HEAT HITS
We have had several days when the temperatures have been in the high 90's. I'm not sure how all those Kansas and Texas guys managed to send it this far north, but I guess I will need to be nicer to them.
Even with the heat, it is a day off and time to be on the water. I may not be the brightest bulb on the string but I was at the pond at 5:30 am and on the water about 15 minutes later. I hoped to catch the fish on an early feeding binge.
It is a wonderful theory. When it got light enough to really see the water I was amazed at the amount of algae in the water. Not on the surface, but as small clumps on the water. Each clump about 3 mm in size, but not much room between them. The heat had brought on an algae bloom.
I stayed on the pond as I did not feel that I had time to move before it got hot. Also was not sure that I would get into some of the other ponds as there was still muddy road from the heavy rains earlier in the week.
I cast a lot of flies and could not interest the fish although I could see fish swimming about three inches under the surface. None of the flies I tried really interested them and I tried a lot of flies. I even resorted to using some size 26 and 28 midges and dry flies. No interest was shown in them.
Since the smaller flies did not work I decided to try larger flies to see if that would help in the visibility. I'm pretty sure that the fish saw them, but the larger flies also spooked them. So I went a few sizes smaller and tried that and I did catch a fish on one of these flies. I have to admit that it was snagged just at the front of the dorsal fin. The fish did not bite the fly, but I caught the darn thing.
I tried several places around the pond but it was just good casting practice. Even with no fish it was still fun to try. There must be a way to get fish to bite under these conditions. I did not figure it out today, but there will probably be another chance. The temperatures are supposed to stay hot for the next week or so.
About 9:00 am I was getting warm and thirsty so I decided that it was time to head home. One advantage of no fish is that after everything was unloaded I could take a shower. Now I am ready for a new round of sweat.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick