If you plan on catching fish on Drakes - bring your "A" game.
Left camp at 5:15 this morning to take my wife to the airport. She's headed to Florida to watch one of our grandkids play in a volleyball tournament. Drove through a torrential rainstorm that passed just to the north of the river's drainage basin. At our house gutters over flowed and the window wells in the cellar filled with water which found it's way into our basement. A second storm hit Syracuse while I was trying to shop for this weeks provisions. Figured there was no way I'd be able to fish for the next two weeks. When I saw that the rivers hadn't risen, I called Dave at the Troutfitter in Deposit. He said, "It hasn't rained here".
Packed the car and headed down. Arrived streamside about 7:00 and found a fog enshrouded but unoccupied pool on the UE. It was about 150 CFS higher than yesterday and wading was dicey. When you stand in one spot and it keeps getting deeper because the gravel is being washed out from under your feet - it's time to call a timeout.
There were a mix of bugs on the water with fish eating them. However, the fish eating duns with reckless abandon the last three days had been replaced by fish who looked carefully at each fly. If it didn't flutter it's wings and try to fly, it didn't get eaten. Most of the "rises" were fish that were eating emerging nymphs. Hooked but three fish and landed two. It took a long time to land a fish in the heavy water as there was no way to walk back to shore to get them out of the current. By about 8:00 the fog had thickened and the hatch had subsided. With no spinners visible to the naked eye, I left.
Drove over to the BK "just for a look". The Bk is a little high but fishable. Walked along the shore of a long pool and saw but one fish rise. Was able to get her to eat.
Drove a lot of miles today, after going through two rainstorms the car looks like it has been to the car wash, the fish feeding in the UE drake hatch are now nobody's fools and - if 30 years ago- I had a day where I caught three trout 16, 17 and 18 inches long I'd have danced for joy and thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
Packed the car and headed down. Arrived streamside about 7:00 and found a fog enshrouded but unoccupied pool on the UE. It was about 150 CFS higher than yesterday and wading was dicey. When you stand in one spot and it keeps getting deeper because the gravel is being washed out from under your feet - it's time to call a timeout.
There were a mix of bugs on the water with fish eating them. However, the fish eating duns with reckless abandon the last three days had been replaced by fish who looked carefully at each fly. If it didn't flutter it's wings and try to fly, it didn't get eaten. Most of the "rises" were fish that were eating emerging nymphs. Hooked but three fish and landed two. It took a long time to land a fish in the heavy water as there was no way to walk back to shore to get them out of the current. By about 8:00 the fog had thickened and the hatch had subsided. With no spinners visible to the naked eye, I left.
Drove over to the BK "just for a look". The Bk is a little high but fishable. Walked along the shore of a long pool and saw but one fish rise. Was able to get her to eat.
Drove a lot of miles today, after going through two rainstorms the car looks like it has been to the car wash, the fish feeding in the UE drake hatch are now nobody's fools and - if 30 years ago- I had a day where I caught three trout 16, 17 and 18 inches long I'd have danced for joy and thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
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