The Answer Is Blowin" In The Wind.

 

It's 9:55pm, my Perfect Manhattan is sitting beside me along with chips and dip and I'm ready to write. Had to take care of the wet stuff first. Raincoat is hanging by the wood stove, vest is hanging over the back of a chair next to the baseboard heater, fly boxes are opened up on the table to dry, and my waders are hanging up on the porch. The waders sprung a leak in the right foot today and I need to get them dried out before they can be patched.

Left the fishing camp at about 12:30 and basically just drove around until almost 4:00. Went up to Deposit where David at the Troutfitter was enjoying a quiet day. He said that the weekend was the busiest three days ever for the shop. He was waiting anxiously for the big brown truck as he was out of everything. When the UPS guy arrived, Dave went out to help the driver with the boxes and I took off for a tour of the river system.

There was no one on the river. I  suppose some people have to work, and some need to do the wash after the long weekend, but just five trailers at Shehawken, seven at Balls Eddy and zero at Buckingham, didn't tell but a small part of the story. After seeing only one rise on a tour of  the entire WB, I drove over to the UEB, thinking maybe the drakes are on, and maybe they are. There was one car at powerline and one car at Long flat at about 2:30, which really doesn't prove much. Shinhopple was as far as I went upstream, (the drakes don't hatch that far up river), never saw a rise, or a bug with the binoculars for that matter.

At 3:30 I was knocking on a door to ask permission to fish now posted water on the WB that I've fished for thirty years. Met a very nice young couple who let me park in their yard and showed me the way to get down to the road from their house.

The fishing - It was surprisingly very good. Why? I haven't a clue. The fish have been pounded unmercifully for the past three days. There were very few bugs, and even fewer risers, but, the fish that rose were apparently very hungry because they ate. 

The bugs - Caught the only Green Drake I saw with my bare hands, counted the Isos I saw without having to take off my socks and shoes, never saw one single olive. Did see a few dark brown caddis, and a few sulfurs and cahills.

The outlook - If you can have as good a day as I did, without any significant hatching, what's not to like. Check water flows before leaving home, when on the river, watch carefully for risers, and make careful, accurate casts to the rising fish. If and when it stops raining the eastern half of the system should be looked at. Between the high water temps and yesterday's rain,  I just don't know what  bugs will be hatching there. Some times you got to go before you know.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 30, 2024 at 8:44 AM

    Had blizzard hatches of brown drakes on the UEB the past two nights (5/29 - 5/30)

    ReplyDelete

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