Some habits are hard to break.

 It was probably almost thirty years ago when the DEC employed college age kids ( I've been told that one of them is now head of the fisheries department. at Cobleskill), to interview the anglers on the Delaware River.  They told me that they knew where everyone parked and where they fished (there were no boats then), except for me. It became an unspoken game of hide and seek.  Almost always they found me. When they asked  why I moved around so much I said that I liked to explore. What I didn't tell them was that whenever I went to the same place two days in a row I ALWAYS caught fewer fish the second time.

Today the drift boaters are in a new  place every five minutes. Wade fishermen, however, seem to still be stuck in their old ways.  Most leave their garage knowing where they will park and where they will fish no matter how many people are there before them.

I believe that fishing different water every day is the third most important thing (after casting and flies) if you aspire to catch good numbers of fish every time out. Please bear with me while I give you two recent examples of what happens when you return to the scene of the crime too often or too soon.

Example #1 - About three weeks ago I fished a small side channel that most boats do not go down. Was into fish right from the start and ended up hooking 14 fish and landing 9. A week later I fished the same "spot" at the same time of day with an equally good sulfur hatch. All the fish were up and feeding. Hooked six and landed four.  Five days later I ended up at the same place when I discovered an angler sitting on a grass mound where I had planned to fish. Hooked and landed a nice fish on the first cast (they were all up and feeding, hooked and lost my second fish twenty minutes later and then fish for an hour without even getting a refusal from the rest of the fish who were all still feeding.

Example #2 - Last week I fished a rather long run two days in a row. Worked one side of the run the first day and ended up with a dozen fish. When an evening drive by the next  night showed the run to be void of anglers I waded in. Fished the opposite side of the river and was doing well until I worked my way across the tail out to have access to the path back to the car. There were at least a dozen fish eating duns with heads out of water everywhere.  These were the same fish I had my way with the night before.  In the last half hour of daylight I managed to put every fish down without getting a single refusal or take.

Because the sulfur hatch is in such a concentrated area I have to fish places multiple times. Best I can do is not return to a place the same week. If there seem to be more fish refusing my flies at one of my stops, I'll give it a longer rest. Not sure if anyone is interested but I'll report back when I give #1 and #2 another try.   

Do yourself a favor, try new places, I have yet to find a place in the Sulfur Zone that isn't full of fish. I've managed to get out of the "Zone" a couple of evenings this week and the results were amazing - fish were actually happy to eat my fly. When this next heat wave passes give the lower river a try late in the evening.