Been Searchin', Gonna Find 'Em

 After yesterdays sub par afternoon hatch by the bugs, I decided to sit back, watch the weather, (cloudy with a 50% chance of showers), and make a decision on where to fish close to the prevailing hatch time of 3:00 pm. Dark clouds interspersed with brighter skies and even bursts of sunshine filled up the morning and early afternoon hours. The temperature climbed into the mid eighties all without a drop of rain, at least in Lordville.

At 1:30, I'd had enough waiting, got in the car and drove to East Branch and then up route 30 all the way to Downsville. It didn't rain. Never saw a single person fishing on the UEB, never saw a bug hatch, did see one rise. On the return trip there was a pickup at Long Flat and a car parked at the head of Buck Horn. I got back to Lordville about 4:00 and took a nap.

Departed Lordville at 6:00 hoping to find a place on the WB with some bugs and rising fish. With all of the freestones too warm to fish and quite possibly done until fall, I decided I could probably even put up with a pontoon boat or two. Drove up the PA side, Buckingham lot was empty, Shehawken had cars and trailers out to the road, and the Balls Eddy lot had too many trailers and cars to count. Drove down to the ramp and there were wade fishermen lined up casting to rising fish in a heavy sulfur hatch with two boats anchored below them.

Got the gear on, went a short ways below the wade fishermen and boats and hooked and lost a fish on what was my second business cast. Two refusals later I was into another fish which I landed. Tied on a new tippet, changed flies, looked up and it was over, both the bugs and the fish just stopped. Spent the next hour or so talking with the guy in a pontoon boat anchored across from me, he said the bugs started around 2:00 and had been going up 'til now. Decided to stay, hoping things would pick up in the hour before dark and they did. The sulfurs came again and with darkness settling in, the fish ate with a little more urgency and a little less caution. Almost every fish would at least look at your fly, most refused it, but I got four more to eat and landed them all. The fish were two and three year old browns with the biggest one just short of 17. 

Maybe the UEB was alive with sulfurs and drakes from seven until dark, but I probably won't be rushing back to see. Would like to put together a good afternoon and evening this week and the WB seems like the best bet to do it.

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