Picked up a "White gloved howdy" spinner off the water above Hale Eddy tonight.

The fishing report need not be long.  The sun came out about noon and dried the grass, which needed cutting.  Made my departure from camp of 3:15 about two hours too late.  With every drift boat east of the Mississippi fishing between Balls Eddy and Callicoon it was an easy decision to fish the river with the most fish and fewest fishermen (the WB).  Found only one car in the coveted two car slot on the upper WB and promptly stopped there.  Found fish going on a mix of Cornuta, sulfurs, olives, caddis and possibly a Hendrickson or two. Fished from four until the first shower at 5:15.  Did good.

The rain, heavy at times, lasted until 7:00.  Moved downstream (still above Hale Eddy), waited for the rain to stop and the fog to begin (they both did). Fished from seven until nine and landed three fish none bigger than 10 inches. Of note: last time I fished there 17 boats went by me.  This time one boat and three wade anglers who had walked up from Hale Eddy to Dream Catchers and were walking back. The rain shut everything down, no bugs and no risers.

This morning I did the stat work on April and May.  April finished 8th out of 28 in number of fish caught. May finished tied for seventh .  Number of fish over 17 inches was well within norms as was the % of fish over 17 inches (30%).  Caught a large number of 19 inchers last year but it hasn't translate into a larger than normal number of 20 inchers so far this year.  There is a very large year class of two year olds especially browns.  2018 was the wettest summer I can remember on the Delaware and perhaps the high water made the work of predators more difficult.

Tip of the cap to Ed Smith for his prompt and correct answer to the question:  Who sang - "Just a dream, just a dream"?  It was Jimmy Clanton.  The more serious question is where did I ever come up with Ersel Hickey?  I swear, if I ever knew his name it was not given a thought in the last 60 years!  Yet when I wondered who sang Just a dream, just a dream his name popped right up. Had to google him to see if he really was a person and yes he was a rockabilly artist with the hit "Blue birds over the Mountain".  Just so you know, people who searched Ersel Hickey also searched Werly Fairburn. Not a word of a lie. I'll stop now. 

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