Snuck in another day.

The rain last night didn't help wade fishermen one little bit.  When I first looked this morning the Hale Eddy gage was at 2,400 cfs which is well above my cut off point for wading the WB.  The rain had stopped sometime before 5:00 this morning and I watched the Oquaga gage go steadily down.  By about 9:00 the Hale Eddy gage was also dropping rapidly.  When I left the house at noon the Hale Eddy gage was only 140 cfs above my go level. I went. Surely by the time I got in the river it would be down to 2,000 cfs. Funny thing, the top of the big block of old concrete that sits in the water where I enter was only out of water by about an inch.  Yesterday a good four inches were showing.

The bugs:  Wow!!!  Never saw so many kinds of caddis hatching in such big numbers, from the time I arrived at about 12:30 until I left at 5:30 the surface of the water was just covered with them. Badly outnumbered but trying hard were the mayflies, with tiny olives, paraleps and Hendricksons all trying to find surface area between the caddis to dry their wings. 

The fishing: Started slow but when the Hendricksons came, the fish ate and they ate until the Hendricksons stopped.  Never saw a fish eat a caddis off of the surface.  Fished a Hendrickson all day and did just fine.  Got some indignant refusals from fish I hooked yesterday, but had fish to throw at from 1:30 'till I reeled it in.  The caught fish were a bit smaller than yesterday's but a 19 incher was fish of the day, nosing out two other browns both over 18.

The wading: Interesting.  Yesterday, at 1,900 cfs, I was at all times very comfortable wading. Today at what I thought was about 2,100 cfs, I wasn't comfortable at all.  Retreated from a couple of places where I easily reached fish yesterday, had more trouble wading across a run of fast water and just couldn't get close enough to reach a couple of bank sippers I cast at yesterday. Then I noticed some old canes from last years knotweed floating by (a sure sign of rising water).  Looked over where the old chunk of concrete had been sticking out of the water a couple of hours earlier and it was gone!  I knew they were testing the valves on the reservoir and I checked the Stilesville release just before I left to fish (it was unchanged) but as soon as I left the camp they cranked up the release by about 700 cfs. When I left the river I was wading in about 2,600 cfs! Anyone thinking about wade fishing the Delaware system tomorrow best think again.   

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