The next day I was fishing a larger, circular protected cove, again out of the wind, casting blind with a San Juan Worm. There were fish in the cove, I was sure, but I wasn't doing any business. In thirty minutes of careful watching I saw only two rises, but they were both, to my eye, in exactly the same spot in six foot deep water water along the edge of a deeper hole. I changed to a long, light leader and the #18 Adams again and cast around the third rise with no luck, so I positioned myself upwind, settled the fly at the taking point, and waited. I had to re-position the fly once or twice, but the fish took it within five minutes. Later that summer I was fishing a protected catch-and-release pond in eastern Oregon that held big fish but was fished hard. My favorite area from previous years was, that year, choked with weeds with only small, open windows and irregular channels scattered here and there among a carpet of surface algae and bottom growth. A retrieve was impossible. Remembering the cruising fish I had spotted in that area in other years, but stymied by the weeds, I just sat down to watch. In twenty minutes I saw two rises, both in a single foot-wide window in the weeds. I cast to the window and waited. The wind was blowing laterally and would push the fly to the weed edge in a few seconds, so I would recast. A few minutes of this and the fish, 18 inches, took the fly. I worked this method productively for two more big fish in the next hour, otherwise I would have been zeroed. Cruising fish, particular taking points. Put the fly in the taking point and wait for the fish to cruise back again on the next circuit. The following spring I returned to the Washington seep lake expectantly. There was a Seattle fly club convention that day and nearly a hundred fishermen in float tubes dotted the lake. The first afternoon, watching for rises after the mid-morning midge hatch tapered off, I spotted a small, shallow cove with a narrow opening into the main lake within which four large fish were rising in a slow but regular pattern. Unfortunately, another fisherman had also spotted them and was positioned at the opening fishing a midge pupae hanging below a corkie, usually an excellent technique on this lake. I hung around to see what would happen. He cast around the rises at times, and otherwise simply left the midge hanging randomly along their cruising routes. In thirty minutes he hooked nothing, but, watching over his shoulder while blind casting to the main channel, I had the five most frequent rise points identified. To my dismay he called another two friends in to join him because of the unusual size of the biggest fish. The three of them presented everything they had to those fish for another 45 minutes, then finally gave up in disgust. I moved in as they paddled out, and, resting a dry hatching midge pattern called a "Raccoon" in the taking points, took all four fish within thirty minutes, the biggest 21 inches. A stranger fishing nearby asked what I was using and was amazed because the "fish are
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