And the thunder rolled - - -

With the yard still wet from last nights rain I was unable to cross the yardwork items off my to-do list. Copied some flies that appeared on my screens last night and at about 1:30, loaded up the trash and headed for the transfer station. Figured as long as I was on the road I might as well see if anything was going on. It was.

First bridge I walked out on had sulfurs flying all around it with fish rising as far as I could see. It's Friday before the long Fourth of July weekend and at 2:00 pm people were already here, lots of them.  Two couples were gearing up and one fisherman was walking down the shore.  The two couples never got far from the bridge and the fisherman walked way downstream leaving me lots of room (and fish).  The ONLY complaint I had was that the sun kept coming out. There were fish (more than you can imagine), that were eating sulfurs (on top) and there were lots of sulfurs. When the clouds ruled there were fish up everywhere, when the sun was king the fish bowed and stopped eating. The hatch lasted until four and then everything just shut down.

Drove around looking for more  rising fish but saw only fishermen. Finally found an unoccupied piece of water and waded in. In two hours I saw: two men on the bank who gave me a thumbs up when I caught a couple fish blind casting and two guys who waded upstream in the middle of the river right into the water I was fishing.  They were done fishing and never gave a thought to anything but their loud conversation and taking the shortest route back to their car.  There is no gilding the lily, there are just as many rude waders as there are driftboaters.

At 6:00 I was back in the car looking for a place to fish.  Took a while to sink in that it was (a) Friday and (b) Fourth of July weekend. Fishermen and pontoon boats everywhere.  Contemplated calling it quits and heading back to the LVE but stayed on 17 and drove up to Upper East Branch. Arrived about 7:00 and had no trouble finding an empty pool.  From seven until about 8:30 the only thing I had to do was count the seconds between lightning flashes and thunder. There were neither bugs nor risers. With a marked increase in both the lightning and thunder (found out on the way home that the increase was fireworks at East Branch), I was ready to reel it in when a couple fish started to rise. There were 0 bugs hatching and only a few spinners on the water. Put on a spinner and hooked a beautiful 18 inch rainbow that was no doubt using the UEB as a thermal refuge. With the fish landed and lightning flashing in the sky I washed off my net and headed for the car.

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