Sulfers and Beef Jerkey

What did you have for dinner last night. No doubt you couldn't sneak away from the house or you thought the 30mph winds and cold temps weren't concussive to proper fly fishing and you stayed home and had a lovely dinner with your family. I didn't.

Sure, I thought about it. After about 2 minutes of sitting on the sofa with the GF I saying "I don't know, maybe I should jsut skip it tonight...no, I should go....No, I should go buy groceries...etc" I I was encouraged to get the hell out of the house so the GF could have some peace and quiet and not have to listen to me complain about how I "should have gone!"

She knows me too well.

So I loaded up my truck and put the pedal to the floor. In an hour and ten minutes I was at the Big Gunpowder falls and was heavy into the fish. I was initially frightened by all the cars I saw in each parking lot I passed but there must have been a lot of hikers out because I didn't see another fisherman.

I did see lots of fish.

I'm not saying it was easy. The wind was CRANKING and I went through a LOT of tippet. I'd whipped up 4 larger snow-shoe hare comparaduns before I left (I thought my #16's were too small last week) and they scored big. No giant fish but lots of "average" fish for this river. If I had to guess I'd say your odds of catching a giant here are pretty slim with a dry fly. Not that it's impossible but the 9-10 inchers are just more enthusiastic about eating from the film.

I take those fish all day. It's just more fun to watch them crash a dry fly.

Speaking of crashing; with wet hands and air temps in the high 40's after sundown I was happy to have an old sweater and a hat in my truck with my casting jacket. Another great score was a pack of expired beef jerky that I got for $1 a while back. That was the best dinner EVER (I hadn't eaten since brunch)!

While there were lots of classic looking bright yellow sulphurs coming off, as it got darker there were more of these little guys:

Kind of a darker top to the body. If I had a marker I could have just colored my fly. The #14 sulfur still worked great and even in the dark I was hooking up though it slowed as the deep of night approached. See Flash photos below

It was well worth the drive up there from DC for the few hours on the water and, after a big plate of cheesy nachos at home with a Manhattan or two while watching Deadliest Catch I was ready to hit the sack and get rested for the work week.

I should be on the water Wednesday assuming I can refill my boxes in time! Spread love and wear your helmet! ....I pulled my own hook out of myself 2 times on Sunday! -micah