Upper Delaware River - Memorial Day Weekend

Spence, Cooper and I broke from our yearly Penns Creek Memorial weekend routine and changed it up this year by going to the famed Upper Delaware River.  The Upper D has a reputation of being the best western trout river in the East boasting more than 80 miles of wild trout water filled with big feisty rainbows and bulldog browns. 

We stayed at the Delaware River Club and found the accommodations to be clean, comfortable and convenient.  The place was full of anglers mostly from NYC, New England, and Philly area who were more at home with fine wine and a Cuban cigar than the crowd we usually see drinking PBR's and dipping snuff.  Haha.  I kept reminding Spence 'We ain't in Poe Paddy anymore.'  Everyone was super nice, though and all were serious about their fishing. 

Our first evening, we went down to Home Pool right below the DRC.  I put on a nymph rig for Spence and before I even got my rod strung up, she had a really nice brown on.  That fish fought hard and it took her a while to get it in, but she eventually ended up landing one of her biggest trout to date.  I don't know exactly how long the fish was, but I know it was longer than she is wide!  What a way to start a trip!

The sulphurs picked up that evening and produced some really good action in the runs.  There was also some grey fox, march browns, and black caddis. I even saw a few coffin flies on the water at dark.  Then the fish just shut down for the evening and never picked back up. 

The strange thing about fishing the Delaware was that the fishing crowd never really started until almost noon when the guides started taking all their trips out.  With the peak of the trips being the evening hatch this made sense for the guides, but I have no idea why no one fished the mornings??  Pretty weak.  This was great news for a fishaholic like myself, though, cause I was on the water by 6 am for three straight days nymphing to hungry trout that I'm sure weren't accustomed to being tricked that early in the day.  I caught a lot of really nice fish in the morning by myself while Spencer and Cooper slept in and and I never saw another fisherman.  It was almost zen-like and the best way imaginable to start a day.

Picture doesn't do this huge rainbow justice.  Just look at that head!  

Nice 19" brown that took a nymph in the riffles

After the morning fishing, I came back to get Spence and Cooper and we went on our first float in the new RO together.  We put in at Balls Eddy (West Branch) and floated to Buckingham (Main Stem.)  It was a 11 mile float and probably a little longer than we should have started with.  We floated the first few hours, stopping and fishing, and taking our time.  But when I finally sat down to figure where we were, we had only gone about 2 miles and it was 3 PM.  At this rate we would be at Buckingham sometime after midnight.  Ughh.  So the next portion of the float turned into more of a paddle than a drift, but it was all good because it was a beautiful day and we got a good flavor for the West Branch and Main Stem.  We were able to stop and target fish rising whenever we found them and I quickly learned why these fish have a reputation for being tough on top. 

Captain Cooper

Cooper and I tying on #20 Baetis dun for the rising fish in this huge Main Stem pool

Working a sulphur hatch with Bob Marley playing in the background at this Memorial Day party

Spence taking a turn on the oars

Long 12-15' 6X leaders with perfect drag free drifts were a definite prerequisite just to get you in the game.  Then it was a matter of figuring out what the hell they were taking.  On one section of the West Branch, I found fishing rising in the riffles to #14 Cornuta Olives, then #16 Sulphurs in the next pool and fishing taking Grey Fox and March Browns at the tail out of the same pool!  The problem was they would typically work a few times and then just quit for no rhyme or reason even before I made a cast.  It was truly maddening.   But if you like technical dry fly fishing, this was the game. 

Home Pool on the DRC property

Grey fox, March Brown, and sulphurs all hatching around 2 pm on a sunny Saturday

Wild chrome bow that took a snowshoe sulphur dun

Sunday, we went up towards Deposit, NY and got to see the summer sulphur hatch first hand.  With the consistent cold water releases, these sulphurs hatch almost on a daily basis for a couple months from about 1-4 pm.  It was awesome watching this hatch take place in the middle of a hot afternoon day and casting to rising fish and not needing a head lamp to tie on a new pattern (and I tied on a lot of different patterns!) I ended up getting sucked into fishing for these fish rising in a deep long flat pool.  I tend to stay away from water so unforgiving, but the ability to watch fish hoover in this hole and rise to passing sulphurs was too much to withstand.  I got a lot of refusals and the only fish I ended up catching was because my emerger actually sunk.  Hmmm.

All in all, a really awesome trip and we will definitely make a return trip back out this way again in the near future. I am thinking fall alewive streamer fishing for some aggressive hook jawed browns...

