Averaging down.

Spent the morning working around the camp.  Migrating birds have begun showing up. The male bluebird returned last week and Saturday he was showing his house to a prospective mate.  The tree swallows showed up yesterday and started fighting over the other nesting boxes. Purple finches finally appeared at the feeder (they were at the feeder in Lafayette last week). It's early days but buds are swelling and the grass is starting to grow.

Got two reports from reliable sources of olives and rising fish on the West Branch Saturday. Drove up the West Branch and stopped at a friends house on the river to say hello and see if I could spot any risers.  There were four fishermen in sight with a good fish rising twenty feet behind two of the fishermen who were busy talking. Left the four fishermen and drove downstream.

Stopped at the lower game land parking lot where there were no cars and walked down to the river.  There were a few olives and there were several risers in the big slow water pool. Hiked downstream and got shots a four fish that were cruising around looking for olives. One ate my fly, one said no and the other two ignored my offerings.  At this time of year you can't expect to string together two days like I had Saturday.

With Cannonsville spilling, the water was up to 1200 cfs, there was a sneaky draft that wrinkled the water (the fish don't like that - they can't see the eagles), and even though the air temp was warmer there was no sun to heat the water.  Don't know if any of those factors put a damper on the fish's feeding - maybe they just took Sunday off.


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

Don't let that that rain come down.

 My South Holston river friend, (one of only two people who will fish with me), (the other is currently on injured reserve), is up for a visit (he brought his boat) and today we floated. There might have been some question about where we chose to float (no one else launched where we did), but we enjoyed the fact that we never saw another fisherman, let alone another boat, on the river all day. The weatherman might well have gilded the lily a bit when he predicted a chance of showers and a high temp of sixty degrees. It rained all day, and the temperature peaked at fifty three degrees. When I read the forecast for the rest of Mark's stay (rain for the next four days) I was thankful that we got in the day that we did today.  How was our day? We sucked it up, paid an extra $5.00 to launch (didn't have the proper change), parked in the wrong place (got a note from the owner where we put in), never made it to the predetermined takeout place, and had a delightful day counting bugs (...
Read more