Another Derby Said And Done

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Thank Goodness For The Pheasant Tail

The fishing reports that I'd been hearing for the last ten days about Blue River have been rather dismal. The general consensus was that fishing was really slow. Last night fellow caster of fur and feather Jonathan Boeck called and told me he and and a buddy spent five hours on Blue and went skunk.

Despite of the poor reports and with winds blowing between twenty to forty miles per hour today, I decided to stop by and visit Blue to do some fishing...so I thought. I was headed to Tishomingo anyhow and knew I could dedicate an hour to fly-fishing so logic told me I was doing the right thing.

Jiminy Cricket...fishing at Blue right now is slow. I stopped at Glory Hole and started out with a bugger but the bugger failed me. I noticed some frolicking bows at the surface and even though I knew trying to present a dry would be next to impossible I made my feeble attempt non-the-less. My effort was a disaster. I had no back casting room and was trying to cast straight up in the air and into the relentless wind. My dry splashed down like the Sputnik crashing into the ocean. I was forty-five minutes into my hour with Blue and hadn't had a strike. The dreaded fear of going skunk was crawling on me.

I haven't gone skunk in over seven years on Blue but it seemed like today I would. Out of desperation I tied on a Pheasant Tail and didn't bother with a strike indicator. On my second cast of the Pheasant Tail a bow would come to hand. That bow...that came to that Pheasant Tail...sent the skunk fairy packing.

The river today was clear as a bell and extremely low. I noticed back eddies of algae buildup which I haven't seen in sometime. Rain is predicted for the weekend and hopefully the rains will come. Blue sure needs a drink of water.