The sky turned green yesterday as I was slinging the last of the mulch. I ducked inside the house as the trees swayed and the heavy rain pushed through the old windows. On the river the tribs swelled, the gauge moved-but only briefly to 145Cfs, and is now back down to 34 Cfs.Water temps are still cool at 53 to 55 F throughout the catch and release section.

Most of the spikes we see after a heavy rain are skewed from runoff from the Falls bridge on the upstream side of the gauge so spikes really don’t give one a clear picture of actual stream conditions until we walk the river the next morning. Today the lower section, from Bluemount downstream through Sparks was very dirty, because Little Falls as it enters the river, has a higher sediment load-think more development, than the Gunpowder river which flows, in it’s first 7.6 miles through the Hereford area of Gunpowder State Park-think forest buffer. As June hatches go, the likely suspects are still around. So count on seeing Sulphurs in the #18-20 range in the late afternoon to evening. Morning and midday fly fishing the Gunpowder should be challenging. Use long leaders, (10 to 12 foot) ending in 6 or 7x, and try the fast riffles in the shade with a mix of beetles, ants and small caddis.