We had big storms roll through at night which brought the rivers up and muddied them up. Unfortunately, the temps also dropped like 20 degrees and the fish did not like that. The wind was Still here blowing 20+ mph winds again, but this time blowing us straight down the river. Honestly, I don't think we could have gotten 3 crappier days of weather and this one was going to be by far the most challenging.
We started early around 830 and we came throwing the meat. Big meat. We pounded the banks relentlessly every 10 feet. strip, strip, strip, cast, repeat. And we didn't move a single damn fish. It sucked. I mean that water was something that makes you day dream of monster brown trout explosions and we didn't even get a look. Weather just sucked. We planned to float to Buckingham, but at home pool we changed plans and Bart at DRC adjusted the shuttle to go upstream. At lunch we hustled upstream and found the water levels to be perfect. We didn't paddle too long til we saw bugs galore. Baetis everywhere. Quill Gordons, hendricksons, blue quills, and caddis. And not a single damn fish on them. Talk about a major bummer. I think drastic temp changes just turned them completely off. We found 2 fish rises the entire stretch and only one to cast to. And we fished our asses off ...streamers, nymphs, head hunting with dries, wade fishing. Just plain work and nothing.
As we rounded the bend to Hale Eddy, we both commented on not remembering a time when we were skunked after an ENTIRE day of fishing. Its pretty hard to do at this stage of fishing. I decided to finish strong anyways and kept pounding the streamer. The fish Gods must have felt pity on us and a nice 17" brown pounded my articulated streamer putting our first fish in the boat in 10 hours of fishing within 100 yards from the take out. What a major relief! And once David was able to get back into his honey hole at the takeout, he was able to get one rainbow to bail him out too. We both landed one damn fish. Somehow, it was still an awesome float and we learned a lot more of the river. I read the reports the next day (why would I do this to myself??) the onslaught of the wind had completely died down and the trout ate the Hendricksons without abandon...Oh well,...always next time.
The trip was a total blast and so nice to get out on the water no matter what the conditions. The make things even better, the next morning on our way home, I bought a used shovel at a farmers store and went back to my wild ramp honey hole. Leek on! I could have filled my pickup truck full of them, but instead took two bags. Plenty enough for some soup and some pickling.
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| Ramps as far as you could see. Oh baby! |
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| Pounds of fresh wild mountain ramps! |
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