You just never know 'til you go.

Took the obligatory once a week drive to the UEB.  At 2:00 this afternoon there was but one fisherman between East Branch and the Corbett Bridge. Never saw a bug on the water or a fish rise. 

Strange as it may sound after dealing with 90+ degree heat all week, I felt, with the heavy overcast, that the water up in Deposit would be too cold to get the sulfurs hatching, so I looked downstream for warmer water and bugs. Found them both along with rising fish from 3:00 until 9:00. 

After yesterdays dismal one fish performance, it felt good to get my mojo back. Aside from hooking  an olive into the back of my raincoat, a sulfur into my right cheek and stabbing myself in the hand with the needle like fastener of the zinger when it tried to escape from my vest, everything went my way. Put the raincoat over the fishing vest for a change (good decision) and was warm and comfortable all day. It rained for all but about an hour of the time I was in the water but it was a fisherman's rain, a light drizzle with no downpours, hail, wind, lightning or thunder. Only two boats went past me and I saw but one fisherman, a river friend Mike, who wasn't even fishing. Mikes been on the river longer than I have and we are both a tad bit hard of hearing. Our attempts to converse with the river noise make a strong case for everyone learning sign language. We usually both point to our ears, shrug our shoulders, smile and go back to fishing.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, the river (WB) has more fish in it than I've ever seen. Some days you pick the roses, some days you get stuck by the thorns but every day is a chance to have good things happen and today was one of the good ones. 

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

Don't let that that rain come down.

 My South Holston river friend, (one of only two people who will fish with me), (the other is currently on injured reserve), is up for a visit (he brought his boat) and today we floated. There might have been some question about where we chose to float (no one else launched where we did), but we enjoyed the fact that we never saw another fisherman, let alone another boat, on the river all day. The weatherman might well have gilded the lily a bit when he predicted a chance of showers and a high temp of sixty degrees. It rained all day, and the temperature peaked at fifty three degrees. When I read the forecast for the rest of Mark's stay (rain for the next four days) I was thankful that we got in the day that we did today.  How was our day? We sucked it up, paid an extra $5.00 to launch (didn't have the proper change), parked in the wrong place (got a note from the owner where we put in), never made it to the predetermined takeout place, and had a delightful day counting bugs (...
Read more