A Magical Day

TIME: 10:15 AM to 12:45 PM

WEATHER:  Partly cloudy, low 90s,

WATER CONDITIONS:  0 Units

LOCATIONS FISHED:  Norfork River, Near Ol’ Charlie’s

ROD USED:  8’6” 5 wt JWF Winston

FLIES USED:  #14 Black Cockleburr

HATCHES:  Midges

OTHER:  Fished solo; Wayne walked in a few minutes afterward, wading upstream.  Despite the late start, the river at the island above Ackerman/Handicap Access was free of any fishers, allowing me to choose among several different places.  I had not fished Ol’ Charlie’s in a few days, and saw several fish dimpling the surface.  Having had success with the black cockleburr on Wednesday, I tied on the same fly, made a cast, and was rewarded with a fish.  This happened on about a dozen successive casts before I lost the fly trying to remove it from a fish.  I tied on the last black cockleburr in my fly box and the action was unreal—a fish on practically every cast.  I fished this fly until all that was left was a bare hook with one single wrap of thread near the eye, still catching fish stripping it back.  Too embarrassed to continue with the bare hook, I tied on a peacock cockleburr with the same success, most fish being caught as the fly drifted dry on the surface.  Without exaggeration, I’m guessing I caught near 100 fish in the 2+ hours, as it took me less than a minute to cast, retrieve the fish, unhook it, and recast.  These types of days don’t come along very often and are paybacks for the really tough days—like those we’ve had the last four weeks.  There were no large fish, all were likely stockers dumped in last Friday, and about 80 percent were small.  While I was fishing downstream, Wayne was on the hunt for big browns and caught an 18-incher.

When I got ready to leave, I got the attention of a fisher across the way who had walked up earlier, and exchanged friendly greetings.  He was struggling, so I gave him a fly, demonstrated the different ways to fish it, and stood by while he caught half a dozen fish in a row.  His mouth was open in astonishment.  As we talked, he indicated he was from Memphis, was a member of the MSFF, was president of the Memphis Engineers Club, and we had mutual friends.  What a small world.

It was indeed a magical day—a great day to be on the water.