Tulpehocken Creek

Apparently I am on a tailwater kick with this being my third straight dam-release outing after the Delaware and Yough. The Tully has been on my radar for some time and I have heard good things about this tailwater.  I was working in the area and was able to hit it after work today for the evening rise.   I never checked any reports and when I arrived and I found the water running like chocolate milk.  Ughh.



If the herons are still fishing in the muddy water, so am I

It was a 40 minute drive to get here so I explored a little and found a clear tributary spring creek running into the Tully.  I watched this section for a bit and noticed some fish working right where the two waters merged.  I ended up being able to fish rising fish the rest of the evening with not a soul in site around me.  

I managed to catch a couple on some small x-caddis, but for the most part though, these fish were really picky and onto something I couldn't figure out. I saw lots of caddis pupas in the film in the 16-20 range of different colors, sulphurs, cahills, and even some midges. The rise forms didn't help much either.  I saw some splashy rises that told me some fish were on the caddis, but I also saw both some emerger rises and soft head poke rises that looked like some fish were eating spinners too.  So each fish was eating something different.  Sweet.  To add to the challenge, they were all feeding where the slow and fast current collided creating mini swirls and whirlpools going every direction.  Getting a proper drift in this little tricky water was really tough and I was sure that most of my refusals were due to this.  All I know is that if it was easy, I probably wouldn't want to come back.  And the funny thing was when I got back to the hotel, I checked the reports which said, 'the Tully is blown and probably won't fish for a couple days.'  They were right about that.