Fished with PhilC from daylight until dark. Water ranged from the typical milky to clear in lower sections. Morning air temp was 50-52 and the same would apply to the water temps.
If you are out for a day of searching for big fish, you'd like to have a little color to the water (check), good flows (check.....kinda) and cloud cover (check). How this trip ended up as a dud is beyond me.
The morning started out pretty sunny but clouds moved in by 8:30am. It became quite overcast the remainder of the day. Steady / strong wind blowing upriver to start and it died off by noon.
We set out on a streamer mission to net a few of the big browns that inhabit the system. Well, that ended up as a whiff. As everyone knows, Delaware rainbows do not take streamers..... except the couple we caught and the 15 other bows that we lost or chased it right to the boat. Go figure. The only brown came on a October caddis pupa and you can see Phil with the textbook photo release. LOL.
The dam release was 1500+ cfs which was one of the reasons we headed up........but they got us good. Just prior to launching, I called the dam and listened to the recording. We basically had to rush down the river before the wave of water was gone.
We did run into a gentleman in the junction pool that had his hands full. I grabbed the long net and netted his fish for him. It measured just a tad under 21" which would qualify as a trophy bow in my book.
We had some caddis popping off as we launched. They were not heavy but off and on through lunchtime. We did see some trico spinners as well. I'm guessing from 10am until dark, little waves of #16 stenos. I'm thinking we saw less than 6 rises until it was 6pm and then we only saw a few more.
I can tell you that tossing a sink tip on a 7wt is VERY painful when you have tendonitis in the elbow. At some points, I was reduced to 2 handed rollcasting a nymph rig. I must have hooked and lost 10 fish in a mile on the nymph rig. Unable to set the hook due to forearm pain. My fishing may be done until spring unless the doc can fix it.
If you are out for a day of searching for big fish, you'd like to have a little color to the water (check), good flows (check.....kinda) and cloud cover (check). How this trip ended up as a dud is beyond me.
The morning started out pretty sunny but clouds moved in by 8:30am. It became quite overcast the remainder of the day. Steady / strong wind blowing upriver to start and it died off by noon.
We set out on a streamer mission to net a few of the big browns that inhabit the system. Well, that ended up as a whiff. As everyone knows, Delaware rainbows do not take streamers..... except the couple we caught and the 15 other bows that we lost or chased it right to the boat. Go figure. The only brown came on a October caddis pupa and you can see Phil with the textbook photo release. LOL.
The dam release was 1500+ cfs which was one of the reasons we headed up........but they got us good. Just prior to launching, I called the dam and listened to the recording. We basically had to rush down the river before the wave of water was gone.
We did run into a gentleman in the junction pool that had his hands full. I grabbed the long net and netted his fish for him. It measured just a tad under 21" which would qualify as a trophy bow in my book.
We had some caddis popping off as we launched. They were not heavy but off and on through lunchtime. We did see some trico spinners as well. I'm guessing from 10am until dark, little waves of #16 stenos. I'm thinking we saw less than 6 rises until it was 6pm and then we only saw a few more.
I can tell you that tossing a sink tip on a 7wt is VERY painful when you have tendonitis in the elbow. At some points, I was reduced to 2 handed rollcasting a nymph rig. I must have hooked and lost 10 fish in a mile on the nymph rig. Unable to set the hook due to forearm pain. My fishing may be done until spring unless the doc can fix it.
