Fishing the sulfurs requires a flashlight with new batteries.

 It's Monday and I'm back on the river.  It now appears unlikely that I'm going to spend a lot of time this year  revisiting the rivers I fished before I "discovered" the Delaware.  Why? The fishing here is just too GDG.  You can sleep as late as you want, tie flies all afternoon, eat dinner and at about 7:00 pm don your waders,  mosey out into a quiet pool on the WB and catch fish after fish. It's just that easy. 

After last Fridays experience at the Hale Eddy Bridge I drove back tonight with hopes of wading a little farther down stream.  Counted at least 12 people in the water below the bridge at about 7:00 pm.  Hopefully they weren't there because of my report. Most of the people seemed to be standing in pairs which would indicate some kind of a group getting individual instruction. Drove by and never stopped until I found an unoccupied pool. Waded in and for a while all I saw were a few sulfurs on the water and no risers. Was starting to wonder if it was going to happen, when, it did. Seemingly every night for the past ten days the sulfurs have hatched big time after most of the fishermen have left the stream. Talked to a fisherman today who said there's just no bugs, stayed until 7:30 without seeing a rise. Stay late, look for the roofs of mouths (not boils) and make your cast count. The number and size of the fish that appear is amazing. Catching them - is up to you.

Sorted through the comments and found a few unanswered questions. 

Dennis - GHOF is my Gray Haired Old Friend who is a tad more knowledgeable than I about vision questions. 

Jim N. and ED S. - The dorotheas normally settle into an early afternoon hatching routine in the Sulfur Zone by the first of July. Right now there are still the big sulfurs (invaria) above Deposit while the small sulfurs (Dorothea) are now well above Hale Eddy. The afternoon Dorothea hatch, however, has yet to materialize,  where I've been, it's a 7:00 'til dark thing (don't even think of asking why). Hopefully this week the bugs will get into their summer routine.

Chris Z. - You asked for more info on the rattlesnakes.  They are protected in New York. The time when I am most likely to encounter them is in the couple of hours after sunset when they are absorbing heat from a  paved road or from the still hot metal rails on the train tracks.  The Timber rattler is quite docile and is seemingly unaware of the danger posed by cars on the road. They are not aggressive and  will retreat if given the opportunity. The greatest danger is walking into, or in my case, falling onto one unexpectedly. Over the years I've taken numerous pictures of timber rattlers (mostly from car windows) and have found it difficult to get them to coil up in attack mode. Best advice - pay attention to where you are walking, treat the snake with respect and  give them a wide berth when you have an encounter.   

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