It's not always bad to be in the right place for the wrong reason.

With sunshine and an air temp in the 70's there would be no pseudos on the freestones this afternoon (if they didn't hatch with cloudy skies and 57 degree water yesterday, they certainly wouldn't hatch in 60 degree water today). Headed for the UEB, which with 700 cfs of 44 degree water being released from Pepacton has the only temps suitable for pseudo hatching in the system. 

Arrived at 2:00 to find both pseudos' and rising fish in an "A" pool with no fishermen in sight. Geared up and waded in and for the next three hours had good bugs and rising fish. The fish were fussy and were eating both just under the surface and on top. Surprisingly 2/3s of the fish I landed were rainbows. The two biggest fish were 19 inch holdover hatchery browns. One gave a good account of himself while the other came in like that wool hunting sock full of water I've talked about before. At 5:15 there were still bugs on the water but the fish just plain stopped eating.  Reeled it in and headed for the car to carry out the second half of my plan for today.

Five thirty found me driving east on Rte 17 towards Roscoe.  Thought maybe the bugs would hatch late on the freestones due to the summer like air and water temps. Alas, they didn't. Two anglers were leaving as I walked down to the river.  Stood on the bank and saw nary a rise.  It was too late to go anywhere else so I waded in. It was at least a half hour before I saw a quiet sip.  The fish came to my cast and said no. As fish rose I changed flies (smaller and smaller) until finally one impaled himself under the chin while refusing the fly. By the time I got the fish unhooked there were several fish rising. Saw a few (very few) spinners above the water and put on a trico spinner. It wasn't the right spinner but it was the smallest one I had. The fish ate it, willingly. There weren't a lot of spinners and apparently they were hungry. Ended up having enough fish eat the spinner in about half an hour to come within one fish of equaling my three hour afternoon total (all of the spinner eating fish were 12/14 inches long and hatchery born).

One note in passing - there were stenos (yes Cahill's) on the UEB and some of them were being eaten. Put one on several times when I had fish rising in front of me, had two takes (lost 'em both) and a refusal.  

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