The rules keep changing.

Four days ago in my "killin' time" posting  I said that with the warm spill water, hatches would be restricted to the last hour before dark.  Also said that any tricos or ants would likely go uneaten at "current water levels" which on the big river was at 8,000CFS. Well, welcome to the Delaware. The spills have stopped, the water is very cold throughout the system and there are olive and steno hatches in the middle of the afternoon.  As for the ants - I don't know if the trout would have come up in 8,000CFS to eat them when I wrote the article but they had no problem slurping them down tonight in 3,500 CFS.

After two days of limited wading in the WB, I opted for the "ideal" wading conditions being offered by the BK.  It was like fishing in early May (without the Hendricksons) or any other bugs for that matter.  In about two hours of fishing I never saw a bug or a rise except to my fly.  Rose four fish, hooked two (one a good one) and lost them both.

On to the UEB, with the now ice cold water there were olives and stenos on the water at 3:15.  There were also rising fish (lots of them) unfortunately they were all 1.5 year olds.  In two and a half hours of fishing, I hooked lots of fish but never one over 12 inches.  It was pretty much the same on the WB the last two days with the majority of fish being of the 2017 year class.

Left the UEB about 6:00 and worked my way down the BE looking for bugs and risers and finding neither.  What I did see in the sunlit areas near Hancock were flying ants.  Stopped at Cadosia but the water was too choppy to see either ants or risers. Drove over to Junction Pool and saw rising fish.  At 3500 CFS you can get in but you can't get out very far.  You didn't need to, there were rising fish in easy casting range feeding on what else, ANTS.  Small ones, they were so small even God couldn't tie one on a hook.  It really didn't matter what size they were because my ant box was back at camp.  Threw at ant slurping fish until 8:15.  Got two refusals, one take and a whole bunch of ignores.

 My ant and trico boxes are on the table next to my car keys and will be in my vest tomorrow..

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

IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK HOME AGAIN!

 It's Wednesday night, a fire is going in the fire place, an empty Perfect Manhattan glass is washed and back up on the shelf, 30 shrimp netted from Zane Gray Creek ((did you know that Zane Gray (famous fly fisherman and writer of westerns) was a dentist and that his office is now a museum that you can visit on the Delaware River?)), have been consumed by Jean and me, prior to the three pieces of venison backstrap that traveled from home to Florida and back, an early spring snowstorm is raging outside and most importantly, we're glad to be back home again! With that season opening sentence, Mrs. Haskins has no doubt thrown in the towel and disavowed all responsibility for my literary malfunctions. Run on sentences she could handle, but my never before attempted "double aside" was apparently beyond the pall. I sent her a "Go Duke" banner with apologies and hopefully she will cool off before the fishing heats up. Our trip back home was uneventful. Started at 2
Read more