moves into the second half. When we pushed off not only did it feel remote, but we were remote. We nailed several decent smallmouth bass in the first couple hours on the Tequeely and Yuk Bugs.
While we hardly ever see other anglers on our floats, mainly because we are the early birds, we do run in to occasional canoe parties at the end of our days. Today however, only a few hours into our float we heard a lot of human noise upstream of us. Eventually we were passed by more than 20 canoes. It was a kid’s camp and they were having a blast. As much as it took away that wild feeling and peacefulness, we were happy to see kids out enjoying the same thing we love so much.
Our day ended with a series of storms and badly needed precipitation. Luckily the storms came free of thunder and lightening and rather doused us with rain. There were times when it flat out came down in buckets. It’s been so long since I got rained on heavily that I carelessly had open zippers on my tackle bag, rain jacket pockets and more. I’m lucky to get these reminders of carelessness on a warm summer day in Wisconsin rather than when I’m in northern Manitoba come September!
We made it off the river around 4 PM. It was a decent day of smallie fishing and we landed more than a dozen. Nothing over 13”. I got one pike and for the first time on this river, we saw quite a few muskies. Musky don’t fall for our tricks much in the summer and not one followed our flies. But Bob and I will remember where they live. Time for a barbeque under the rainbow.
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