Yough River Float

A few weeks ago Joel and myself tried to float down the Middle Yough in the maiden voyage of the drift boat. Long story ….but we weren’t able to get takeout permission and I was pretty disappointed at the time. That same evening I randomly met Joel’s buddy David while we were fishing Indian Head Creek. Ironically, David also has a drift boat and does some guiding on the Yough. When we told him of our plan to take our first trip down the middle Yough, he offered to take us down and show us how to run the river. Its funny how things just seem to work out sometimes.

Fast forward to this trip - the three fishaholics got on the water at o'dark thirty (which meant a 2:30 AM wakeup from the Burgh – worse than turkey hunting!) We started out fishing some nymphs and streamers and the bite was a little slow in the morning but picked up when the sun hit the water and the caddis started working. Joel hooked up with a nice palomino that he spotted morning. I am not sure who is handicapped worse….the albino deer or the golden trout, but both are pretty screwed right out of the gate. Anyways, Joel had him hooked solid and should have landed him, but I busted out the camera a little too early and after one pic the fish mysteriously got off. I’ll take the blame – sorry Joel.

The float was really awesome and I learned a ton from David on how to run the proper lines on the water. The middle Yough isn’t terribly big, but its definitely technical water to run in a drift boat and has its tricky sections. A few years ago I took a raft down this section and it didn’t matter if we went down rapids backwards.  There is a lot more to it when running a drift boat and I'm really fortunate to learn from someone who knew what they were doing.

On the trip we saw, caddis, BWOs, sulphurs, cahills, slate drakes. The BWOs that were coming off around 2 pm were size 26 / 28.  The sulphurs, cahills and ISOs started in the late afternoon and brought some fish to the surface for some fun dry fly fishing.

 

Overall, it was a great trip and many thanks to David for taking us down the river. He definitely knows this water and is one hell of a fly tier too. I’m looking forward to getting behind the oars next and repaying the trip down the river.

David with a nice middle Yough bronze back

Elephant Rock