We’ve returned to the “fun” part of summer, temperatures breached 103 today, add the smoke burden and it’s about as enjoyable as you can imagine; profuse sweat, extra humidity, and air you can eat with a steak knife.

Perfect opportunity to go fishing, if heatstroke and Mercury doesn’t get us than Cancer surely will. Harsh conditions are always a prelude to the best fishing, and the Little Stinking always welcomes those with diminished IQ and a high threshold for pain.

That new hole in the right boot was welcome, at least for the first 15 seconds, the spreading coolness on my foot quickly became a pants leg full of murk. Carp were in evidence and contentedly mowing grass roots along the bank, which is the way it always starts … them visible, you optimistic, then they crush your spirit by ignoring everything you throw.

I was tempted and there were a couple really big rocks close to hand.

Tight to the bank and facing the wrong direction makes it doubly difficult to see my stuff wiggling in midcurrent, but like most fishermen anything that outwits us consistently is assumed to be smarter than us.

“Aquatic Cows” is more like it, and I scrambled out of the murky water into murkier air and called it a day.

The creek is still only a quarter its normal size and is making the fish spread themselves thinly, what few pockets of deeper water remain hold fish – and everything betwixt that and the next is devoid of life. The combination of heat and poor air has me keeping the adventures short until further notice.

The Red Sun in the evening is pretty – but only from the artificial safety of an air conditioned smokefree living room.