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 :-}

"snakefiddler" wrote in message
...
...the other thing flying around was that pretty little fly
that looks like a fairy dressed in a green gossamer gown. what is
that?...

Could be one of the lacewings:

http://www.insectary.com/lw/lacewing.htm

http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/bi...rysoperla.html

Pretty common insects.

Or, it could be any number of other things.

Sounds like you had a good day despite the lack of fish. Sometimes it's
even better that way.

Wolfgang

In snakefiddler wrote:
the other thing flying around was that pretty little fly
that looks like a fairy dressed in a green gossamer gown.
what is that?

Sounds to me like maybe a green Lacewing. Looks like this:

http://entweb.clemson.edu/cuentres/c...fici/ce171.htm

Todd (remove hook to reply)

"snakefiddler" wrote in
:
snippage of a fun TR
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.

...by God it didn't take you long to really get into this flyfishing thing
Jennifer, pleases me no end to read your TR, looking forward to more in
the future. Speaking of beavers (OK, I'll be good here) ;-) I posted
some time back before your arrival into this looney bin, about an
experience I had with a beaver in Maine. I had anchored my pontoon boat
about 20' off a beaver lodge which just happened to be situated in some
very good bass water. Flinging my rod about with abandon, I was startled
with a loud noise behind me, then another, then another. I identified the
noise as a beaver "warning" and sure enuf, he surfaced in front of me and
perched on a log giving me dirty looks. He definitely was ****ed that I
was in "his" water and wanted me out of there. Since my pontoon boat is
rather open in front and my (kaf kaf) jewels were at water level, I had
visions of those big assed front teeth goint to work on me. Needless to
say I relocated upstream a bit. Never heard of anyone being attacked by a
beaver but I wasn't about to find out first hand.

Frank the fearful...

Frank Church wrote:

Since my pontoon boat is
rather open in front and my (kaf kaf) jewels were at water level, I had
visions of those big assed front teeth goint to work on me. Needless to
say I relocated upstream a bit. Never heard of anyone being attacked by a
beaver but I wasn't about to find out first hand.

Frank the fearful...




My home river has quite a few beaver in it. It amazes me how accustomed
the fish get to their presence. There several beaver that live in the
biggest, slowest pool for miles. In the calm water, the fish are very
spooky and often just a ripple from a step into the water will put
down the feeding fish. However, I've fished the pool and had beaver swim
right through the midst of a pod of feeding fish without the fish
missing a beat. Even a tail slap from the beaver don't put the fish down.

Early this Spring I encountered my first "aggressive" beaver. I was
moving upstream to fish a slot of deeper water next to the beaver's
lodge when I saw the beaver come out, cross the river and start swimming
toward me. I was watching it swim, thinking nothing of it and waited for
it to give me the tail slap. Soon it was 20 feet away, then 15 and I
started backing up. Then 10 feet and I poked it in the nose with the tip
of my rod. Still it kept swimming. I scampered up the bank and
thankfully it didn't follow. It got right to the bank, stared at me,
then flipped and did its tail slap. I circled around the lodge.

There was that story about Jimmy Carter getting attacked by a "mad"
beaver when fishing. I always thought it was an urban legend kind of
thing but.........

Any ideas what would have caused this? I remember that beaver have there
pups(?) during Winter? Maybe they were getting ready to start leaving
the lodge or?

Willi

Todd Enders wrote:

In snakefiddler wrote:

the other thing flying around was that pretty little fly
that looks like a fairy dressed in a green gossamer gown.
what is that?


Sounds to me like maybe a green Lacewing. Looks like this:

http://entweb.clemson.edu/cuentres/c...fici/ce171.htm

Todd (remove hook to reply)

Nice Todd.

How many hours you got in that thing?

Willi

Willi wrote in
:

There was that story about Jimmy Carter getting attacked by a "mad"
beaver when fishing. I always thought it was an urban legend kind of
thing but.........

.....I believe that was a 'mad' rabbit, that's what made the story so funny.

Frank
....who, in the future, will cut beavers alot of slack.

"Willi" wrote in message
...
There was that story about Jimmy Carter getting attacked by a "mad"
beaver when fishing. I always thought it was an urban legend kind of
thing but.........

I thought that was a rabbit?
http://www.narsil.org/politics/carte...er_rabbit.html

During the first Penns clave Tom myself my helper Brian were fishing Inglebe
(sp) just above the house were the bench is and where Jeff Conoly did his half
Ried climbing over the falls.......I had missed the fish of a lifetime and was
fishing for another looked on the oppisite bank and there was a mink looking at
me he eases into the water climbs onto a log moves to a rock right where i am
casting to not thinking i continue to fish i see a fish rise get ready to cast
the mink disappears and the little ******* comes out of the water with the fish
i was casting gives me a backwards glance and shuffles of to enjoy his supper
......was a kool thing to see......i had an experience with a beaver when i was
young still bare the scars from the barbed wire fence i ran into while beating
feet from those buck teeth i think i was about seven or eight scared the crap
out of me with the tail slap and swimming right towards me............


Handyman Mike
Standing in a river waving a stick

In article , Mike
wrote:

During the first Penns clave Tom myself my helper Brian were fishing Inglebe
(sp) just above the house were the bench is and where Jeff Conoly did his half
Ried climbing over the falls.......I had missed the fish of a lifetime and was
fishing for another looked on the oppisite bank and there was a mink looking
at
me he eases into the water climbs onto a log moves to a rock right where i am
casting to not thinking i continue to fish i see a fish rise get ready to cast
the mink disappears and the little ******* comes out of the water with the
fish
i was casting gives me a backwards glance and shuffles of to enjoy his supper
.....was a kool thing to see......i had an experience with a beaver when i was
young still bare the scars from the barbed wire fence i ran into while
beating
feet from those buck teeth i think i was about seven or eight scared the crap
out of me with the tail slap and swimming right towards me............


Handyman Mike
Standing in a river waving a stick

Had a mink swim across the Rapid last week with a 6" trout in it's
mouth. It swam to to the other side, sat on a rock and ate, then swam
back across. I'd seen minks up at Penns before but none of them
successful. Their was also an Osprey that showed a unhealthly interest
in the small Salmon I was playing.

People who don't fish usually don't realize how little fishing has to
do with the time we spend in the river.

Allen