Sunday, July 15, 2012—Swimming Armadillo

DATE:  Sunday, July 15, 2012

TIME:  1:30 PM to 4:00 PM

WEATHER:  High 80s to low 90s, mostly sunny, breezy

WATER CONDITIONS:  0 Units

LOCATIONS FISHED:  Norfork River, riffle above the Island below McClellan’s downstream to Mill Dam Eddy

FLIES USED:  #14 furnace cockleburr, #20 Kay’s Gray, #20 furnace cockleburr,

ROD USED:  Winston 8’ 6” 5-weight Winston WT JWF

HATCHES:  Midges, a few crane flies, a few sulphurs

OTHER:  Fished with Kay.  We walked in at Mill Dam Eddy, waded across the river, walked upstream to the top of the island, waded back across, and walked upstream to the riffle.  We both began with a #14 furnace cockleburr.  I managed a fish or two in the riffle on the left descending bank, switched to a #20 Kay’s Gray and caught a couple more, then switched to a #20 furnace cockleburr, and caught several more fish.

  Kay missed a few fish, but hooked up with fish in the right descending bank riffle.  Kay fished the tail out, but it produced nothing.  As Kay reeled in, we noticed an armadillo on the right descending bank upstream at the riffle.  It came towards us, then turned towards the water.  We both commented that it definitely would not go into the water—it did.  We then commented that it wouldn’t swim—it did, quite efficiently.  It played, dove, and played some more, very similar to an otter, then swam back to shore an waddled off.  We wouldn’t have believed it had we not seen it for ourselves!

Shaking our heads, we waded back to the island, and Kay hooked up with a fish just upstream of the leaning trees.

We continued walking/wading downstream to Mill Dam Eddy, and I managed to fool a couple on the small cockleburr, including one at the drop off at the end of the island, just like the old days.  I didn’t notice that the fish had a zebra midge fly in the center of it’s left gill plate until I saw this photo—the zebra midge is almost centered between the eye and the edge of the gill plate.The whole afternoon proved to be difficult fishing, but I ended the day with 10 fish, though no big ones.