Posted on July 06 2022
Spent the morning tying smaller sulfurs and polishing off the Monday and Tuesday crosswords and Sudoku's (they are the easy ones). Had lunch and about 1:30 I drove up Lordville Road on my way to fish the afternoon sulfurs. About halfway up the hill there was a large rattlesnake dead in the road. It had been run over, probably last night. Some road kills are accidental, others are by people that find joy in the kill. The timber rattlesnake population in NY is a small fraction of what it once was. If you chance to see one on the road, do your best not to run it over (they don't make any effort to get out of the way), take a picture (from the car window), and let it live, they need all the help they can get to survive.
In case no one has noticed, it's summertime. The Beaverkill is up over 70 degrees almost every day, the number of boats on the river is probably only a third of what it was a month ago, the DRC is showing more pictures of river flow graphs and mayflies than fish and both the wade fishermen and drift boaters are concentrating their efforts above the barking dog take out. Most of the boats that do go below barking dog are probably taking out at either Dream Catchers or West Branch Angler.
What does all this mean? Well, for starters there are now both afternoon and evening sulfurs. The evening sulfurs, if there is no thermal surge and the sun shines enough to warm up the water, are now well up into the Deposit "No Kill" and can be counted on to get the fish up. The daytime hatch is heavy up as far up as Hale Eddy, I've not found good sulfur hatches further up stream. Today I tried a place about a mile up from Hale Eddy and found a modest hatch that lasted less than an hour. Drove further upstream and at about 2:30 failed to see either bugs or risers in any meaningful numbers. Relax, they are on the way.
The decline in both drifters and waders is good news. The fish badly need a rest and down river with warmer water temps and no meaningful bug hatches during hot sunny days, they will get it. I understand the lure of the sulfur hatch but if you are willing to "travel to the beat of a different drum", ou can, during the evening hours, where water temps permit, fish in total solitude and be into healthy well rested fish that haven't tasted a hook in a month
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