Smoked fishing...

With the air having cleared to merely "unhealthy" levels and with a Friday off after a couple weeks of long hours at work (or is it at home? at home work?), I gave the WhatToDo meter a spin and as expected, it told me to...

So I did!

I arrived at my favorite local stream just as the sun was beginning to vaguely appear as a dim orange ball shining (kind of...) through the smoke. The water was low, and with the big floods last winter having scoured the stream, there were a lot of wide, shallow riffles over flat gravel that were barren in the low water and some areas that would normally hold fish left high and dry. Started with the psycho, and even with the magic fly, things were slower than normal and the average size was much smaller than my last visit in June.

Seeing shucks from October caddis all over the rocks, I remembered a previous morning visit at this time of year when the fishing was similarly slow. The October caddis hatch seems to be the one time of year the psycho magic wanes on this stream. So I put on a stimulator and got a lot more interest, though my hooking ratio went from what seemed like 90% to 10%. I don't know if they are fast, I'm slow, or if the fly is just too big for many of their small mouths. But there was much more action and the size tended to be a little better.

Found fish under grass by the banks, in the pocket water, everywhere they are supposed to be. Still, not nearly the numbers as in June. Fishing dry, it was fun to watch a few of these nicer ones rise slowly to the fly.

All in all a great morning. About 30 or 40 to hand and a lot more to the fly. The air may have been unhealthy, but the fishing was definitely healthy!