A better place to be (waist deep in a tailwater when the temp is 90 plus).

 The best part of fishing today was just standing in the sub fifty degree water and no, I didn't feel a bit sorry for the guys frying in their the drift boats.  Stopped in Deposit at about 11:30 on the way down to see if the midday sulfurs had gotten going (they hadn't). Drove to Lordville, unloaded the car, tied some sulfurs, had lunch and drove back up the river to Deposit. There was very little evidence of either rising fish or hatching bugs so I circled the wagon and drove River Road back down to Hale Eddy and Rte.17 back up to Deposit. Saw a pod of half a dozen really nice fish sipping something I couldn't see with my binoculars.  Jason, you missed it, they were almost at the end of your driveway. It would have been a half mile walk upstream in waders with the car showing a temp of 95 for me to fish them.  I passed.  

The fishing - It was not hard to find an empty pool at 3:30.  There was a mix of spring and summer sulfurs hatching and occasional splashy rises of fish eating the emerging pupas.  In three hours of fishing I didn't see more than a half dozen duns eaten. There are a lot of fish in the river, Most ignored my offerings, quite a few looked at my fly and said no thanks and a few ate it (some of which I lost). If I were to give the 3:30 to 6:30 session a grade it would be a C minus.

The grand finale - Based on last week I was confidant that the evening fishing would more than make up for the slow afternoon. Silly me. Forgot about "The Surge". This is the third year that surges have been sent down the WB on hot days to insure that the water temp at Lordville doesn't exceed 75 degrees. It is a great program. In two plus years only one day did the temp at Lordville exceed 75 (got to 76). It provides the big river fish a cold water refuge where the temp stays below lethal levels.  Today the BK and the BE both went above 80 degrees.  Callicoon reached 82. The program increases the trout carrying capacity of the BR by multiples. But, it screws up the fishing in the upper reaches of the WB on afternoons and evenings when surges are needed down river. What to do?  Minor surges like the release Saturday may even help fishing. Big releases like Sundays probably shut things down. Today's release was ok until the sun got off the water and then it shut things down. I'm old and forgot about the release, should have gotten in the car at 6:30 and driven down river far enough (say the game lands) to not be effected by it. Instead I chose to fish a pool in Deposit, the summer sulfurs started to come, the fish started to feed and then things just shut down. Will try to do better tomorrow. 

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

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