Friday night was awesome.  I took my son to that little pond up the road for some panfish action.  As the sun reached the tree line, I switched from little flies, to what I consider the most exciting fly to fish in my fly boxes, a deer hair mouse.

Ya see, after watching the real mice swim in Once in a Blue Moon I realized that I’ve been fishing my mice all wrong.  Yeah, I’d get bit every now and then; but not nearly as often as I did on Friday night after making some adjustments to my retrieve.  Both my son and I gasped and giggled at some of the toilet bowl flushes under my fly.  Then he’d yell at me for setting the hook too soon…

Yesterday, still looking for that mouse fix,  I made my way over to the Battenkill.  To say it was windy would be an understatement.  I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I told you winds were a steady 20mph with gusts around 30mph.    It made me feel like my casting might be coming around, though.  I was throwing that mouse 60′ into the wind with a 4wt and a double taper line, no problem.  It’s probably a little early in the year to be fishing a mouse pattern for trout, but I really didn’t care cause it was damn fun!

Flows were a little faster than I prefer on the Battenkill, but they were manageable enough that I could wade the center of the stream and pound both banks on my way down.  I’d splat the fly down hard a few inches off the bank, then give it the smallest line strips I possibly could as it would slowly swing out into the faster current.  To be honest, I don’t know how the fish could refuse.  Watching that mouse move through the slackwater on the banks was foreplay at it’s best.

Despite all the fun I was having, about halfway through my walk, I traded my mouse in for an indicator and some nymphs.  I started with a Bead Head San Juan Worm, then went to a Bead Head PT Nymph, then a James Brown Nymph, and finally to a small Olive Bugger. My indicator hesitated a few times that could have been fish, but rocks were more likely the culprit.  The fish just didn’t seem to be feeding.

At times there were good waves of BWOs coming off.  Waves large enough that the local birds were going bananas for them.  There was one point in my walk that I just had to stop and appreciate their aerial acrobatics as they carved through the wind tunnel that is the river corridor, snatching macroscopic mayflies from the air.  Only adding to the beauty was that big, bright ball of fire in the sky.  Even with polarized sunglasses on, the rapid surface of the water gleamed white, and when the birds swooped at different angles, they looked like little mirrors flying through the air.  Actually, at the time I thought they kind of looked like what you would get if you crossed a boomerang with a ninja star.

There were a few caddis here and there,  although I never managed to get my hands on one to make an identifcation.  I also saw one Hendrickson spinner- sitting on the downwind side of a Maple tree, just before I stepped into the river.  Hopefully next time I get some better bug weather, and some rising fish.