Posts

Showing posts from October 3, 2021

Warm weather, beautiful foliage and reduced releases, what's not to like?

 Drove down with the same plan as last week, mow the lawn, watch SU football and North Florida women's volleyball and fish tomorrow. Funny thing happened. The SU game was on ESPN2 so You Tube didn't have it and neither did ESPN+.  At 3:30 I got in the car and headed east to the Willow which was at least fishable. Saw lots of fishermen but nary a bug or a rise.  At 4:30 I was in the car heading for the the UEB where at 900cfs you can wade out in some places far enough to make a back cast. Arrived at one of those places at the same time as a drift boat (the only one I saw on the UEB). They were great and floated down to the deeper part of the pool where I had no chance of wading.  There were bugs (pseudos) and rising fish when I got there and they weren't all that fussy about what they ate. Hooked half a dozen and landed four all wild and between 12 and 15 inches within a half an hour and then everything came to a screeching halt. There were still some bugs on the wate...

One and done - - again.

It doesn't really matter much what the weather forecast says, if the rivers get anywhere near a safe and potentially productive wading level, you just know it's gonna rain.  Woke up this morning and stepped outside to see if I could hear Humphries Brook roaring. If it's making noise you know you're done.  It wasn't too bad.  Looked up the BK flow and it was in the 800s and the rain had stopped. Maybe, just maybe I could fish the Willow again.  By 11:00 all hope was gone. It got black as the night and the rain came down steady and heavy for hours. At my last look the BK was heading for 3,000cfs and the BR out back is once again brownish orange and a rising.  Took an hour this morning to tie the last flies of the season.  Had to replace the pseudos that were either left in fish or were rendered useless by the removal of tiny hooks from head shaking mouths. That done I mothballed my feathers and finished cleaning up the fly tying room. Spent the afternoon...

It was well worth the wait.

With the water levels dropping and the grass growing I got up early Saturday and drove down to the fishing camp. Knew that I wouldn't be fishing as I had to mow the lawn and then wanted to watch Syracuse  play Florida State in football and North Florida (our grandaughter's team) play FGCU in women's volleyball.  The games were streamed back to back from 3:30 until almost 10:00. Both exciting, closely contested games but both SU and NF lost. Today just had to be better. Spent the morning crossing things off the shut down list. (FYI I did get the screens put away and the storms put up during timeouts and half time of the SU game). The BK water level dropped below 500cfs during the night, and with cloudy overcast skies and a promise of light afternoon rain I was hopeful of some good olive action. Stopped at the BK first and with only a very few pseudos in sight, fished an iso emerger. Got half a dozen refusals, and hooked and lost three rainbows. Headed up river and when I fou...