Try new water - Columbus did.
Despite the sulfurs and olives still hatching in the sulfur zone up in Deposit I've decided to play the game elsewhere. Simply stated there are too few fish, too many anglers and the fish that are there won't eat my flies.
This morning I fished a run on the lower WB from 9:30 until 1:00. I never saw another angler. Saw two fish rise (they never gave my fly a look). Saw exactly one mayfly and no caddis. And now the rest of the story: threw attractor flies all morning, rose 18 fish, almost half of which refused the fly, the rest of them ate, (they were good ones to).
After yard work and a power nap I set out about 6:30 to fish the big river. So did everybody else! Lordville had the same angler I saw there yesterday. Buckingham (a ghost town for the last 6 weeks) had four cars and a trailer. Stockport had too many cars and trailers to count without stopping (9 and 3) I think. Shinhopple had three trailers and half a dozen cars. It wasn't until I got to Balls Eddy that things quieted down. There was one drift boat on a trailer pulling out of the otherwise empty lot.
Went upstream from Balls Eddy knowing there would be no boats and probably very few anglers (saw one angler half a mile away). The WB was not on my list of places to fish tonight. Fished there last week in the evening and there was a dearth of bugs. The sulfurs are long gone, there were no olives and even the stenos had refused to show. The absence of boats tonight said guides had chosen to fish the big river on a bright sunny day rather than float the bugless lower WB.
How'd I do? It was bugless until long after the sun went behind the hill. Then a few little olives and a very few stenos hatched. The fish must have been hungry because a few of them rose. It wasn't hard to get a risers attention with so few bugs on the water and they haven't been disturbed lately so - they ate.
If you want to catch nice fish, get away from the crowd. Fish where the fish are relatively undisturbed. Take chances, go where you haven't been before. Fish that haven't been rowed over and cast to every hour of the day are much more likely to eat your fly!
This morning I fished a run on the lower WB from 9:30 until 1:00. I never saw another angler. Saw two fish rise (they never gave my fly a look). Saw exactly one mayfly and no caddis. And now the rest of the story: threw attractor flies all morning, rose 18 fish, almost half of which refused the fly, the rest of them ate, (they were good ones to).
After yard work and a power nap I set out about 6:30 to fish the big river. So did everybody else! Lordville had the same angler I saw there yesterday. Buckingham (a ghost town for the last 6 weeks) had four cars and a trailer. Stockport had too many cars and trailers to count without stopping (9 and 3) I think. Shinhopple had three trailers and half a dozen cars. It wasn't until I got to Balls Eddy that things quieted down. There was one drift boat on a trailer pulling out of the otherwise empty lot.
Went upstream from Balls Eddy knowing there would be no boats and probably very few anglers (saw one angler half a mile away). The WB was not on my list of places to fish tonight. Fished there last week in the evening and there was a dearth of bugs. The sulfurs are long gone, there were no olives and even the stenos had refused to show. The absence of boats tonight said guides had chosen to fish the big river on a bright sunny day rather than float the bugless lower WB.
How'd I do? It was bugless until long after the sun went behind the hill. Then a few little olives and a very few stenos hatched. The fish must have been hungry because a few of them rose. It wasn't hard to get a risers attention with so few bugs on the water and they haven't been disturbed lately so - they ate.
If you want to catch nice fish, get away from the crowd. Fish where the fish are relatively undisturbed. Take chances, go where you haven't been before. Fish that haven't been rowed over and cast to every hour of the day are much more likely to eat your fly!
Comments
Post a Comment