It wasn't a total washout afterall.


Spent over an hour in the early afternoon tying iso duns and emergers for a renewed assault on the big river 'bows.  Just as I was finishing up at the tying bench, a bolt of lightning and clap of thunder put my plans on hold.  The grounds crew was quick to roll out the tarps so the infield is dry.  If it stops raining we'll try to get the game in.

3:00 pm.  The weather radar doesn't look good and the current prediction is for the rain to continue until eight thirty tonight.

5:45 pm. When the thunder and lightning were but a memory it continued to rain - hard.  It wasn't until after six that the rain let up enough for me to drive down to the river for a look.  The river was up but clear.  The fog was too thick to see anything from shore so I suited up and waded out.  The isos  must have waited for the rain to let up as there were a good many on the water  long after the hatch should have been over.  The fish on the far side of the river (well out of my reach) were chasing nymphs with splashy rises while my side of the river had isos floating by me with no fish on them.

Had a nice rainbow eat a blind cast, sit still for a full minute, and then take off straight downstream without stopping until 50 feet of backing was off the reel. It turned out to be a fat 15 incher.  Spent an hour trying unsuccessfully to reach the fish on the far side before calling it quits.  Was wading back to the car when a fish rose and refused my iso.  Put on a spinner that was ignored and then tried a cahill.  The fish came up slowly, ate the fly and and settled back down and didn't move.  It was not a spectacular fight but a long one. The fish never moved fifty feet from where he was hooked but he didn't come within netting distance for a long time.

Big river browns this time of year are seldom caught on dries, and this 20 incher  didn't like posing for the "fish of the day" photo one bit.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All my life's a circle.

  Headed down to the Lordville Estate about nine this morning after watching a nice buck decide  not to tend the scrape I was perched above. Drove through Deposit where the Troutfitter Shop was dark and closed for the season. My fishing equipment did not make the trip. Had far too many things to do in the few hours of daylight we are currently being allotted. The doe with two fawns was in the backyard when I arrived and was joined by the orphaned button buck who spends his time either bedded down in my flower garden or walking around under the peach trees looking for the peaches he grew so fond of in September. Arrived with a trailer full of wood hitched to Jean's car (it has the trailer hitch) and spent the first hour replenishing the wood I burned this season. As if by magic both wood piles topped out just below the garage windows. Was interrupted by the button buck who walked up between the house and the garage and stood watching the wood stacking operation. A river friend and f
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

A rational explanation escapes me.

 Yesterday after driving up and down the "Sulfur Zone" in the afternoon without seeing bugs or rising fish, I headed back to Lordville without even putting my waders on. Headed out again at 6:00, got into the river around 6:30 and had two hours of delightful dry fly fishing to medium sized fish eating duns in a good sulfur hatch. Today, I made the trip up to deposit at about 1:30 figuring the cloud cover would delay the hatch (if any), it did, but by 2:30 the afternoon sulfurs were going and the fish were up and on them. Enjoyed about two hours of good fishing with four decent fish hooked and landed, two yearlings landed and a passel of refusals. About 4:30 the rise forms changed to boils and my fly was ignored. Tried half a dozen flies without so much as a look from the still feeding fish. Was happy with the afternoon fishing, (a big step up from Sunday), and at 5:00 it was too late to drive all the way back to Lordville. Decided to get something at Wendy's (calorie capi
Read more