Wednesday, July 4, 2012—The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

DATE:  Wednesday, July 4, 2012

TIME:  12:30 PM to 2:30 PM

WEATHER: Low 100s, sunny, windy

WATER CONDITIONS: 0 Units

LOCATIONS FISHED: Norfork River, the riffle at the bottom of the Pool to Cook’s Island

FLIES USED: #14 Furnace Cockleburr, #20 Furnace Cockleburr, #20 Kay’s Gray, #14 Black Cockleburr, #14 Olive Cockleburr, Big Ugly

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

HATCHES: Midges

OTHER: Fished with Kay.  We both wanted to fish, but neither wanted the crowds.  As we had guessed, everyone was off the water, at least in this particular area, by lunch, leaving us to fish without any crowding; and we both caught fish (the Good).  Regrettably, it was very windy (the Bad) and hot at 103+ degrees (the Ugly).  We began at the riffle below the Pool (top of the island above Ackerman-Handicap Access).  Fish were midging, and we took a few fishing the Furnace Cockleburr as a dry fly, and stripping it in the film.  Wanting to see the “improvements” made downstream, we waded to the riffle on the left of Cook’s Island, and again took a few fish on the surface and stripping.  We waded to the downstream end of the island and fished the right side of the island, and Kay got into a zone and took more fish stripping the Furnace Cockleburr.  She ended the day with 5 fish to my 3, and fell in love with the Winston 9’ 6-wt boron rod.  I tried a bunch of flies, and had lots of refusals and missed fish, but we both had fun on this hot July 4th day.