[VFB] Fishing today( Long)

[Tony Spezio]

Between the rain and high water the fishing has been sparse for the past 
two months. I got up this morning and looked out the bedroom window. The 
river was covered by thick fog, could not see the ramp going to the 
dock. That is one of my indicator on what the river is doing. Had some 
work to do on the mower so I got started early before it got too hot. 
While working on the mower, my fishing partner drove up and come running 
out of his cat telling me, the river is down, no units running. That was 
hard to believe with the lakes as high as they are let alone on a 
Monday. We finished up what had to be done on the mower and suited up.
The river still had heavy fog on it so we had to wait a bit before 
taking the boat out. We could hear some heavy splashes.  Got the boat 
out of the (BROKEN) dock, tree fell on it a couple of weeks ago, and 
headed up to Tucker Shoals.
We could hear splashes in the fog but still could not see much of the 
water. Mike tied on one of his flies on my tippet. It was a black bead 
head emerger on a sz 18 scud hook. Brown body with a black rib. Said the 
reason he tied it on was because it was the ugliest fly he had. Mike is 
usually the one that out fishes us all. I made a couple of casts and had 
a hit. A few more casts and a LLR. A few more casts and finally hooked 
up. Brought to net a nice 14" cutt. The fog was starting to burn off so 
it was easier to wade and we could see the trout working. Had a number 
of  LLR's on that fly, they seemed not to take it real hard. I decided 
to change over to a sz 16 black soft hackle and move a bit upriver to 
faster water. On the second cast I hooked up to a real nice Rainbow of 
about 16" then had a LLR and a break off. While looking for another fly 
to tie on, I saw this hook with some fluff on it . I had been showing a 
friend how to use the fluff from the bottom of a feather and somehow it 
got into my fly box. All my flies are rejects I will not give to anyone. 
Tied this sz 14 thing on and made a cast. As soon as it hit the water, 
there was a big boil under it. It went this way till I finally hooked up 
to a real nice Bow.  Released it and made a few casts, all takes were LLR..
I finally did hook up again with a 14" bow. Shortly after that I had a 
take and broke off. That was the end of that fly. Tied on a Red Ass and 
started to work some rises.  Had a lot of hits but only a couple of 
hookups. Seems they were just hitting at it and not really taking it. 
Well it was time to go, Mike had to pick up his wife and I have some 
things to do this afternoon.
It was almost two months since I fished the White, too much water 
running to wade. I only ended up with seven trout but all were in the 13 
to 15" range. Not bad for a couple of hours on the river.
My neighbor, two docks down river from me had her grand kids up for the 
weekend. Her nine year old grandson caught a 26" brown Saturday from her 
dock with 8 units going. Sorry to say, they ate it.
Tony