5-31-04 - The rain periodically swept through from the west.

Thick cloud cover was the norm for the day.

I was out with Justin's Kilwell and the flying bunny...can cast a mile but it's not enough today.

5-31-04 - Screwin' around in my back yard...

Waters Fished: Lake Como
Fish Caught: 0
Outing Date: 5-31-04
Weather: Periodic Heavy Showers
Air Temp: 70's
Water Temp: didn't take it
Water Level: up
Water Color: green and cloudy as always
Fish Species: didn't see anything
Pattern Fished: Flying Bunny
Pattern Color: Black & Chartreuse
Fishing Quality: normal (poor)

So Len H called late Saturday with the bad news....the weather had not abated and SW WI was a raging torrent of mud. It would be at least a few days before things were back to normal. Bummed that yet again we'd have to put off an outing, I ended up sitting around the house in Lake Como trying to figure out what the heck to do....

Bart was bumming around Chicago and had earlier suggested we might go to SW WI anyway, but even that plan got squashed. So I did what any housebound angler would do...started building rods and screwin' around with my camera.

When we finally got a break in the rain I realized I might still get in some fishin...time to give the 'ole back yard another shot. Tied up a fresh leader on my 7wt and slapped on the flying bunny in Black and Chartreuse. Why those colors?

Well, an old family taught me when I was very young; on Lake Como her secret weapon was a "Beetle Spin" in Yellow with Black Stripes. It had in fact worked for me on more than one occasion, so I figured that on the fly this was pretty close to that!

In between cloudbursts I either got on the lake for 10 minutes or spent some time learning my camera better in my mom's garden...EVERYTHING just seems to have exploded into bloom in the last week.

I ended up coming away from the day with NO bites, which seems rather normal at Lake Como. But I did end up with some fantastic shots from the garden. I don't know the names of most of these (I'm an Orchid Specialist) so they'll go without captions...you can check them out below!

  MP