After moving dirt it was fishin' time!

Today was one of those days when it felt really good to get out. After moving a bunch of dirt and compost this morning for almost 5 hours I needed a break. The weather had turned a bit more humid and the temperature was 86F when I finally headed out to the Farmington.

As always I go through a series of options of where to fish. I had the new 2 handed rod packed up and a tin full of some wet flies that I tied up last night and finally settled down on a new spot on the river. The location turned out to be a darn good spot. The water was approximately 500cfs and there was a slight upriver breeze to cool things off. Boy, after working out in the yard the coolness of the water did feel good.

I wasn't alone. There was a pair of geese that were escorting their five young uns up and down the bank that was behind me. I watched the family as they moved out into the faster current with the babies peeping as they tried to keep up. I had a good laugh when I noticed they were getting louder and a bit more frantic in their noise making to find that the water current was pushing them towards me and that was the last place they wanted to go. To help them out I moved out of their way and I swear I could sense a big sigh of relief, that is if geese can sigh! In all it was pretty comical to watch them try like hell to avoid getting closer to me.

It didn't take too many swings of the #12 orange partridge before I got a hit. Dang, missed it. Some more casts and steps down river finally produced my first brookie of the evening. After that there was a spell where I could not get my d-loop placed just right and I kept hooking up in the grass behind me. Eventually I moved on down far enough where I didn't have to worry about it as I started letting more and more line out just to see how far I could cast across the river.

As the sun was setting low through the trees I landed some more brookies and then a nice rainbow, all the while working my way down the river and through this new found spot. There were only two other fly fishermen out, one was above me and the other below so there was plenty of room for all.

I managed to put in almost 5 hours of fishing today. Funny, I put in almost 5 hours of dirt moving too. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the time spent on the river was wayyyyy more fun than moving dirt around the yard.