Silhouttes.

Down in Ft. Meyers to visit our daughter and watch our granddaughter's volleyball team play in a weekend tournament. 

Jim N. Wanted to know the maximum number of people that could fish the Red Barn pool. When I first started fishing the Delaware back in the late eighties the water release from Cannonsville was 45cfs and if someone was fishing there, you went to another pool. As both the releases and the number of anglers fishing the river increased, more people crowded into all of the pools, (after all, everyone is entitled to fish). The big problem was the lack of any established etiquette, I had people wade in at the Red Barn and actually both cast across my line and at the same fish I was fishing to. The lack of established etiquette problem also existed in the confrontations between waders and drift boats. Thankfully with the increased releases there is more room for both wade fishermen and drift boats, (and a far greater number of fish to fish to). The exact number of fishermen that can fish a pool is ever changing. The important thing is that anglers treat their fellow anglers (both waders and drifters) with respect and courtesy.

Ed Smith asked about the color I use for my olives. It gives me a chance to pontificate on the importance, (or lack thereof), of choosing the correct color for your flies. I have a plastic box with a dozen compartments each filled with different shades of green dubbing for olives and another one filled with different shades of yellow and orange for sulfurs. All fly tiers seem to be obsessed with getting the  colors exactly right, sure that that is the key to success. I too try to get the colors to resemble the living insect, but I really don't think it's nearly as important as getting the flies silhouette correct and floating it, drag free, down the fish's feeding lane. Why? Look at a bird silhouetted against the sky, what you see is a black outline of the bird. Fish looking up to the surface most often also have the sky as a background and probably have as much trouble as we do distinguishing colors under those conditions. That said, last week the fish wouldn't eat my yellow/orange sulfurs, but found my green olives to their liking.

Jorgen wrote of landing a 19 inch tiger trout and asked if I had ever encountered any. Darryl Bogart  commented that he had landed one. It's was probably over twenty years ago that I landed two of them in the middle section of the WB. It was during a time when rumors were circulating that fish were being stocked by one of the establishments along the river to improve their guests fishing. Over the years I have been told by several anglers that they landed a tiger trout. Most, if not all, have no doubt been stocked either in tributaries or perhaps clandestinely in the river itself.

Jefferson Kolle wants to know where the big fish go this time of year. Certainly they didn't come with me on my trip to Florida. Based upon my catch records of almost 35 years I can offer the following. As soon as the major spring hatches are over, most of the big browns cease to feed on top. I'm sure they eat their share of nymphs but they make up for the lack of flies by feeding on small fish, (including their fingerling and yearling offspring). Yes, you can still catch a big brown once in a while, but the percentage of browns over 17 inches in my daily catch begins a steep decline by the10th of June. Rainbows, on the other hand continue to eat flies and the percentage of rainbows over 17 inches in my daily catch remains close to what it was during "big bug season".