I went down to the Bear River Saturday evening for an hour or two of fishing. Didn't catch anything but I did get two strikes on two consecutive cast. That was pretty exciting. What surprised me was the way the first one hit.

There were 3 fish rising in a way that I could float a fly past all 3 in a single drift. As the fly went past the last fish I'd let it swing out of the way and then pull the line in to cast again. Now, when I'm pulling in the line I have a totally non-natural drift. In fact, it's the opposite of a natural drift, I'm pulling the fly in against the current. So I wasn't expecting anything when I was pulling in the fly but THAT'S when they hit.

I was totally surprised, I thought I had snagged on something but then the line started to wiggle. For just a second or two I had him but then he shook it off.

I was pretty excited so I was TOTALLY not ready when I cast upstream of the first fish when HE hit it! I set the hook but he shook it off as well. Wow, that was amazing to get two hits on two cast.

The sun was going down and it was starting to get dark. I've found that there is a magic 20 minutes or so where the fish are really rising but it's almost too dark to see the fly on the water. The fish were going nuts and I just tried to keep my fly in front of them. But then the bats came out.

At first I only noticed 3 or 4 of them splashing against the water to pick up the bugs on the water. Several times they dove at my fly and turned away at the last moment. Pretty soon there were at least a dozen bats swarming around us. I did a cast to my rising trout and I felt a "thump" in the middle of my cast as my line fell to the water in a loose pile. I actually hit a bat in mid-air with my fly line!

I roll cast a couple more times but I couldn't even see the fly any more. It was time to head home.

What a fun time, and what an interesting experience it was to share the river with the bats. Every now and then we humans are reminded that we're part of the environment rather than lording over it. As I was standing in the river in the dark with a dozen bats swarming around me I felt like I was part of the river. I was experiencing the river coming alive at night.