Love the Big River.

Arrived at camp about noon and elected to take care of chores around camp rather than heading out fishing in the midday sun. With water temps lower than they have been in weeks the upper pools of the BR were in play and I fished there hoping to find Epherons (white flies) and or Isos.

Epherons are a warm water loving fly that hatches, molts, mates and dies all in the hour just after sunset. The hatches can be prolific but are dependant on the water during the summer being quite warm. The hatch on some rivers can be so thick that you can't see your fishing partner standing across the river from you. I've seen them on the BR at Junction pool in modest numbers and on the lower river near Callicoon in numbers that could sink a boat. I saw none tonight.

What I did see were a few Isos. There is a big hatch of them usually around Memorial Day and then they hatch sporadically during June and July. Sometimes in August there is a second hatch of them that gets the fish up top feeding. Isos are fished so much as an attractor fly (like the March Brown) that trout have learned to look at every iso carefully. If it ain't hoppin and fluttering its wings they let it float right by. They do, however, lie at the top of riffs and savagely attack the rapidly swimming iso nymphs.

The fishing- As I said there were a few Isos (saw maybe a couple of dozen). Some of the fish turned up their nose at my isos, others, that perhaps haven't eaten one with a hook in it lately thought mine looked just fine. A nineteen inch brown beat a beautifully colored male rainbow of 18 inches for fish of the day.

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