What you need to know - before you go.

 With the weekend coming up, thought it might be helpful to try to bring you up to date on river conditions. The freestones (BR, BK and BE) have all had Hendricksons for over a week. The Apple Caddis are hatching throughout the BE and I assume on the BR.  I haven't seen them on the BK.

When the spills stopped on the UEB and the WB the water temps plunged and the hatches slowed. The reservoirs are now below the lip of the spillways enough that NYC will almost certainly begin to reduce the releases and when they do there will be a bug explosion on both the UEB and WB.

The fishing - The BK and EB went from easy pickin's to - Why won't they eat my Hendrickson?, in less than a week. Why? The drift boats give no fish a free pass, they are all within reach. By last Saturday most of the fish I was catching had hook marks in their mouth.  By Monday the fish were reluctant to eat a Hendrickson. If you are fortunate enough to be on the UEB or WB "when it happens", it should be great fishing. If, however, you are a few days late, expect to earn every fish.

The bugs - There are still paraleps. Don't be afraid to use them. Hendrickson shy fish will switch back to paraleps because there are far fewer hooks in them. By all means use Hendricksons on the UEB and WB if the bugs come.  On the freestones you will do better to mix things up.  There are several types of caddis on the water, give 'em a try. If it's warm there are also sure to be spinner falls of both may flies and caddis.

Now is the best time of year to catch big fish. They are up gorging on both the mayflies and caddis. Check your terminal tackle often for knots and frayed spots. I lost a good one tonight when I didn't take the time to change a frayed tippet. Wade carefully, the flows are still high and be courteous to everyone, it's going to be crowded. 

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