My wife & I knew the river was blown out but since the car was already packed we decided to take the drive anyway. The WB was close to 8000 cfs and the main hit 13,400 cfs. Now the WB is around 3700 cfs but still zero visibility and mud colored. Maybe by Monday it will clear up. Not enough bars to upload a picture.
West Branch & main stemand mud cp - 8/18/2023
- Thread starter wbranch
- Start date
TimMurphy
Well-known member
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- Sep 9, 2006
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Dear wbranch,
Please don't hate me for this but back in the day when I lived in upstate NY as soon as I could drive down Oquaga Creek behind the sewer plant in Deposit I did. And I chucked fire-tiger Rapalas and 1/8-ounce fire-tiger Vibrax spinners.
A boy has to do what a boy has to do. And every barb on every hook was crushed too. I'm no freak!
Regards,
Tim Murphy 🙂
I will tell you I have had some amazing streamer fishing during high water events. That color water is just too dirty for good streamer action. However there was very high water on June 01 & 02 of 2013. I was fortunate to be at the cabin. I couldn't get far enough into the river, safely, to get a backcast so I drove over to Hancock and parked near Sands Creek. I walked down the creek to the river. I had the best ever two days of streamer fishing. I fished #1 blue over white Clousers and gray over white. Almost every cast (it seemed like that) I had a fish or a strike. Twice when a fish got off (I'd pinched the barb) another big brown grabbed it before I fished the cast. I didn't want to "kill the golden goose" so I chose to fish only four hours each day. I landed 23 browns on the 1st and 20 on June 2nd. That is 5.4 browns an hour. None were under 16". My biggest was 21". I killed one 17" and when I cleaned it there were 9 undigested alewives in it's gullet and one well digested alewife in the stomach. Of course I was elated to have landed 43 big browns in just 8 hours but I was surprised that none were larger than 21". To me that meant there were no larger fish in that piece of water. If there had been I'm sure one would of attacked that Clouser. My PB Clouser fish was caught on June 04, 2004 at Norbord. It taped at 26". I consider that an anomaly because of the hundreds of larger streamer fish I have caught most were 16" - 21". Maybe half a dozen 22", a couple 22+" to 24". And the one 26". To the guys out there who are consistently catching 24" - 27" browns in the WB congratulations. You are a a better angler than I am.
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Night fished the West Branch Delaware for the first time, day or night, on 8/31/23 and 9/1/23. Used large wet flies. Night#1: raining/clearing from earlier t-storms…10PM-12:30 AM - one 17” BT caught. Night #2: threatening t-storms 8:15 PM-12:30 AM - caught one 9”, one 16”, one 17”, and one 18” BT. Never saw the places where I fished in daylight.
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Wow!......nice ketching, Mike.^ I suppose you shall return....and in daylight, maybe?
I haven't night-fished the Upper D River in a long time, but when I did, many times I also had some great success.
I’ll certainly go again at night next yr sometime. Not so sure that I will see it in daylight though. There are a few spots on Kettle that I have only fished at night despite having night fished there for at least five yrs and day fished for twice that. Others I have fished in daylight and at night.
dryflyguy
Well-known member
During my last trip to the WB - early July - I ran into a fellow who was fishing almost exclusively at night there. Claimed he went all night long, until the crack of dawn.
Then went to his room and slept in the daytime
I asked him what he used. And he showed me a floating Stonefly pattern - made out of foam.
Said that the fish rose all night long, which kinda surprised me.
He then showed me pictures of his catches - big fish!
Then went to his room and slept in the daytime
I asked him what he used. And he showed me a floating Stonefly pattern - made out of foam.
Said that the fish rose all night long, which kinda surprised me.
He then showed me pictures of his catches - big fish!
Fish Sticks
Well-known member
Drys are my least used fly at night. I do about 30-50 trips a year at night going on 7 years maybe. Best night flies go right under the surface but still wake in my experience. Work top down in column instead of opposite usually. I nymph with glow in the dark sighter too when swinging isnt working.
falcon
Well-known member
It is common for Stoneflies to hatch after dark. Probably why the stonefly was effective. They do tend to migrate to shore and transform above water.
To place an exclamation point on that, I annually teach a very basic field aquatic macroinvertebrate ecology and identification class to 60-80 kids and their parents/ guardians each June for the Berks Co Federation of Sportsmen. There is a pavilion about 30 ft from the stream’s edge and we always find large Perlid stonefly shed exoskeletons on the building’s supporting posts anywhere from 2-4 ft off of the ground. The ny,phs have crawled from the stream’s edge to the pavilion through the grass.
Rarely do you have to match the hatch at night. I had at lot of success just using a good-sized unweighted black wooly bugger....nothing fancy or hard to tie. I do tie it with heavy oversized hackle in front to push some water. Also I keep the marabou a little short to prevent short strikes. You can tie in a stringer hook if the trout are short striking, but most nights the bigger fish will slam the bugger and hook themselves. Fun fishing!!
Fish Sticks
Well-known member
I have experimented with many different patterns at night for years and I have found better success with stiff materials incorporated onto the bugger platform such as deer hair wing, stiff flashabou, or ring neck feathers on a harvey pusher. Not only do stiffer materials push water well but they don’t colapse as readily when you strip or if they do they snap back flared outward faster on a pause increasing the width of the flies silhouette at night. That said I don’t think fly type is critical at night most important would be location in my opinion, second would be presentation technique and some where down the list fly selection. Although all other factors the same I have found repeatedly I have more success with pusher style wets than soft collar wets.
Fish Sticks
Well-known member
You can gauge how well of a job your wetfly is doing pushing by the resistance your stripping hand/hand twist hand feels at night
dryflyguy
Well-known member
Any of you guys ever try George Harvey's night pattern, that I think he called a pusher fly?
It's a dry fly if I'm recalling correctly
I thought about tying some up and giving it a whirl some night.
It's a dry fly if I'm recalling correctly
I thought about tying some up and giving it a whirl some night.
