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.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Had To Get Out The Neosporin For The Tooth Cuts On My Index Finger.

  To say the Delaware  is a hard river to figure is an understatement. Yesterday was an overcast day that had fishermen thinking olives. Turned out the water was probably too warm for olives and too cold for sulfurs, in short, a dud. Today the air temp was a little cooler, (I think), with a mix of sun and clouds and the sulfurs, (both yesterdays and todays), hatched. The fish? At least where I was, went nuts, threw caution to the wind, and ate everything that came down their feeding lane, both with and without hooks. Heard from two sources that the sulfur hatch at the red barn was also very good today. If my last report on the red barn sulfurs was erroneous, blame it on Ed who has been in Hawaii for the last two weeks, (hence no reliable red barn reports). The fishing mid-day was so good, and the number of fishermen in the "Zone", (it's Friday afternoon), so high, that I decided to fish down river during the evening hours. Fished a pool in the middle section from 6:30 unt...
Read more

Fishing A Cold Blow From Out Of The North.

  Jean came down and we spent the weekend watching wildlife in the backyard, driving around the area and enjoying two "nights out", one with David and Maryann, (the apprentice Troutfitter Inn cleaning lady). A shout out of thanks to her for spending four hours on the road to have dinner with us. Not sure the company or the meal was worth the drive. We drove up to Stilesville to witness the hordes of anglers, and then along the reservoir all the way up to Walton, where we usually stop and go in some of the shops. It was threatening to rain so we elected to keep going. It was raining on top of the mountains but we took route 206?? to Downsville anyway. We hit the rain part way up the mountain and then drove down the other side to Downsville in a torrential down pour. Came out of the rain at Downsville and drove down route 30 with the intention of checking  out the trout in some of the BK's thermal refuges, saw the muddy water at "Jaws" and drove back to the Lordvi...
Read more

Don't let that that rain come down.

 My South Holston river friend, (one of only two people who will fish with me), (the other is currently on injured reserve), is up for a visit (he brought his boat) and today we floated. There might have been some question about where we chose to float (no one else launched where we did), but we enjoyed the fact that we never saw another fisherman, let alone another boat, on the river all day. The weatherman might well have gilded the lily a bit when he predicted a chance of showers and a high temp of sixty degrees. It rained all day, and the temperature peaked at fifty three degrees. When I read the forecast for the rest of Mark's stay (rain for the next four days) I was thankful that we got in the day that we did today.  How was our day? We sucked it up, paid an extra $5.00 to launch (didn't have the proper change), parked in the wrong place (got a note from the owner where we put in), never made it to the predetermined takeout place, and had a delightful day counting bugs (...
Read more