No pictures (alright I took ONE but will not post it this time) – I just felt compelled to report on what I saw today. It started raining yesterday, Friday, in the late morning and had pretty much rained all day. The slow, showery, let is soak in, sort of rain that was desperately needed here since it has been so dry. The water in Pine Creek on Saturday was rising as a result. I caught a few fish out on Pine as the water levels were increasing over the course of the late morning/early afternoon today.

There were sooooo many bugs (warning a lot of exclamation points follows)! There were (1) a standard Grey Fox – so a light yellow size 14-16 and there was a (2) a brighter yellow size 14-12 Mayfly on the water. I also saw a fly float past (3) with a definite dun (darkish grey) wing – was it a BWO (about a size 14-12)? And there very well could have been (4) a Light Cahill sort of fly as I saw color variation in the size 12/14s that I saw float by. I did NOT see ANY Green Drakes or Coffin flies! But I was on the water about 11 am till 2:30pm today so they might not have started coming back to Pine by that time of day. The numbers of flies was impressive – and there were fish reacting to them!

Since my offering was competing with the naturals, you have to expect that you will not hook up all the time. I didn’t! I finally hooked up with a fish that I was working on for what seemed like 45 minutes! It lasted about 5 seconds – and it broke off! There was an exchange of words – mostly coming from my mouth to the fish that just broke off. It is not something that I shall transcribe here today as I believe the FCC might have something to say about the adjectives (I think the FCC has nothing to do with the internet but I could be mistaken – I think you get the idea though).

Missed another fish in a location further downstream and called it a day. Hey, I had caught 3 or 4 or 5 fish by that point (and missed/early released almost as many) so I wasn’t counting – I was satisfied with what I had tried to achieve this outting.

The point is, there was a large amount of Mayflies on Pine Creek today and we have gotten almost 1.5″ of rain over the past (approximately) 24 hours. I’m pretty sure the creek was rising and was slightly off color – but the bugs and trout didn’t care!

All is not lost when rain comes. Today proved that to me. It may not be this way all the time, but don’t let the rain stop you cold in your tracks – observe what’s going on and react accordingly. Always be very cautious thought as waters that you easily waded when the water was low may become too hard and forceful when it rises.

The Log

One incident that happened today was just pure luck. I glanced upstream to see a log floating down right to my position! I IMMEDIATELY started to hoof it perpendicular to get out of the way! It was about 30 feet upstream of me when I saw it and I don’t think I’d of gotten out of the way in time if I had seen it much later. It was only 12-14′ long and maybe 10″ in diameter – but it would have startled me in the least and very well could have knocked me over in the worst case. NOT a good thing in 52 degree water and 54 degree air! When rains happen – BE ALERT to what gets washed in and gets transported in the streams!

The report for today…. from Slate Run……Till we see each other again… I’m an Unintentional Blogger (aka….UB)