Maybe I'm Becoming A Late Inning Relief Pitcher.

 

With another late August like night with a predicted low of around fifty, it was my intention to fish another spot on the BR this morning. It could well be another month before the water temperature affords us the opportunity again. Alas, it didn't happen. The triple play yesterday took more out of me than I expected. Even the groin muscle took pity and let me sleep until six-thirty. Got up, but couldn't find the go. Spent the morning  doing mundane chores and really didn't miss the fishing. At lunch time the thought rolled through my mind, where am I gonna fish the sulfur hatch. The answer came quickly, I'm not!

I spent my early years seeking out trout in remote Adirondack Rivers where you seldom saw anyone, and if you did, they became your friends for life, because they shared both a love for trout fishing and for the environs where trout were found. I was younger than they were then, and they are all gone now. The Delaware River, even back in the eighties was a hard pill for me to swallow, too close to NYC, too many people, etc., etc. In spite of the pressure, it has become a premier trout fishery, one that is far, far better than it was when I first arrived on the scene. I have enjoyed the good parts immensely, and have learned to avoid the bad parts as much as is humanly possible. Yesterdays foray into the "Sulfur Zone", (which I named, and for which the blog is at least in some part responsible), was difficult for me. Most anglers are gregarious by nature, everyone had their piece of the river, conversation flowed up and down the line of anglers, but it's not for me. Today I left the Lordville Estate at 5:00 pm, went up to Deposit  just to drive along the river from Stilesville to Barking Dog, when no one was there. In the water out from the empty Stilesville parking, area bugs were hatching and fish were rising. On the rest of the journey I saw almost no fishermen, and just a few bugs and risers. With the parking lots empty and fishermen eating dinner, the river had magically returned to a beautiful place with hatching bugs and feeding fish. 

The fishing - Are you kidding me, by six o'clock I was chomping at the bit, (as much as 82 year old teeth can chomp). Selected a vacant riff/run/pool on the lower WB, waded in without a care in the world that I was at least two hours early. Hooked a 13 inch brown on my third cast, lost the next four fish, (two of which were big bows), without finding any fault with what I was doing, (I was ready for rainbows after last night). Righted the ship, and landed eight of fourteen fish I hooked. Was in the car ready to drive home at 9:14). Two18 inch rainbows tied for fish of the day.

Put air in the tires today at the garage over in Equinunk, (when I asked Craig how much the air was he said $4.00 a pound), but I don't think they even touched the ground on the way home.

Note to Steve - There was a dead rattler on PA route 191 about a mile out of Equinunk on the way to Hancock, (one more you won't have to worry about).