Bees, Fish, and Beavers (behave yourselves ;-} )

this may be a little long ;-)

after finishing a day of work, school, and job hunting, i prepared for a
much anticipated evening of fishing. naturally, i was delayed by the
inevitable afternoon blue ridge rain storm. i waited it out, gathered my
gear, and headed to boone fork creek on the parkway.
as a result of the heavy rain of the afternoon, the water was high, and
moving fast. in anticipation of a good catch i tied my new yellow jacket
onto my line, and heeding uncle wayno's warnings about the dangers of fast
moving water, i carefully entered the creek. thank god for felt bottom
boots.
i cast my line in the water not too far from the rocky bank, and under some
low hanging tree branches. seemed like a good place for fish to hide, but
then, what do i know? ;-)
i let the current carry the line down the creek, and then slowly brought it
back in with short little jumping movements- wanted it to look alive. i
stuck with this fly for about half an hour with no success. i then decided
to switch to an attracter fly. i stood in the the stream, enjoying the
feeling of water swirling around my legs, and when i looked down was
startled by a brown mass swimming under the water no more than two feet away
from me. when my initial confusion passed, i realized i had been "visited"
by a beaver. now, this is another wonderful thing about fishing. never in
my life had i seen a beaver, and since i started fishing, i have seen 3.
very cool. anyway, i manipulated this fly in the same way- still nothing ,
and by now it was getting to be dusk. at last, some activity that provided
me a little guidance as to the right fly. the bugs came in, and started
dipping in the water. i thought for sure the fish would start biting now.
i looked at my stash to see what would best match the fly activity, and came
up with a caddis. the other thing flying around was that pretty little fly
that looks like a fairy dressed in a green gossamer gown. what is that?
anyway, i cast my line, and made a bet with my daughter that i would have a
fish in the next ten minutes. 20 minutes later no fish. by now, it was all
but dark, and i had to question the wisdom of my daughter and i hanging out
in this empty park alone.
so, we packed up the car, and got on the parkway to head home. ****!
creepy ride home. the blue ridge parkway after an afternoon of rain gets
very foggy. not a good idea to be driving it in the dark. ( anybody seen
clive barker's in the mouth of madness? scary foggy roads dotted with very
scary happenings.) my daughter and i managed to scare the **** out of
ourselves, and each other, and then giggled the rest of the way home, once
we exited the parkway!
so, anyway, no fish caught, but i hope some good experience. this fishin
stuff is about so much more than catching fish- although that part is a rush
too!

Snakefiddler- sorry for the long post :-}