Do What Ya Do.

 

One of the bridges on Lordville Road is being rebuilt, which necessitates driving up and back the PA side of the river until the bridge work is done. Forgot about the detour and was late for my hair cut appointment at Vicky's this morning. It's a little over 11 miles on PA191 and its solid double lines in the middle of the road all the way. Saw four foxes last night, a dead one this morning and but one tonight. 

As I have been reporting, the sulfur hatch has been very good. The fish, where the sulfurs are hatching have almost all been hooked on sulfur duns. Someone asked what emerger I found worked best, easy answer, none. I have a box full of various emergers and have not found a single one that works worth a damn. I have no shame, if anyone wants me to try their killer emerger, drop it off at the Troutfitter in a wax sealed envelope, (shop owners are whores, they will tell everyone what the hot fly is), and I will faithfully report how it works for me.

Because the trout feed on both duns and emerging nymphs, they quickly learn that duns have hooks and most of the emergers, (that they are eating), do not. Positive reinforcement eating nymphs, painful experience eating duns. In an incredibly short period of time the fish feeding on sulfurs do so almost exclusively on emerging nymphs and become very hard to catch.

This blog is written to help you catch fish. I have done better, so far this year, on the sulfur hatch than ever before. Why? Because I've found a new miracle drug that --- no, no, no, because I do things I tell you to do but you say, "What does he know.", and ignore the advice.

Here is a list to help you to catch more fish on sulfurs:

1- Use flies that look exactly like the real thing.

2- Cast only at rising fish.

3- Wait at least a minute before throwing at a rising fish. (I have trouble with this one because fish always use to eat two flies when they came up, and now I can't remember where the fish rose if I wait a minute).  

4- Try to fish where the hatch is just starting, (where, not when).

5- Know that fish see everything, and that if they refused your fly, or didn't even come up to an on target cast, you are wasting your time and insulting the fish by continuing to throw at him.

6- Never ever throw a "refused" fly back at the same fish.

7- Try to find a less crowded place where you can move from fish to fish, casting at the same few fish for hours on end is insanity. 

8- If the fly you cast to a fish is moving the slightest bit faster or slower than the bubbles around it, you are wasting your time throwing at that fish, he knows you are there and just won't eat your fly.

9- Try to fish to different fish every day, fish remember your flies and become harder and harder to catch the more often you fish to them.

10- Improvements in dry-fly fishing, like all sports, come slowly. Increases in the number of refusals is progress, catching more fish sometimes takes a lifetime, (trust me, I know).