A Hendrickson Wind And Fall Olives Is A Tough Combo.

 

Decided  to try the tricos this morning, it was cold so there was no rush. Took a page out of my GHOF's book and decided I needed to replace the olives that got chewed up yesterday, and wouldn't you know it, both the time and temperature got away from me, (11:00am and 64 degrees when I remembered to look). With the spinner fall being so late I quickly made a sandwich so I could stay and see if there were any afternoon sulfurs or olives, jumped in the car and headed for East Branch. Felt better at the top of Lordville Hill as the temp was down to 62, it fluctuated with the terrain and was 64 streamside. 

Found an open pool right away and waded in with fish up and eating tricos everywhere. Funny thing, even before I started to cast, the fish kept rising but got further away. My first cast landed the fly about five feet upstream of the fish and they all stopped rising and moved further downstream. Had to land the trico 15 feet upstream of the fish for them to keep rising and when the trico got to the line of fish, they created a three foot wide no rise zone for the trico could drift by in. Changed flies, caught a 12 inch brown on an olive spinner, a 14 inch brown on an ant, and a 13 inch rainbow on the little puff of white I got a refusal on a night or two ago, hooked another one on the puff that came unstuck, and had two refusals. If you didn't read Hackelhouse's comment yesterday, go back and do so. Fish learn and adapt, (faster than a huge majority of fishermen). With the low fuel light on and the Sunoco station closed for repairs ???, I scrapped the idea of driving up past Corbett to look for sulfurs, ate my sandwich and headed back to the Lordville Estate. Would like to say, "It being Labor Day Weekend, the traffic was very heavy", but being old and forgetful, I said, " Where the hell is everyone going at noon on Friday." The answer came to me shortly thereafter.

The evening fishing was somewhat anticlimactic, there were olives galore, a good number of rising fish, and a drift boat that went by me and fished to fish rising along the bank, out of the wind, that I couldn't have reached, (they landed two nice fish). The flies I tied that made me late to the trico hatch in the morning were too big, and the trout let me know it, and there was a sneaky draft of about 12/15 blowing downstream that took finesse out of a game that desperately needed it. Landed a nice rainbow right off the bat, a handful of 9 inchers and a 18 inch rainbow that has been receiving Social Security longer than I have. He was missing a mandible and sporting a callus as big as a pea where every mistake he ever made had been impaled, mine included.   

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