Posted on August 19 2022
As everyone who fishes the Delaware (or any other stream for that matter) knows, things change. Yesterday I tried to follow a trail into the river that a Troutfitter regular opened up with pruning shears in early May. The last time I fished there ( probably ten years ago) you could just walk down to the river from where you parked your car. The "trail" now winds it's way endlessly through goldenrod, giant rag weed, multiflora roses, honey suckle and fallen trees. Everything is over your head tall except for the trip logs. It was bad enough that I made sure to come out before dark (something I never do).
The bugs - The predicted cloudy day turned out to be mostly sunny (except for one T-boomer that passed just south of me). The water was still down in the fifties so according to my olive hatching theory, the sun shouldn't have mattered but for some reason the bug bonanza of the last few days did not happen. There were olives on the water and for about half an hour and there were fish up but it was nothing like earlier this week.
The fishing - It was surprisingly good, before the bugs came I hooked six solid fish blind casting four of which ended up in the net. When the fish got going on the olives I hooked another four good ones and with a couple of hours of daylight left was anticipating another fish catching bonanza. But it stopped dead with the sun still shining brightly on the west facing hills. Both the fish and bugs called it quits and with the "trail" ordeal still to be faced, so did I.
Water releases - Not sure what is happening but the flow at Montague has been over 2,000 for the past two days (daily average needs to be a minimum of 1750 cfs), so I sorta expected a cut back in the release today. A quick check of the Stilesville gage shows that the release has been cut back to 1,000 cfs and may still be dropping. By all means check the Stilesville release data before deciding where to fish as the river flow is quite likely to vary from day to day if not hour to hour.
You clearly have much more success than the average fisherman that tackles the Delaware System. And you are no spring chicken so certain things are definitely working against you….eyesight, wading etc. so my question is what do you think the biggest difference is? Your casting? Your knowledge of river after so many years? Your patterns since yo tie your own flies? I’m sure it’s a combination but my hunch is it’s your patterns. Those fish see same patterns bought at same 3 fly shops over and over. Your thoughts??