Thinking of Summer
With the unseasonably warm weather here, I got to thinking about a few of my favorite places to spend a mid-summer’s day fishing. Among them are the lakes of Vermejo Ranch in northern New Mexico, one of my long-time favorite stillwater haunts.
The last time Kel and I were there, it was mid-July, but the water looked more like late August—low and thin. One of the best flats was still populated by cruising browns, but they had gone from merely selective and spooky to nearly ridiculous. The frequency of refusals was startling, with some fish literally nosing under the fly, and then tipping away, unconvinced. Fun!
Well, we did get some nice fish despite the conditions, and Kel took one on a tiny Griffith’s Gnat floated on glass-calm water. I love that kind of sight-fishing—deliberate, tough, but ultimately satisfying. Here’s a little QuickTime slideshow of the day:
Update: If you are on Windows and having trouble viewing the QT file, read the comments below…
Jason,
I am unable to view. An empty green screen immediately covers over the Quicktime icon.
Any suggestions?
Dan
Right after my previous comment, I did a Google search and found the following solution (it worked for me, although I do not understand the technical why):
Problem successfully addressed via the following steps:
01) Start -> Control Panel -> Display
02) Settings -> Advanced – Troubleshoot
03) Set Hardware Acceleration Slider to midpoint (Disable all DirectDraw and Direct 3D accelerations…)
04) Apply
05) OK
06) OK
07) Close Control Panel
Might help someone else.
Dan
Nice photos, by the way.
Blessings,
Dan
Dan—Thanks for the tech input. I work on a Mac, but also have Windows XP running in virtualization, so try I to check these things in IE (are you using Explorer?). The QuickTime file seems to run fine on IE 7 here, so who knows? In any case, I may use your comment as a reference for those who have trouble on the Win side.
And thanks for the kind words about the pix. It was a great day, even if the fish were being about as touchy as I’ve ever seen anywhere.