Sometimes it's just going to rain on your parade.

When I plan on fishing the WB or big river one of my considerations is to minimize the amount of boat traffic I will encounter (if you think boats don't reduce your chances of success you're not fishing the Delaware River). I check the take outs below where I will be fishing to determine how many boats will be going by.  I then try to pick a section of the river where the boats will not get there while I'm fishing or have already gone by.

Today things didn't go according to plan.  There were three trailers at Shehawken. It was about two o'clock when I started fishing a riff about an hour (by drift boat) above the takeout.  Was going to fish there about a couple of hours and be gone long before the three boats showed up.  Hooked and lost a nice rainbow just after starting (perhaps an omen)  and then pointed in the direction I wanted the first drift boat to go - he did.  Twenty minutes and a second lost fish later I was pointing again.  This time the courteous but confused oarsman went in the opposite direction from which I was pointing.  Another uneventful twenty minutes went by before a third boat went by again courteously - at least they were all by me now and I would be undisturbed for the rest of my fishing. Wrong!  By the time I reeled in and walked the tracks back to the car, less than two hours after starting, six boats had gone by me.

Delaware River trout are hard enough to catch under the best of conditions.  In August, when a cloudy, overcast day turns sunny, six boats in two hours is the kiss of death.

Took my road show to the UEB where there was little likelihood of drift boats.  There was a nice hatch of olives that had a lot of fish up feeding when I got there.  It took three reductions in olive size to find one they would eat (some of the olives might have even been isos?) but when I did I was into fish nonstop - that is until the big dark cloud rolled over the hill and down came the rain that for the fourth time this season wiped out a good olive hatch feeding spell on the UEB.  

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