Black Earth

Date: Sun, 16 Jun 1996

Off to the Wolf? My wife and I got a babysitter last night and headed to Black Earth for what might have been a perfect evening... if the fish were interested in taking part in a really nice caddis hatch. It was really strange since the only fish hitting dry flies were in the medium range. (8-10" on BLC). Chris (my wife & [BTW] looking pretty sharp on her casts at 9 mo. pregnant) had a lot of short hits on her deer hair caddis, but were all 6-8" rainbows. Still fun on her little Winston (3 wt).

I only landed 6 fish in two hours, but one was determined to be the biggest pain in the butt on 5x that I've ever experienced. I took a good 15 minutes [I checked] to get in hand. This was after several undercut runs and around the snag and one through the legs chase. I thought it might be a really big fish based on the time spent with rod play. Turns out that it was a 12" brown with a grudge. After all that I turned her into the current and exchanged a couple of choice words, while I slapped my forehead with some 58 degree water. The fish took off into the current nicely, but by then it was getting dark. Fun stuff, anyway.

Have a good weekend; let me know how the fishing is while I'm on baby delivery watch" next week.

From: "Blaine P. Biedermann"