Frustration Flats

If any of you have ever fished the Delaware River especially the sulpher hatch you know how damn challenging it can be.  Went down the other day to fish for the first time in way too long, mostly due to the high water we have been having.  There were not that many insects hatching at least when compared to other years when I've hit the sulpher hatch.   Despite the random risers and low concentration of insects we fished out tails off and found a few willing participants early in the day.  Then in the evening there was  a good hatch of sulphers and we were fishing some flats that will forever be known as frustration flats.  One could barely get within 50' of a fish without putting them down.  And when the light faded and you could get closer we got nothing.  Yes we used every sulpher pattern that we had as well as some other flies just because they weren't even looking at what we were offering.  Despite the frustration at the end of the day I have no complaints as we had targets to cast to and no one else in sight. 

High Water Carp

I don't know about you but for me this high water spring/summer has been tough fishing wise.  All the local waters are very high.  Looking at the USGS site of NY is an open invitation to depression.  Yet sometimes when conditions are tough necessity pushes one to find some new water.  My bud Mike and I hit a spot that I'd done ok at times and when I arrived there were numerous signs of feeding carp.  Mike took one cast and landed this nice fish.  I cast to dozens of fish and never touched one.  Such is the game of chasing carp with a fly.  We will get back at them soon enough.  Must find other spots as the fish were spooky and when a guy showed up with a bow we knew why. 

Bugs

Tis the season for mayflies, trout and fly fisherman.  With the recent high waters there have been bugs, but not much in terms of trout for this bug chucker.  One trip was salvaged by some good photo samples of mayflies.

 

Video Review of the first 5 months of 2013

Video of review from the first 5 moths of 2013.  Most of this is a combination of spey fishing for steelhead and dry fly fishing for brown trout. 

Seeing spots

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

Patterns

At a work related conference that I recently attended, the presenter mentioned that the human brain seeks out patterns everywhere.  Being a slightly obsessed fly fisherman I immediately thought of patterns in fly fishing and no, not the type to tie up, but the seasonal patterns.  Now that I've lived in NY for the better part of thirteen years, I now have some waters that I call home.  Part of what makes these home waters special is that after spending so much time on them I now see and can even anticipate the seasonal patterns of insects, migration, and the places where the fish I seek hang out.  With each season it's like visiting an old friend; oh they're still here etc.  I don't know if I'm alone in this or not, but I find this pattern anticipation extremely satisfying on some kind of level that I can't explain nor do I even what to try to explain.  Case in point I got to visit one of my so called home waters recently in search of the fabled Hendrickson hatch and it did not disappoint.  Well the hatch did, but not the spinner fall.  The fish were in the same predictable spots and rose to a well presented trusty rusty spinner.  Some things I never tire of.

Spring Steel

This past weekend spring appeared out of nowhere and we were lucky enough to be on the water.  Well it may not have been so lucky as we were all a bit overdressed and lacked enough liquids so that on the ride home we each consumed about a half gallon of water/Gatorade.  Despite some of the trails involved in the outing, it was a glorious day to be on the water and after covering a good share of the river we found some eager players. Thus a chapter closes on one type of fishing and now trout will be on the menu til further notice.