They don't come easy.


With the heat wave broken and my Dr.s appointment on Friday rather than Tuesday it was a sure bet I would head back down today. The volleyball granddaughter is on a ten day tour of Europe with her North Dakota State team and there was a game scheduled today at 11:00 e.s.t. Someone is recording the games and sending them back across the pond via facebook, except todays match never appeared. Watched grandson #4's (by age) team advance to the semifinals in the state high school lacrosse tournament on Saturday, took care of chores and got a hug and a kiss from Jean and departed for the Lordville Estate around 1:00 today.

At 80, the slower life of downtown Lordville suits me just fine (we do have a stop sign at "the" intersection, which both the deer and second homers ignore). Unpacked, watered the orchids and my fenced in garden (one rhubarb plant, four pepper plants, and three tomato plants), put away the food Jean prepared, swore when I realized there were two (so far) items that I forgot to put on the buy list and consequently won't have, and went fishing.

The fishing - Neither fish nor bugs like hot water. When water temps are above 65 the bugs hatch at night. When the water temps are above 70 the fish can't get enough oxygen to do much of anything. The cold front and clouds that moved in today brought temps back to more seasonal levels and both the fish and bugs responded. Went out early (about 6:15) and found both bugs hatching and fish feeding. It's not that I didn't have fish to throw at, and it's not that fish didn't come to the fly, but in two and a half hours with almost every cast directed towards a rising fish , I got it handed to me. "Hooked" nine fish, caught one shad, four rainbows (two nice ones) foul hooked one, (possibly two) and lost the other three. There was no wind, made a lot of what I thought were good casts and got mostly ignored. But, there were enough refusals (some indignant) to let me know they all saw my fly. 

The fish in the Delaware River System suffer no fools. If you are hear or planning to come, know that you will see both bugs and rising fish.  Any fish you get to eat your fly is a noteworthy achievement, but know this, if you can consistently catch fish on a dry fly here, you can catch fish anywhere.    

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