Posted on August 13 2022
It's the weekend and many of you have turned to golf or gone on a family vacation. The Sulfur Zone season is ending (even though there are reports of an epic sulfur hatch Thursday night at the barking dog boat launch). A-119 has weaned himself away from the zone in stages. To avoid crowds he first skipped the early afternoon hatch, entered the fray during the lull between hatches and stayed on for the evening sulfurs. Lately he's found far better evening fishing in the lower river. The fish there are well rested and far easier to get to eat a fly with a hook in it.
This morning I began the search for other alternatives. Drove over to the UEB in search of tricos and came up empty. There were two cars parked along the river from East Branch to Shinhopple and both were at the #1 trico spot. Drove right on by and stopped at one of the B places. There were but a few tricos busy battling a gusty wind with almost no rising trout. I hooked and landed two eight inch yearlings.
Returned to camp and spent a couple hours mowing and sprucing up the yard, repaired a couple of chewed up flies from last night, tied a few new ones and at 5:45 set out to find someplace to fish. Ended up on the lower section of the WB with the water seemingly up quite a bit from last night. The section I intended to fish was higher than what I expected, there were lots of olives on the water but the only two rises I saw were to my fly (both refusals). Went to another spor which I felt to be more suitable for the increased flow and it was. There were rising fish that were quite happy to eat my offerings.
Mentioned in an earlier post about the possibility of increased releases to meet downstream minimum flow requirements, well the increase that started at midnight is apparently not for thermal relief but to meet the minimum flow requirements at Montague NJ. If the power plant at Wallenpaupack is not running and it remains dry these releases will increase. If you are planning on fishing the Delaware system check the flows before you go.
Thanks for all the great info A-119. In this post you mentioned you “went to a spot more suitable for the increase flow”. Does that mean an area that usually does not hold fish bc it’s too shallow and does hold fish when the CFS is up a bit?
Thanks for the input. Guess the sulphers are on their way outl. Never thought about the possibility of higher water levels. Thanks