July 13th: Evening on West Canada

You know you have a good friend when they sacrifice themselves as a reason to go fishing. I mean, I've had some perfect days to go fishing on my own, but the guilt of getting the "to-do" list done holds me back all too often. On the other hand, if my friend wants to go fishing then I'm obliged. It's kind of a law of nature or something.

There's too much nice water on West Canada Creek. I can't stress that enough. Even when the fish don't comply, it's still really fishy water. We decided to try out the "yellow gate" run - a designated parking/fishing spot down the road from the catch and release section on route 28. You can't miss it. An average sized barn really close to the road and a small dirt drive - through a yellow gate, of course - to a quiet parking area and a few small trails to the water. The river is wide here, and deceptively fast. We only had a couple of hours on the water, and the fish weren't really into taking our flies. Near the end of the night, there was a decent light cahill hatch that got some fish rising. Once again, I hooked up on a fish that wasn't a typical resident of this area of the river. I landed an 8 inch brook trout. Go figure. The water was 62 degrees, and the air felt about the same. Oh well, not a great catching day again, but good to get out. The beer was cold and the wings hot at the Hotel Moore on the way home. y the way, they run a Monday night special - a pitcher of beer and 24 wings for $11.95.