Lost in the fog!





It was a strange day.  Arrived in Deposit  at three after driving through on and off showers most of the way from Syracuse.  Got off 17 at the second  Deposit exit  with the intent to fish sulfurs in or around town.  On several occasions this season I have shared a pool with Mike, a retired resident of Deposit that I have known and fished with for over twenty years. Seldom have I seen  anyone else fishing there.  It is easy to access and is not difficult to wade but is not by any means an "A" pool.  I haven't seen a guide fishing it all year.  Today I counted six fishermen, plus Mike in the pool with two more donning waders in the parking lot nearby.

Drove down to the "Barking Dog"  boat launch at the bottom of the  "No Kill" and found it full of trailers and cars. Left Deposit and next stopped at Hale Eddy where there were four cars but only one fisherman.  The river was shrouded in fog and there were sulfurs and olives glued to the water. Saw several fish rising and decided to fish there. Caught a two year old right away and then several 8/9 inch yearlings.  Then the sun came out, which warmed the bugs who departed the water and the fish stopped rising.  It all seemed to happen in less than a minute.

Moved down to the upper gamelands where waxwings were working over the water. I couldn't see any bugs but an old friend liked to say "You can always trust the waxwings", so I did. Turned out there were a few sulfurs and olives on the water and I found six or eight fish working subsurface.  I fished to them for over an hour with absolutely no acknowledgement from the fish the I even had a fly in the water.  Tried a dozen different flies with out getting even a refusal.  And  then?  One ate it!  He wasn't real big but he was a hot rainbow that tore all over the pool before coming unstuck less than ten feet from me. And then the rain came down.   I was only a couple hundred yards from the car but I was soaked before I got there.

As was the case all day the rain was over in the blink of an eye, leaving the dense fog over the water as proof that it had been there.  I put on a dry shirt and my raincoat and went back in the water.  There was almost no feeding until the sun was in the process of setting.  For about a half an hour the bugs came, the fish fed and I hooked a few fish.  As quickly as it started , it stopped.  Ended up walking the river about a quarter of a mile back to the car with no bugs on the water and no fish rising. The fog was so dense at times that I couldn't see either shore.

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