The show is in Deposit today!
Spent Sunday touring the river system with my wife. After a week of fishing the "day off" wasn't a bad thing. Drove west along Cannonsville reservoir and came out at Stilesville. For the first time this year the wade fishermen clearly outnumbered the drift boaters on the WB. At the current level of 700 CFS the upper river can be waded and/or floated.
The bugs were phenomenal with both Hendricksons and apple caddis covering the water. There were rising fish everywhere! If you can get a pass for Monday, be on the WB somewhere above the Hale Eddy bridge. It's the closest thing to a "dead cert" that the river system will ever offer. With the year long period of high water the fish were spread out and rising everywhere.
Drove over to the UE expecting to see a similar scene but didn't. It may have happened before our arrival but we didn't see rising fish. Long flat and powerline had a good number of anglers but the blitz of flies was lacking.
The BK, BE and BD were quite a different story. No bugs,no risers but lots of fishermen on the BK. The BE and BR had no bugs, and almost no boats or wade fishermen. The doldrums seem to be lasting forever. Talked to the guide of a boat that floated the BR in hopes of running into the first sulfurs - he didn't.
It's a strange spring. Things in nature usually follow a well defined order. Last year the toads sang mid June, this year it was the 20th of May. Ragged robin (that pink flower that blooms in profusion along the shoulders of route 17) is the precursor of the green drake hatch and is in full bloom everywhere. I have yet to see the dragon flies that hatch a few days before the drakes and fly up and down the river feeding on the hapless mayflies. Sometime soon the streamside grass will be covered with stoneflies and the sulfurs and drakes will be floating down the river into the mouths of feeding trout.
Until then spend your time up near Deposit.
The bugs were phenomenal with both Hendricksons and apple caddis covering the water. There were rising fish everywhere! If you can get a pass for Monday, be on the WB somewhere above the Hale Eddy bridge. It's the closest thing to a "dead cert" that the river system will ever offer. With the year long period of high water the fish were spread out and rising everywhere.
Drove over to the UE expecting to see a similar scene but didn't. It may have happened before our arrival but we didn't see rising fish. Long flat and powerline had a good number of anglers but the blitz of flies was lacking.
The BK, BE and BD were quite a different story. No bugs,no risers but lots of fishermen on the BK. The BE and BR had no bugs, and almost no boats or wade fishermen. The doldrums seem to be lasting forever. Talked to the guide of a boat that floated the BR in hopes of running into the first sulfurs - he didn't.
It's a strange spring. Things in nature usually follow a well defined order. Last year the toads sang mid June, this year it was the 20th of May. Ragged robin (that pink flower that blooms in profusion along the shoulders of route 17) is the precursor of the green drake hatch and is in full bloom everywhere. I have yet to see the dragon flies that hatch a few days before the drakes and fly up and down the river feeding on the hapless mayflies. Sometime soon the streamside grass will be covered with stoneflies and the sulfurs and drakes will be floating down the river into the mouths of feeding trout.
Until then spend your time up near Deposit.
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