West Branch Delaware River, Wayne Co., 8/16/21

[discomidge]

On my way home from a weekend in the Catskills with some buddies (jamming, not fishing so much) I made a secret (to my wife) pit stop on the West Branch a few miles upstream from Hancock and the fishing was really good. I hit a BWO/Sulphur/some other kinda bug soup hatch that lasted for a few hours on a cloudy afternoon. The water was pretty cold - 58 degrees at 4pm - and the fish were into emergers in the film. Took me a minute to put the right fly on, but once I tied on a ridiculously bright yellow #16 biot/CDC emerger pattern that I kind of freestyle tied last winter, I had steady action. Nothing huge but good strong fish in the 12-16" range. One smaller brown had a healed up wound on its back that looked like a puncture wound, maybe from a heron? Good times.

I also managed to catch the white whale in the pond in front of our cabin. Been going there for years and have seen a handful of big largemouth but never got one until last Sunday. It was pretty big and a lot of fun, but honestly, the trout on the D were more fun.

 

[martinlf]

Nice work. Could you post a photo of the biot emerger?

 

[discomidge]

Sure, it's nothing special but has served me well this season. The only trick is folding the CDC back up to split the CDC "wings" and hackle and thus making a wing case. Another more experienced forum member who I fish with thinks it's really an attractor pattern because it was working for us even though the color was waaaaaay off from the sulphurs that were hatching one day on Penns.

 

[martinlf]

Nice! It's an interesting approach to use the feather to create the wingcase and wings. I like the split wings as well. Your buddy has a sense of humor, if he thinks it's an attractor pattern. I'd say you were matching the hatch, even if the color was not exact. Thanks for sharing.

 

[JohnPowers]

Finally a report from the WB. remember when posts from the WB, LL and Tully were daily. But then I remember clouds of tricos blotting out the sun on the Monocacy……..well almost.

 

[drakeking412]

Nice glad to see you hit WB and caught some fish too. That damn emerger thing is doing damage all season all accross the board, love it. What did you catch the largie on? I bet that was a good time too.

 

[discomidge]

Got the largie on a small chartreuse/white clouser. Bass were chasing minnows up on to a shelf so I stripped it of the shelf and things suddenly got heavy.