The Sportsman's Corner

May is my favorite month. Redbud and dogwood come into full bloom against the pastel green of developing plants. Eventually ground phlox and dame's rocket make their lavender appearances as well. As the month advances, things warm up; and the month produces some of the nicest days of the year.

One May day not too long ago demonstrates why I often become zombie-like before the end of the month. There are so many things to try to squeeze in that May often presents an "embarrassment of riches."

I began this day in the woods, making another attempt to lure a gobbler to my calls. This morning I got "in the game," with a gobbler hollering off to my right in the woods. For a few minutes, I excitedly thought I might call him in. However, I heard insistent hen calling from below me, and the tom gobbled his way to the calling. It appeared that I was no competition for a real hen. The last I heard of the turkeys, they were heading south along the mountain.

I went home for a late-morning nap.

After waking up, I ate a sandwich and decided to fish for a couple of hours. Since I sometimes become tired of nymph-fishing, I headed off to a freestone stream where I knew I could dry-fly fish and hope to catch some trout. Fishing two short sections of the stream for a little more than an hour and a half, I landed 16 lovely wild brown and brook trout up to 11 inches long. I was able to use the same beat-up old Adams dry fly the entire time. A weird mid-afternoon observation: While fishing a long pool, I watched a small bat swooping for bugs that were hatching from the stream. I was kind of happy to see the bat, since they are having a lot of problems; but I was a little leery, too, since bats generally fly at night.

After I got home and ate supper, I decided to drive a half-hour to the BFO (big, famous, overfished) River. I hoped to find hatching flies. Surprisingly, I found a pool that wasn't being fished. Though there were few bugs on the water, I spotted some fish rising. I attached a Sulphur Dun dry fly, and over the next hour and a half I landed a half-dozen fine brown trout. That four of them were between sixteen and nineteen inches made a nice ending for the day.

However – don't ask me how the next day turned out.