Sometimes it all comes together.

 If you want to talk about perfect days for a wade fisherman to be on the river this was one of them.  The water temps were ideal.  The flow levels make wading easy (not so for the floater/draggers).  The wind was negligible. The isos hatched more or less on schedule.  There were fish in the pools and they ate.

 The forecast doesn't include clouds or rain for the next few days and that will probably change things on the WB and BR.  With the BR about 800 CFS at Lordville and 700 CFS at Callicoon???, changes are coming. The minimum flow at Montague is not being met when the Wallenpaupack power plant isn't running and the shortfall has to be made up by releases from Cannonsville. There was already a "minimum flow" release but more are sure to come and they may well be much larger than the 500 CFS we just had.  Best advice, look at the Stilesville release before starting out so you know what you are getting into on the WB and BR.

Back to the fishing.  After river hopping to the extreme yesterday, today's first stop hit the jackpot.  The car sat where it was from 2:15 until 6:15.  I ended up fishing three freestone stream pools that all had fish in them.  Two of the pools had not been fished recently and I found the fish ready, willing and able to eat an iso.  The third pool had more fish but had obviously been fished.  Got refusals on the iso and did a lot of fly changing to try and fool the fish there.  Never saw a boat or another wade angler all day.

If you are willing to walk (and maybe see no bugs or fish) sometimes  the rewards make you forget about the times when all you have to talk about is the eagle that flew by or the bear that crossed the river just downstream from where you were fishing. Today I saw two eagles (one out the camp window this morning), no bears and a lot of fish willing to eat flies on the end of a string.               

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All my life's a circle.

  Headed down to the Lordville Estate about nine this morning after watching a nice buck decide  not to tend the scrape I was perched above. Drove through Deposit where the Troutfitter Shop was dark and closed for the season. My fishing equipment did not make the trip. Had far too many things to do in the few hours of daylight we are currently being allotted. The doe with two fawns was in the backyard when I arrived and was joined by the orphaned button buck who spends his time either bedded down in my flower garden or walking around under the peach trees looking for the peaches he grew so fond of in September. Arrived with a trailer full of wood hitched to Jean's car (it has the trailer hitch) and spent the first hour replenishing the wood I burned this season. As if by magic both wood piles topped out just below the garage windows. Was interrupted by the button buck who walked up between the house and the garage and stood watching the wood stacking operation. A river friend and f
Read more

IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK HOME AGAIN!

 It's Wednesday night, a fire is going in the fire place, an empty Perfect Manhattan glass is washed and back up on the shelf, 30 shrimp netted from Zane Gray Creek ((did you know that Zane Gray (famous fly fisherman and writer of westerns) was a dentist and that his office is now a museum that you can visit on the Delaware River?)), have been consumed by Jean and me, prior to the three pieces of venison backstrap that traveled from home to Florida and back, an early spring snowstorm is raging outside and most importantly, we're glad to be back home again! With that season opening sentence, Mrs. Haskins has no doubt thrown in the towel and disavowed all responsibility for my literary malfunctions. Run on sentences she could handle, but my never before attempted "double aside" was apparently beyond the pall. I sent her a "Go Duke" banner with apologies and hopefully she will cool off before the fishing heats up. Our trip back home was uneventful. Started at 2
Read more

A rational explanation escapes me.

 Yesterday after driving up and down the "Sulfur Zone" in the afternoon without seeing bugs or rising fish, I headed back to Lordville without even putting my waders on. Headed out again at 6:00, got into the river around 6:30 and had two hours of delightful dry fly fishing to medium sized fish eating duns in a good sulfur hatch. Today, I made the trip up to deposit at about 1:30 figuring the cloud cover would delay the hatch (if any), it did, but by 2:30 the afternoon sulfurs were going and the fish were up and on them. Enjoyed about two hours of good fishing with four decent fish hooked and landed, two yearlings landed and a passel of refusals. About 4:30 the rise forms changed to boils and my fly was ignored. Tried half a dozen flies without so much as a look from the still feeding fish. Was happy with the afternoon fishing, (a big step up from Sunday), and at 5:00 it was too late to drive all the way back to Lordville. Decided to get something at Wendy's (calorie capi
Read more