Looking Up

It was raining when I got to Yellowwood even though the forecast said it wouldn't.

After a brief wait it quit...

...just long enough to get out on the water. Then some more rain blew in.

I was making the loop again and by the time I was ready to cross over the rain had quit for good.

I was trying a variety of flies, a luxury I can indulge in again with my new eyes. I wasn't having any luck, though.

Then the waxing moon came out from behind the clouds. The moon has been a faithful companion on many of my fishing trips.

It was shining brighter by the time I got to the dam.

The big white mays were hatching again. Last year at this time a whole passel of smallish bass were all over them. I had on a stimulator and last year that would have pulled up a few bass. This year it pulled up a passel of bluegill.

I enjoyed that. But I couldn't help wishing the bass had been doing what I had been doing: looking up.

Hobbit Trees and Other Curiosities

The woods at Yellowwood are taking on a yellow hue. Black-eyed Susans line the road in.

I get to the lake a little earlier than usual and decide to make a full loop. I come up short on a wedding photo shoot. That's a good place to fish, too. I hang back so I don't mess up the photos. There's a pause, so I kick on around. As I pass I call out that I hope I didn't get in any of the shots. The photographer says, "Oh don't worry, I'll just photoshop you out." For a moment I wonder if I exist.

And by the way, I'm pretty sure the groom, an outdoorsy type, is wearing a sheath knife. To his wedding. Seems a little odd. Did they exchange knives in lieu of rings? Or is there some compensation going on?

At the point by the boat docks a bass finally hooks up on the plastic worm.

Things get slow again after that. I have time to admire the beauty around me. A sassafras leaf floats by sending a not-so-subtle message that we're getting late in the season.  

Acorns are thick on the oaks. Deer, squirrels, chipmunks, possums, mice and other rodents, as well as a variety of birds will depend on them to get through the winter ahead.

Hickory nuts are weighing down the shagbark branches, and squirrels are hard at work feasting on them and gathering them in. A steady rain of rind and shell fragments drop into the lake from overleaning trees.

These hickory trees are prone to tent caterpillars. I think of them as Hobbit trees. In Mirkwood the dwarfs were captured by spiders, spun into bundles, and hung on branches until Bilbo could rescue them.

I make it around the loop but the fish are quiet all the way around. There is a pretty good hatch of the big white mayflies going on over by the dam, but few fish are taking advantage of them. I tie on a big light stimulator but am largely ignored.

I begin fishing down the dam but some folks are bank fishing and creating light pollution up by the spillway, so I kick out around them and head for the ramp and home.

Maybe the next time I come more fish will have discovered those big juicy mayflies.

As Day Fades and Night Comes On

I head back to Yellowwood on a warm evening. My sights are set on the dam. I've tied up a light stimulator just for the hatch that will come as day fades and night comes on.

Nature has laid out a feast for the butterflies. I feast my eyes on this extraordinary display.

I fish around the spillway. Nothing doing.

Waiting for dark.

It's relaxing to simply mess about in a tube.

Something here doesn't belong.

A big plastic bait hung up in the multiflora roses. I scratch up my arms but I retrieve it. It might come in handy sometime.

I fish up and down the dam. Nothing happening yet.

The woods at the other end are full of sound: squirrels working in the hickories.

Finally the shadows creep across the water.

A big bluegill starts things off. It's like the opening burst in a fireworks display. Get ready.

Then the first bass pops up.

It's deep dusk now and the mayflies can just be made out as they skitter across the still water.

I've seen lots of mayflies online lumped under the common name "White Mayfly." These may be the Ephoron leukon. If so, they will complete their life cycle before the sun comes up again.

Many, however, will not complete their life cycles at all. The bass will see to that.

The little bass are slicing and dicing along the weeds. The stimulator works splendidly. I lose track of the number of cartwheeling jumps these turned on fish make.

A screech owl wails in the deep woods as if to say, it's time to go. I head in trailing the fly behind me. Just before I get to the ramp I get one last pull and miss. As if to say, we'll be here when you get back.