I Feel Lucky!

 Started out at 2:00 today and headed over to the Beaverkill which was back up to over 1,400 cfs as a result of last night's rain.  Why? There had been Hendrickson's there the last two days and the water temp was at 46 degrees, (Hendricksons will hatch at 48), and there was a bank I could walk and fish. Got off rte. 17 at Horton and drove along the river, there were small mayflies hatching and a few fish rising. Couldn't set foot in the water anywhere. 

Drove to my bank walking place and that's where I got lucky. No, not with fish. Have one of those white bottles of High N Dry flotant that I use on Hendricksons. It fits in the jacket pocket that I use for fly flotant but it's too tall to close the flap. Lost it once this year putting on my vest and thankfully found it in the grass when I returned to the car. Lost it again on Tuesday (had no clue where). Was walking along the bank looking for bugs and risers when I saw the little white bottle bobbing around in a back eddy, trapped from a ride down the river by a few pieces of old cane.

With neither bugs or risers to be seen I was back on the road to look at the WB by 3:15. The water temp has held steady there at 46 since they shut off the release water and paraleps (blue quills) will hatch at 44. Yesterday there were just a few paraleps. Today I saw swallows over the water when I drove over the Hale Eddy bridge. When I got to the river there were lots of paraleps and fish up and feeding. Most of the bugs seemed to be along the shore and of course the fish were there too (they know things). Hooked a small rainbow then ripped the fly out of a fish, got a refusal, broke off a fish, settled down and landed a nice rainbow. Clearly there were some adjustments that had to be made fishing with size 18 paraleps rather than size 12 Hendricksons.

With the rising quelled, I made the decision to head for a soft bank downstream where I have, in previous years, met some large browns sipping paraleps. The flow was at 2,150 cfs, which is 150cfs over my top limit for wading there. Crossed a side channel, hugged the shore of an island, thankful for the old dried up stalks of cane to hang onto and made my way downstream in elbow deep water. The fish were there, happily sipping along the far bank. Waded out as far as I dared (Jean, I'm just making it sound exciting, it was really a piece of cake, there are no fly boxes drying out on the stove), and had at'em. The results were more than I could have hoped for. The fish ate, they were big, and they didn't come unstuck. One boat came down the side channel, saw what I was doing and rowed right by in front of me so as not to spook the fish. If you were in the boat, Thank You!

The Fishing - Everything is in place, dandelions are in bloom, both Paraleps and Hendricksons are ready and willing to hatch. For wade fishermen we need lower water. For both wade fishermen and drift boaters we need some sunshine to get the water temps up. Cloudy, rainy days this time of year are not what we want.

Today, anyone floating the WB should have knocked them silly.