PAY ATTENTION

Not you, that's for me. Here's the story.

I had a little time this morning so I drove up to the Middle Fork of the Cosumnes River at Cat Creek Road. You all know the place.

I decided to head upstream first, instead of fishing the pool below the pool under the bridge like I usually do.

I picked a place here and fished Tenkara and a place there and fished with my fly rod. I wasn't planning to wader up, but glad I did because there were some places where I wouldn't have been able to get to with all the green plants growing all over the place, but by wading through them and into the creek, I was able to fish most of the good spots.

This pool was one of the first places I threw a dry. 
 

Pool

I was quite pleased that there was a good amount of water in the creek and at 51.4 degrees, perfect trout water. The second place was this stretch with a little moving water at the top and slow the rest of the way. All in all about 30 feet long. I fished this one with my fly rod. Tenkara won't stretch quite that far.

Short stretch

After many misses, I brought this one to hand. Not big, but a healthy specimen.

First fish of the day

So let me get into the title of this post. I would like to know and I don't know if anyone out there knows the answer, how is it that when you have a good dead drift going and your attention wavers for a fraction of a second, that is when the fish hits your fly.

Now I've taken into consideration that today is Friday the 13th and it's also a full moon. By the way, for you Geezers out there this will be the last full moon on a Friday the 13th you'll ever see, so make sure you take a look tonight. The next one comes in 2049.

With all that against me, I still missed a minimum of 8 and possible more hits coming when I was distracted whether it was a bug, or an itch somewhere, or whatever. I missed a bunch because I was out of practice too or maybe just slow.

What I want to know is: How do they know?

This is a nice little pool that produced several misses. At least I'm honest and don't tell you I catch every fish that hits the fly.

Nice little pool

On the way back to the pools under the bridge, I tried a couple other flies. One I don't know the name of, but it's rust colored with a white parachute (I suppose I could research it, but it's not all that important) and a couple of different color stimulators, but they wouldn't touch anything except the Sloan's Paralyzer. Green seemed to be their go to color.

Back under the bridge, I brought this little gem to hand. It's the first fish out of that pool in all the times I've fished there. Had drive-by's, but none ever to hand. The pool below that pool had several drive-by's, but here again I was just too slow. Must be old age.   

First fish out of the pool below the bridge.

Again I ask the question: How do they know? Must be one of the great mysteries of Nature.