Try To Remember The Kind Of September - - -



It was another mostly overcast day. Had to wait until noon to mow the back yard. Yesterday's fishing, while not great, gave me hope that the week wouldn't be a total loss. Left camp about 3:30 and once again drove up the PA side. Pulled in the Buckingham launch site (two trailers) and drove down to the ramp where there was a guy sitting in a pickup truck. Looked out at the water and there were risers, quite a few actually. Got on my waders and walked down to the river but saw only two fish within reach. One was a fall fish, the other an 11 inch rainbow.

A drift boat pulled in while I was fishing and I walked over to talk to the guide. Said there were bugs and rising fish from Balls Eddy to Buckingham. As luck would have it, he had spin-fishermen in the boat. They caught a nice fish (on a nymph rig I think, while I was "fighting" my 8 inch fall fish. 

Left Buckingham at about 4:15 and headed for the WB. Fished two places (the first offered ground up glass instead of grass for cleaning off my boots), but had fair bugs and fish boiling subsurface. Got enough fish to eat my fly to make it an upgrade from yesterday. 

Next (and last) stop was in the middle section of the WB. With the sun off the water I looked out on the river from a high bank, there were rising trout everywhere, a boat anchored straight across the river, and a lone fisherman way upstream. Waded upstream to get above some rising fish but well below the wade angler. The pool is slow moving and the fish have seen lots of flies. There was no wind. The sun was off the water. I made what I thought were good presentations. It was not until the fourth fish I threw at that I even got a refusal. With the light dimming I finally got some fish to eat my offerings. The fish were mostly two year old's of  13/14 inches, with a mix of browns and rainbows. Two 15 inchers shared fish of the day. 

The last stop was, for me, what fly fishing is all about, fooling smart fish in a slow water pool with a dry fly on a quiet September day. If it's bright and sunny tomorrow, everything may change, but today, it was a pure delight to be on the river casting little olives at rising fish..  

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