A tale of three rivers.

Today would have been a great day to have my wanderings around the river system on film just to show those of you who still go to your "spot" every time you visit the Delaware just what you are missing.

The AM trip was to the BE.  Water temp was 66 when I got there at 9:00 and 67.8 when I left two hours later.  The entire time I was there there were fish feeding like crazy sub surface with hard splashy rises.  What were they eating?  Well the water was covered with one of the best olive spinner falls I've ever seen.  Never saw one eaten.  In the two hours I fished I got two very indignant refusals one on an iso and one on a Cornuta. That was it.  Every cast was aimed at a fish and there were dozens of them, not a sniff. Maybe there were olive spinners that had been washed subsurface by the riff upstream, maybe they were eating some kind of fry that was moving downstream. Obviously I didn't have a clue but it was sure amazing to see so many fish feeding.  BE water temp hit 75 this afternoon and the fish will probably be headed for junction pool sometime tonight.

The midday trip (1:30 to 4:00) was to the UEB  to follow up on a successful trip yesterday when there were enough of the spring sulfurs to get fish up and feeding (I did well). Today I fished the next pool upstream.  There was bright unrelenting sun, the bugs called in sick, a few showed but there weren't enough to get the fish gulping. The fish were in no mood to be fooled with, one cast put them down. It was a zero, the one 10 incher that took pity on me and ate, came off as I was reaching for him with the net.

Tonight I headed west and fished above Hale Eddy on the WB. Drove up river above where I was going to fish and did a boat count (zero), also saw zero rising fish but the boat number was too good to pass up. Got in the water about 7:00 and saw neither bugs nor risers for a good half hour. Picked up an iso and several of the spring sulfurs and put them in my little plastic box to use as tying samples. Noted that the water had lots of sulfur nymph husks (a spinner fall was in the cards, no doubt). With the sun hitting just the top half of the hills on the east side of the river a few fish began to feed. Not enough bugs to get them gulping but if I was near enough to cast they ate. Unfortunately they also came unstuck (four of the first five). The bugs never got going good, the spinners never showed up at all, but the fish were hungry and most liked my fly.  Was busy until dark with the last fish being the saddest most pathetic twenty inch fish I have ever seen. Jim V. if you're reading, I saw the rise and cast into the black water with a sulfur, knew the cast was on line but couldn't see the dam fly to save my life.  When the fish rose I pulled.

Tomorrow, I need to thin out the peaches, will do two trips, max. Hopefully one will have fish willing to eat flies that have hooks in them.  

    


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