The conditions were much improved from my last post.  The state was releasing water from the dam which cleared out some of the algae and on some stretches of the river the bug activity was quit strong.  Where I was, we were seeing cornudas coming off in the late morning with sulphurs in the evening.  The sulphurs would create such a feeding frenzy you could throw a grenade in the water and they would not move from their spot.  I tried a number of sulphur patterns and these fish would only take a number 16 CDC sulphur pattern.  Of course I ran out of this fly the last night and was relagated to watching 20″ browns feed in front of me.  Very frustrating!

See this guppy?  He is the only fish that allowed me to catch him in 2 and a half days of fishing on the West Branch of the Delaware River this past weekend.

Thinking about going?  Bring lots of alcohol and a book or two to break the boredom.  The water was low, bugs were not consistently hatching, tons of algae (they call it spinach) rolling down river from the dam, and plenty of wind.  Probably the worst conditions I have ever seen on the West Branch in the 6 years I have been going.  On top of that in the time I was there I did not see a single angler pull a fish out of the river.  My friend Craig did catch 2 average size Browns but he is a very skilled fly fisherman.

Believe it or not, I am going back on June 13th for the weekend.  I am not sure why but I will fill you in on the carnage when I get back.

I decided to take yesterday off and take my father-in-law to Mumford NY to fish in a One-Fly Competition that was being sponsored by the Genesee Country Museum.  They have about 2 miles of private water that is easy to access and loaded with fish.  Oatka is a Seneca American Indian word meaning - leaving the highlands or approaching an opening.  To me that translates into not knowing if you are coming or going.  That is what happened to us yesterday.  It did not matter what we presented the fish they would not strike.

At days end we ended up with no fish and out of about 20 fishermen there was 16 fish caught with 5 coming from one person.  Not a very good afternoon.  We saw some sporadic hendrickson hatches but nothing consistent.  My guess would be this was due to cool temperatures that hit us that afternoon.  By the end of the day we ended up in the mid to high 40 degrees with overcast skies and light rain.  Really not the formula for a sustained hatch.  The warmer temps is usually the thing that gets things going on the Oatka.

I think I will wait a couple weeks and see if I can catch an evening sulfer hatch.

Before she was born I had an opportunity to spend a couple hours fishing with by friends on Irondequoit Creek in my home town.  Irondequoit Creek is a tributary of Lake Ontario and is stocked with Brown Trout and gets a regular run of Salmon and Steelhead every fall.  My friend Wil and I started fishing with some small beadhead nymphs and we able to pick up a couple Browns right away.  As we were fishing we heard a of splashing down stream.  It wasn’t long before a nice sized salmon was swimming right past us on his journey upstream.  We eventually caught up with him in a hole further up stream but he was in no mood to take our flies.  My friend Wil and Craig caught a few more small browns and we called it the day.  It was a great way to spend a couple hours on a beautiful Western NY fall afternoon.

A week later I was on my way to visit an old friend in Wilkes Barre Pennsylvania.  We fished some private water on a creek called the Tobyhanna.  It was a cold Friday afternoon and the wind was moving over the Poconos at a good clip.  We started fishing with a stimulator and a beadhead nymph.  The stimulator got almost immediate attention for me but I was unable to hook up.  I was eventually able to hook a nice 14″ rainbow on a pheasant tail nymph but was unable to keep him on the line.  My friend was able to catch several nice fish and even caught one a few feet up stream of me.  The Tobyhanna is a beautiful creek and reminds me of an Adirondack creek named West Canada Creek.  It is full of nice fish and I probably would have caught plenty of trout if I had paid attention to the size of my tippet.  Unfortunately I discovered that I was using 3x tippet and that really discouraged the fish from taking my assortment of stimulators.  Even so I really enjoyed my time on the Tobyhanna.  Thanks to my friend Andrew for spending a Friday afternoon to take me out on this beautiful Pennsylvania creek.