It's A Great Day To Be Alive !!!


After yesterdays dearth of rising fish, I felt it was time to go find the Dorothea's. They were hatching below the 191 bridge late last week and earlier this week there were Dorothea spinners below Balls Eddy. Shortly after one today, I found the little rascals being blown around in the wind under the Hale Eddy bridge. Fished above the bridge a ways, and there seemed to be enough bugs to get the fish up but it was a lot like yesterday, just a few fish rising, but they were all big. Today I took it on the chin. Hooked the first fish and he came unstuck, got refusals from the next two fish I cast at, checked the fly and the tail fibers were bent under the hook. Whenever you get refused, check the fly, if I'd checked after the first fish said no, perhaps the second fish would have eaten. Fourth fish never bothered to give me a look and the fifth fish changed his mind at the last minute with a big boil. So much for the Dorothea hatch. The hatch petered out, the wind picked up, and I left.

At 3:30 I drove up to Deposit which was a ghost town. At last, (or at least, take your pick), I was able to fish a run that has been occupied every time I tried to fish it this year. With dark clouds to the south and blue sky to the north I waded in, caught a fish on the way to where I wanted to fish and one right after I got there. Then, the wind shifted, lightning flashed, thunder rolled and A-119 headed for the car. Got there before the serious rain and when it passed by, I returned to the fray with my raincoat on. It rained off and on while I was there and the fish went nuts. When every fish in a pool is up feeding it is amazing just how many fish live there. It's also amazing how well they can tell your flies from the real things. Caught half a dozen fish, which is good for the place, none large but nice two and three year old's. At six o'clock the fog moved in, the flies stopped hatching and I moved on, hoping to get out of the fog and into the Dorothea's.

Went down to the middle section of the WB where the fog was at least thinner, saw an angler upstream through the shifting mist, and went downstream. It rained, the bugs, (duns and spinners of all sorts), came, it rained some more, actually stopped fishing to take a pictures of both the sunset and a complete rainbow that arced over the stream, (unfortunately), by the time I landed the fish I was fighting, the rainbow picture wasn't much. In case you are wondering, the water was covered with bugs and the fish were going like hogs on slop. It's a wonder that as many ate my fly as did, but during the melee I never gave that a thought. A 20.5 inch brown was fish of the longest day of the year.

BTW- If some know it all blogger tries to tell you that it's mostly smaller fish after "Big Bug Season", pay him no heed.

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