Normally, after putting in a hard week at work and finding a few moments of solace to fine tune my life's passion, my biggest concern is avoiding competition on the river. That's been a tall order during the past few weeks, as the weather's been pretty nice and the fishing has been excellent, at least by my standards.
I was overjoyed today to find a river to myself. I really have no explanation as to why. My best guess is that the warmer temperatures have melted off enough of the mountain snow that many fishermen view the moderate increase in water flow as the beginning of the "runoff," that evil term among fly fisherman used to describe "unfishable" water. With the increase in flow, I'm assuming the fish have more options for holding lies, and perhaps more options for grub as well. In any event, my favorite stretch of water was uninhabited today. The fish were a bit more particular, but still obviously in the area and still rising to the standard small BWOs.
Just as I was remarking to myself how nice it was to not encounter another angler...two more appeared. The only difference? These anglers were of the four-legged, feral, feline variety, and not the least bit concerned about making a splash and scaring off the fish. Not your average house cats. Big, rough around the edges, and extremely assertive. I thought back to a helpful commentary I recently read on fishing etiquette, but thought its finer points might fall on deaf ears in this instance.
Cats notwithstanding, the fishing was excellent once again, and the catching was reasonably good too for a hack like me, save for a week's worth of rust from too much time working and not enough casting.
Fish landed: 4
Hooksets missed: Too many
Flies: Size 20 BWO dries, Adams
Loving the Poudre, as always.
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