Fall Snow falls

Saturday October 29^th, Penn State at home against Illinois. I had the tickets; we had the baby sitter lined up, our tailgating gear packed, and the bomber of Russian imperial stout I’d been saving since my birthday. Yes, at least one Saturday during the fall I forgo the opportunity to hunt to go cheer on Joe-Pa and his band of Big 10 soldiers. It’s not as though the two activities are entirely different. A long hike in from the car to sit high up in a tree stand freezing for a few hours, a long hike from the car to sit high up in Beaver Stadium freezing for a few hours, and in both cases heading back to the car without having shot a deer.

But then the damndest thing happened…10 inches of snow started dumping down on us. We never even made it to the game. We got a whopping 25 miles from home before making the executive decision to go no further. The wife and I returned to our snow covered homestead…and the cable went out, I couldn’t even watch the game on TV! Double burn.

So the day didn’t turn out quite as I planned, but as any outdoors person knows, adaptability is a virtue uncontested!  And as a blogger knows, you seek opportunity where ever it may be, even if it is your own back yard. I decided to make the best of my situation, I like snow, I just like it better when it doesn’t mess up my plans. After digging out the next morning I took the camera down to my home waters, the Tulpehocken Creek. It’s rare that I show up to the Tully without anything but my fly rod, but I figured the juxtaposition of fall colors with snow would make for some great photo ops. To my surprise even a half an hour of sun created quite a bit of melt off. The early morning fog seemed amplified by the combination of temps and moisture; I thought I still got away with some nice pictures.

Enjoy!

...and yes, fish were rising on this beautiful morning! I had watched an angler pull in a nice sized rainbow, he said he caught it on a size 16 pheasant tail nymph....nice!