As promised, here is the deer defeating elixir that I use on our flowers and shrubs. For the past five years, we have not found it necessary to place wire around our bushes or netting over the annual flowers.

The formula is as follows:

1. Break one large egg into a blender. Discard the shell.

2. Add about one cup of water. Blend for fifteen seconds.

3. Add 10 to 12 drops of Tabasco Sauce to the blender mix.

4. Pour the liquid into a plastic gallon jug. Fill the jug almost full with water, leaving an inch or two of air space.

5. Sit jug in sunshine for at least two days or until needed.

6. When ready to spray on plants, pour liquid into a clean bucket and using a trombone type sprayer, spray a fine coating onto the plants. Repeat every two weeks or after a heavy rain. Do not use on vegetable plants.

Do not be deterred by the odor when you uncap the jug. Within five minutes of spraying the plants, the odor, to the human nose, has disappeared. This mixture costs only about 11 cents per gallon, and it works.

The last two years were very dry and like everyone else I prayed for rain. This year, our prayers have been answered, but with a bit more generosity than we expected. Could you turn it off for a while? Please!

Barb and I did get to fish way back on June 8. At the urging of Jack Mynarski and Matt Wishneski of the Pike-Wayne Chapter of Trout Unlimited, we went down to fish the Lackawaxen. Prior to fishing the evening rise, we each dined on Dave Lange's 10-ounce burgers with fries. As the cliche goes, we couldn't believe we ate the whole thing. Now we were ready to tangle with the biggest trout in the Lackawaxen. Jack fished below Lange's Bridge while Matt, Barb and I went upstream.

The fish were rising sporadically, which gave us hope. I started out fishing just upstream from Barb, but the fish that worked in my area were all on the far side. Casting 12 feet of leader, 45 feet of fly line, and with six feet of backing out of the tip top, I was still left a yard short of the rise forms. I decided to go below Barb, cross over to a small island and work my way up the far bank. Crossing over to the island was tricky. There was only one, thin, underwater lane shallow enough to allow me to reach the island without going over the tops of my waist waders. Phew, I made it.

As I fished along upstream, I hooked and landed a little sunfish all of four-inches long. No trout came to my caddis fly imitation. All too soon, dusk and then near darkness spread along the river. Earlier the rises had been only occasional; now there were trout rising every where. It looked as if tiny cherry pits were being dropped onto the smooth, tailout in front of me. Across the river, Barb whooped and was playing a nice fish.

Since it was now too dark to think of trying to tie on a different fly, my attitude had to be that the trout would eat the fly I had on, or they would have to go hungry. Unfortunately, this tactic rarely works and it did not succeed this evening. Fish rose continuously, but every presentation of my fly was ignored. Matt had now quit and had come downstream to talk to Barb. I was anxious to cross back over and compare experiences with them. In my haste to wade across, I missed the narrow lane of rock and gravel that had allowed me to stay dry when I first crossed over. I was now knee deep, thigh deep, waist deep... surely it can't get any deeper. Barb was calling out to me to go back, go back. Oh boy! One more step found me floundering up to my arm pits in the current. I was half wading, half floating downstream till I was pushed up onto the shallow, underwater path where I should have crossed. Momma mia! I must have had ten gallons of cold water in my waders. When wading, after dark, in an unfamiliar rive, the cardinal rule is to proceed very cautiously. I had broken the rule and paid the price. Luckily, for the Tangler, the only cost that night was embarrassment and a cold, wet butt.

It turned out that Matt had taken three trout, and Barb had taken a 14-inch Rainbow, so heavy she could not reach around him with both hands. Ahem, of course, her hands are quite small.

The Isonychia mayfly has begun hatching on our local streams. It is easy to tell when this hatch has begun, because you will see the dried nymphal shucks on rocks along the edge of the stream. This mayfly does not usually hatch on the water, but instead, clambers out onto a dry rock, and then splits its nymphal skin.

Most local fly tiers tie a very simple imitation of the nymph of this fly. On a size #12 or #14, 20 hook, the tail is three short strands of peacock herl, a peacock herl abdomen and thorax. Counter wound with fine gold wire, with a gold bead just behind the eye of the hook. If you purchase your flies, just tell them you want a bead head Isonychia nymph, size #14 or #12.

The nymph of this mayfly is an excellent swimmer, able to dart through the water as swift as a minnow. A tip-off that Isonychias are hatching in good numbers is the sight of birds, such as Grackles, stalking along side the streams edge. They are hunting for Isonychias that are in the process of hatching out of their nymphal skin. That Latin tongue twister is pronounced I-sun-ick-e-a. Look at that, reading this column has made you into an entomologist.

I'll end this essay with some sage advice from my Texas fishing buddy, Willy Landem: "Love your enemies, but keep your gun oiled."