Way, way , way too many boats and fishermen crowded onto the West Branch.

Earlier this week I said guides would be leaving for gigs out west and that many fishermen would be hanging up their rods for the season.  With everyone who was floating or wading limited by high water temps to the WB and the BR down to Stockport you would think the drakes had just begun. It was nothing I wanted to be a part of and for the most part I wasn't.

This morning I drove over to the EB where all the fish had been feeding yesterday morning, just to look.  There was nothing to see. Glassed the river and never saw a rise. Returned to camp to begin the peach thinning project. I have a tall, wobbly old step ladder that came with the property when I bought it. Carried it out to one of the freestone trees and began pulling peaches off the already sagging branches.  The freestones wont be ripe until September and if the number of peaches isn't reduced by over 80% the trees will be destroyed by the weight of the peaches.

While I was picking peaches the hen turkey walked by the tree on her way to dust under the porch.  She returned a few minutes later and seemed unaware that I was even there until I tossed a peach in her direction. She was twenty feet farther away before the peach (about the size of a large grape) had even landed. She had her eye on me all the time. 

Saw my first bear of the year driving from Hancock to the fishing camp.  The bear crossed Rte. 97 just before the Cow Lick ice cream stand.  Earlier this week I stopped to take a picture of the third rattlesnake of the season. Today there were deer everywhere and at all hours of the day. The doe and fawn on 97 were crossing in the same place where I saw them a week ago. There were deer in downtown Lordville tonight on my return from fishing and I saw well over a dozen (mostly yearlings) crossing the road today.

The fishing?  You ask.  Didn't do much as the prospect of dodging both boats and waders didn't appeal to me. Left the LV Estate about 3:30 and went up to Deposit. Saw nothing worth  putting the waders on for. Stopped to see my river friend Ray in the middle section of the WB and decided to fish there. Hooked and landed two quality fish, one a brown and the other a rainbow blind casting a size 18 olive for no more than 20 minutes.  Should have reeled it in but no, had to fish for another hour and a half without hooking a fish. Drove back up to the NoKill and found an open pool with several rising fish. As soon as I got there the boats started showing up. One anchored about 100 feet below me right in the "Honey Hole".  I hooked five fish in about twenty minutes (lost two of them), and - - -  it just stopped - -and - - so did I.

Something has to happen. Either it cools off enough to expand the area that can be fished or a lot of both guides and fishermen leave or I go back to doing jigsaw puzzles (and thinning out the peaches).