I was out fishing for bluegill yesterday, and after doing pretty well with a nymphs and buggers, I thought I'd test out a dry fly, just to push summer a little closer (there were no rises, although it was probably 70 degrees here in Arkansas). I tried for maybe ten minutes with no luck, but then for no good reason, I just started to make repeated casts to the same general area: cast, let it sit for 2-3 seconds, pick it up and cast again. After about 2 minutes of this, the fish started hitting, and soon were hitting on every cast--doing that great little bluegill move where they swim quickly up, stop an inch away, pause momentarily, then strike. I'm thinking maybe I managed to manufacture my own hatch. Haha. They were small fish, but it was still pretty fun.
On an even less related note : ), I caught my first skipjack herring yesterday on a white wooly bugger--it was about 12-14 inches long, made three big jumps, fought hard, and was really beautiful--very irridescent, slick, and silvery. I love "trash" fish! I had to come home and identify it in my Arkansas Fishes book... Anyone ever caught one?

Mike