Posted on June 24 2021
After two days in the Sulfur Zone trying to catch fish that are feeding on spring sulfurs with, of all things, a spring sulfur dry, I admit defeat. Fished from 2:30 until six and never even had a fish look at a sulfur dun. Did raise 8 to 10 really nice fish on an assortment of flies but not one of them ate my offering. Wide open mouths came at the fly only to turn away at the last second. Was clearly not even in the game.
Drove down river tired and discouraged. Decided to try a place just up from Hale Eddy that I walked out of for lack of bugs and rising fish a couple weeks ago. It was about six thirty and the sun was still on the river. First thing I saw were Dortheas!!! Not a lot, but I would rate it a poor/fair hatch. The trout were unimpressed in spite of what I thought were an adequate number of bugs to get them feeding. Caught a three year old on a blind cast and then a fish I saw rise, ate my sulfur. It was another entry in the saddest big fish contest. It was a 21 inch brown that looked like he had just won the TV show contest for losing the most weight. After those two fish nothing happened for a long, long while. At 8:00 the night had the makings of a disaster. The sulfurs petered out and I was thinking of calling it quits when a fish or two started to rise. Then I saw some spinners on the water (Cahill's I think). Didn't matter, the fish got eating off the top and for almost an hour my fly apparently tasted good to them. It more than made up for the late afternoon fiasco. Got back to the car at 9:45 and drove back to the "Lordville Estate" looking at a beautiful full moon.
Don't know where to tell you to fish or how to catch them on sulfurs (ask Dennis) but when I stay on the river 'til dark good things seem to happen.
I went down to the lower Gamelands tonight intending to follow angler 19’s advice. Patiently, I did not even enter the water until 7:30. There were fish rising steadily from then until after dark. As per angler 19, I had removed my 9’ leader. I tied on my 14’ “recommended” leader (12’ 5x with 2’ of 6x flouro) as instructed by Angler 19. Also as instructed I changed flies frequently (well, as frequently as you can when each fly change takes 15 minutes!) . Prior to my 14’ leader I “thought” I was following my fly through the air. After watching my fly consistently land about 6’ past where I was aiming, I realized I was actually watching the end of my fly line! At any rate, by my 5th fly change (having seen “no bugs on water”, I had gone through the recommended sulphurmduns and BWOs so went to the next in line of “recommendations”, an #18 rusty spinner (as per angler 19) which, by then, was totally invisible to me in the near darkness. Lo and behold, a very feisty behemoth (well, an 18" brown trout) somehow found my fly and hit it hard enough for me to set the hook even never having seen the take. Lesson—-if you really don’t know what you are doing, read and follow advice and maybe you’ll get lucky! On way out, an actually competent fly guy remarked that the water was “blanketed” with sulphur spinners. I saw none!!! This sport has a long learning curve but a beautiful environment!!