Wednesday August 16, 2022    Sometime I have a day where nothing seem to be working out.   I am headed to Meridian Idaho tomorrow for the weekend to hang out with my sister and mom.  With the wind conditions ideal today despite the 104 degree highs,   I figured I might get a few hours of good fishing at the Forebay today.   I was the only boat to launch and when I left at 2:00PM,  I understood why.  It was so still and hot at 2:00 that I felt light headed despite drinking lots of Ice cold water and working slowly.   l worked my way around the entire forebay fishing everywhere I had ever caught a fish .     I just couldn’t find many fish and the ones I found weren’t interested in eating.    Both my cameras stopped working around 11:00 due to over heating and there was no current in the channels from the Lake or powerhouse.    I even put a bass popper and fished the weed edges for bass.     Water temps were in the 80s and the water was still a bit murky.   They did treat much of the Mederious Bay with Herbicides  and the weed lines just aren’t what they use to be the last couple years.   I didn’t get a single hit fishing the edges.

Around noon,  My casting was getting a bit sloppy.   Maybe it was delirium from heat stroke.   I roll casted my t14 and put a barbed size 2 clouser  barb deep in my ear casting the 7wgt Bad Ass Glass 8 footer.   The sting in my ear reminded me why I don’t fish 8 ft 8wgts.   You have to cast those slow short rods differently especially in cross winds.      Ive taken many barbed hooks out of my friends but taking this one out of my ear was really challenging because I couldn’t see it.    I remembered I was a dentist and that I should be able to do it in a mirror,   but I didn’t have mirror on the boat.    Initially I tried to back it out while stretching the insertion hole. but the barb was pretty deep even though it didn’t go all the way through.  I cut the fly off and  continued to fish  down the 152 channel thinking about going home and having Gina take it out surgically but then I took a picture of it with my iPhone and decided to cut the hook and push it through  to the other side.     It was unusually difficult to push it through  the really tough  ear cartilage but  there was very little blood or pain.  I always pack a hemostat, a string, some iodoform,  neosporin and a scalpel for my buddies but using them on my ear without a mirror didn’t seem like a good idea.    I cut the hook and pushed the tip of the hook through the ear cartilage and pulled it out the other side. I think every Fly Fisherman should have an emergency kit consisting of a Hemostat, Neosporin and a  Wire Cutter (Harbor Freight) for times when the “string trick” wont work.

Ill get back to the Lake next week and see If I can pick up a couple off the shoreline .