5/18 - 5/20 Penns Creek / Spruce Creek trip

Chris and I headed up to Poe Paddy for the 7th annual pilgrimage to fish the green drake hatch.   Friday night we went straight to the Weikert area, where according to certain reports was the only place they were hatching yet.  We saw some male coffin flies and only a few duns.  So unfortuantely, there was no spinner fall and no dun feast.  This was Chris's first time to Penns for the famed drake hatch and of course I overhyped it on the way up.  The water was still up pretty good, and we actually didn't even see one rising fish.  It became even more annoying when my buddy told me duns were hatching like crazy at Poe Paddy where we were camping 50 minutes away.  I should have stayed put in Poe Paddy. 

Male green drake dun chilling

Wild Spruce Creek brown

Saturday made up for it though, as Chris went over to see his friends on Spruce Creek who let us fish for the day.  It was an absolutely beautiful property with about 150 yards of stream access - which on Spruce is all you need. 

Downstream of the bridge

Upstream of the bridge

President Carter actually fished this exact section years ago and stood right where we were we were casting dry flies and drinking beer. Spruce is arguably the most exclusive stream in the country and we really had no business being on it. BUT, the owners were awesome people and were more than happy to let us have at it for the day. Most of the mid-day fish were caught on nymphs / streamers, but the occasional riser usually fell victim to a well presented tan CDC caddis or X-Caddis. This stretch of stream had a really deep pool under the bridge where the big boys lay and some nice riffles and runs at the top of the property where the smaller wild fish resided. The day was beautiful and we had the whole stretch to ourselves. By the evening, there were just the right amount of sulphurs, caddis, and even a few Green Drakes made their appearance. There was nothing yet like the numbers on Penns creek, but that was actually a good thing. Most of the GD duns were getting sucked down and a drake dry fly that was skittered and dapped over the water was producing some explosive takes. 

Chris with the fish of the day

Bright bow that fell for a Vladi Worm

Healthy brookie

Sunday, I got up early and gave Penns one last shot.  I fished pretty hard for a few hours in the morning, but found the nymphing conditions pretty tough.  The water was still up and off-colored and the only fished I hooked into were bank feeders in the soft water.  Around lunch time, green drake duns started coming off, but where completely ignored by the fish.  It was probably a good thing though, cause if they started eating them, I might never have made it out of there all day.

March Brown spinner

Back at Poe Paddy, Tom informed us he found some Chicken of the Woods mushrooms a few minutes away and wanted to see if we could positively confirm it.  Chris has picked it before so he knew right away it was legit.  I have only heard of it before, but had no idea what it looked like.  I will admit, without Chris being there I probably would have ate the bark on that tree before I ate that orange mushroom.  I know I've seen this stuff before too, but had no clue it was edible.

Tom and Chris harvesting some fresh chicken of the woods

We only took about 1/4 of the whole mushroom

Chicken of the Woods - delicious!

Here is the recipe that I found online.  It was absolutely delicious!  I thought this mushroom had a lemony, meaty taste very similar to chicken - hence its namesake.  I've read that some people think it tastes like its chicken and others describe the flavor as being more like crab or lobster. Whatever your opinion, the chicken fungus makes a great substitute for meat in almost any dish and was excellent in an Italian tomato sauce.

I will definitely be on the lookout for this orange polypore in the future!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups chicken of the woods mushrooms, cleaned
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups of tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Clean the mushrooms with a damp cloth, and then either tear or chop them into small pieces.
2. Warm the olive oil over medium heat and add the garlic. Let it cook for one minute.
3. Add the mushrooms and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally as they turn a vibrant orange.
4. Pour in the white wine and cook for another 5 minutes.
5. Add the tomato sauce and let the whole thing simmer for another 10-15 minutes.

Yough River - Maiden Voyage

Well, I didn't quite get on the Middle Yough stretch of water like I hoped.  Takeout access issues prevented me from floating the Confluence to Ohiopyle section.  So Joel and I decided to at least get the drift boat on the water at Connellsville.  There is not a lot of good trout water here - the only good sections were at the beginning of the float in the riffles / chop water.  There was a lot of slow 'pond' water that we just paddled through.  Joel caught a few nice rainbows and I managed a couple little smallies downstream.  The water temps were still a little cold for the smallie bite to be on, but this section might pick back up in a month or so.  I was casting a huge articulated streamer on the bow of the boat a little later in the float and I saw a 30" musky take a charge at the fly.  He never hit it, but just seeing that flash by the boat was a huge rush.  I think I may have to try my hand at some musky fishing at some point in the near future.

Great first trip with Joel and looking forward to the next float and hopefully getting my takeout permit in Ohiopyle.  None of the pictures that I took on my phone saved correctly, so no pictures on this trip.