The Bow, The Browns and the Spoiler...

Every evening I face an hour long, mind numbing commute home. This past Wed, I bolted out of work at 5pm and was on the water by 6:30...The South Branch was stocked by the state the day before so most of the pools around my home stretch were occupied. I surprisingly found a piece of popular water that didn't have someone standing in the middle of it. Perfect. Now I was already in my waders, and only had to put on my vest, tie on a fly and enter the water...By the time I had on my vest, two cars pulled in behind me. I gave them the "Are you kidding me look" but it didn't help...They were plopping power bait in the middle of the main drop pool...I ignored them and focused on nymphing the head riff..Tricked a rainbow with a caddis pupa...The Berkley Boys didn't have a bite within 5 minutes, so they moved on to greener pastures (or a pool with tracks left from the stocking truck)...
After a long day at work, I really wanted to decompress. What a better way than to watch a dry fly float on the clear waters of the SBR..So I tied on a comparadun and enjoyed watching my imitation float thru the pockets and pool...I worked my way around the bend and came to a fast riff, that was exploding with Quill Gordon Spinners. The bugs were loaded with an orange egg sack..I left on my Hendrickson Comparadun and fished it into the riff and immediately was into fish..The fishing was fast and the spinner fall was thick..I love fish that cooperate and eat my drys...I worked my way to the pool and was hoping to see some larger fish and sure enough he was on the far side rising just above a large rock. I waded in position and laid the fly about 4 feet above the fish..Perfect..The fly was drifting to my fish, and had closed the distance to 2 feet when along came the spoiler...The little redbellie grabbed my fly and made 2 acrobatic leaps basically shutting down my chances at Mr. Brown....The spinner fall stopped and the river faded to black.....




South Branch Bow



The Spoiler