Lester's rock, pool.

Today I ventured downstream on the BR, the water has been in the 50s and reports I've heard, say there are fish throughout the river from junction pool to Callicoon. Got in the water about 2:45, just in time for a drift boat to appear up river from me. The guide had to walk the boat down through the riff due to the shallow water.  Asked him how they were doing and he said they had already caught fish upriver.  He was very courteous, fishing from the far side of the pool and rowed down river without doing serious damage to my fishing. 

The fishing - There were some isos and pseudos hatching with a few splashy risers chasing iso nymphs. Hooked a couple of fish on isos but got enough refusals to let me know that if I wanted to catch fish I'd have to fish a different fly.  In the quieter part of the pool there were fish sipping something from the surface. Stared at the water for a couple of minutes and saw several ants float by.  Tied on one of my new irresistible winged black ants and for the next half hour cast at the sippers without so much as a look. Finally put on my smallest pseudo made one cast and hooked a fish.  He came unstuck and I cast at the other risers for another half hour without even getting a sniff.  The wind was blowing downstream at a gusty 10 mph so finesse was not part of the arsenal but the fish were just plain tough.  When the sun finally went behind the trees and the wind died down, I saw few stenos float down the river and disappear into a surface swirl.  For half an hour my steno was a fish magnet.  Unfortunately hooking fish and landing them are two different things.  Had no trouble landing the 11/13 inchers but the big guys did a number on me.  Two got the line pinched by a rock (with the rivers this low it's a common occurrence) and broke me off, I chased one big fish a hundred yards downstream before he came unstuck not twenty five feet in front of me.  He might have been foul hooked but if so it was somewhere up front as when he tired I could turn him, a really nice rainbow.  The other escapees just came undone. My landing percentage was around 33% and I never uttered a single (well maybe one) sh---t. 

It was "like it use to be",  just a fisherman and the fish.  A lot of fish won but I wouldn't swap today for my best day this year at the red barn during the sulfur hatch.   

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