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. 

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