Buggy Enough

My attempt at fly photography. Horrendous. I need to actually get out a digital SLR instead of my crappy little Motorola smartphone.

You do however get the idea. Buggy.

It is the white mayfly hatch around here. The Huron has spit out a few that I see here in the evening and the waters up north - where trout live - will be hatching by weekend. They've been seeing a few last week.

This is a wet version. Mustad 94840 on which I've yet to pinch down the barb. Size 16.

Tail is a few Lady Amber Pheasant that I have lying around. No salmon flies this year so I'll sacrifice one Lady Amber for two dozen of these guys.

Body is Wotton SLF in white. Hackle is a Cul-De-Canard in Light dun. Thread is a Pearsall silk in yellow.

Looks like hell and my photography doesn't help. Looks buggy in the water, though.  I have to trim some of the longer CDC strands back. It gets "gummy" if you don't. The long CDC will wrap up on the tippet.

I want to make a trout dash on Saturday but vocational obligations negate it.

Opportunity is the only currency that matters in the end. It is how we're paid for a lifetime of effort. Every time.

Hope your fish are rising.

Provenance

You have to understand your roots. I, for example, am a small creek man.

Picture at left from wikicommons and used here courtesy SJu. The ford is a site in the Czech Republic.

My earliest trout fishing came on a creek like this in the mountains of Colorado where a ranch trail crossed a small stream.The country looked just like this in my memory. I had to wear a bush jacket to keep from being cut up by brambles on the hike to the creek,  In those days, a bush jacket was made by Levi Strauss and Co.

I only fished the creek twice and caught only one fish each time. It was a magical place. I never want to go back and find it different than I have it in my mind.

I like small fish. I landed a six-inch brown tonight from Mill Creek down by the cemetery. I haven't been fishing there for a bit as the temperatures have been "summer" and my schedule has been filled with obligations to family and others.

The time of obligatory socialization has passed. I'm free to work, write, and fish once in a while.

If I could fish all the time, it would make the experience less the precious gem it is to me. Tonight was all a summer's evening could be ...less strong drink. I'm on the wagon for no good reason. I don't feel the need for the distraction right now.

So, small creek fly fishers of the world rejoice. There's nothing wrong with a leader as long as a creek is wide.

You've got the gear, boys.

Use it.