Let Me tell You Where The Action Is.

 

Started the fishing day at twelve thirty, drove up Lordville road and encountered two hen turkeys crossing the road with their combined broods. The kids were mostly off the road when I first saw them, stopped where they went off the road and couldn't begin to count them all. Two different sizes and close to twenty young birds. 

Arrived at Deposit and drove up to the red barn where I counted eleven cars, the Stilesville lot had nine and there were boats everywhere, two anchored below the pool, four in the pool and several more from there up to Cold Springs Brook. The heat wave has warmed the water which had probably speeded up the Invaria hatch's demise. Best guess - there won't be a "fishable hatch" by Sunday.

Down river, (say to the Men's Club), there are still sulfurs hatching and fish feeding on them. The fish have learned to eat only the nymphs and to be careful about which emerging nymphs they eat. Flies that, earlier this week, readily took fish are now ignored. It happens with every hatch, but it sure happened fast this time. 

The fishing - Did a split day. Fished 2:00 until 4:30. Rose about a dozen fish, five ate the fly. The only fish I saw eat a sulfur dun, also ate mine. Was blind casting, when a second fish ate my sulfur. That was it. What a difference a day, (or two), makes. Saw a bank sipper, (not six inches from shore eat a small olive. Waded upstream, made, for me, a very good cast, it landed two inches from a live sulfur dun. Both flies floated over the fish that had risen, untouched. 

A good number of very small olives were hatching and floating along an overhanging knotweed bank. Saw fish feeding on them and put on the smallest olive I had. Hooked three of the fish. One was half in the net in heavy current when he came unstuck. The second fish was a 19 inch brown that I landed. The third fish turned towards me and ate my fly, on a cast that was a good six inches short. Was so surprised that I ripped it right out of his mouth. Landed three fish, 17, 18, and 19 inches. Hard to say it was a disappointing afternoon of fishing.

Went out again at 7:30 and fished a riff/run that I have never fished in the late evening before. There were a few isos hatching as well as a mix other flies. Got more refusals to my flies than I saw rises to real flies. Hooked one fish that came quickly unstuck and then hooked what turned out to be an 18 inch brown in heavy current that took a good long time to land. Reeled it in, called it a day and was in the car by 9:05 on one of the two longest days of the year, (tomorrow is exactly the same length). 

Going out on the porch with what's left of my PM to look at the (almost) full moon and watch the fireflies twinkle.

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