Perfect Weekend on Tap and a Last Minute Trip to the Catskill's

I hope everyone has been out enjoying the weather and getting in on the great fishing the past week has had to offer. Between myself and two Guides Andy and Evan, there have been trips out almost everyday and am booked through fathers day weekend, though Evan has an opening next Thursday.  Conditions are great right now on the big rivers but getting low and spooky on the mid sized streams.  We really could use the rain as we are well below seasonal averages and do not want to be in a drought going into the heat of the summer. I did have one slower day guiding on Monday morning after the front came though and cooled things way off.  We caught 4 or 5 fish, and missed at least as many, but in runs I'd expect 3 fish in we would get 1.  Just about every other outing has resulted in good numbers and fairly easy fishing.  That should continue this weekend into the beginning of next week at least.  River temps on the big rivers this afternoon were a perfect 60 degrees, but be ready to take temps again next week. Hopefully your thermometers got wet at the end of last week when it got hot. 

While we have gotten some nice fish,  as is usual this time of year the smaller fish really start to show up.  For instance you could fish through a stretch of river that is known to have wild trout in May and maybe hook a few nice fish and a few mid sized fish and then go hit that same stretch today and catch three time as many fish with a lot of them being 5-10".  It seems to be like this every year. This was the case wednesday night on a smaller river, and while we managed 4 nice fish, we caught as many or more fish under 7'. Things were spooky as I mentioned earlier, and if you fished a run or pool second it was tough to get eats, usually I can pick up pretty good numbers of fish after its been fished but I only managed to lose one and miss a couple.  Fish have been spread out between deep pools, rapids, and skinny riffles, and near any structure both on the big and smaller rivers.  We have gotten a lot of fish out of skinny and fast water recently.  One tactic that worked for me the other night while nymphing some marginal water was to downsize my tippet to 7x and fish a single fly.  The section of small stream I fished was a fast riffle that was about 6" deep and no real structure but for the slight outside bend that had about 12" of depth in about an 18" wide slot along a rock wall. Going with one fly and presenting my nymph upstream of me, I was able to get a precise cast into the slot and took three wild rainbows of 12", 11", and 6" out of that slot.  Had I been fishing two flies my accuracy would have been diminished and the two flies may have been in different current speeds resulting in an unnatural drift that may  not have been eaten, especially if both flies were weighted.

We have also had some good opportunities on dry flies. A few trips out have landed good numbers of fish on mainly caddis imitations. Both in pocket water during the day and flatter water in the evening.  On top of dry fly fishing, swinging wet flies is very productive right now at all times of the day.  Generally I like a soft hackle mayfly imitation and a caddis pupa imitation like a lafontaine's sparkle pupa.    

Last friday I saw the first two golden stonefly shucks to add to the potpourri of what is hatching right now.  You can read the list in my last report.  

The past weekend I got down to the Catskills with fellow Guide Andy and we met up with our long time high school friend Adam for the weekend floating the Delaware River system.  This was a last minute trip planned a week ago. I was supposed to be fishing in the US National Fly Fishing Championships in Bend, OR that weekend but because of a variety of problems and events over the past few months I had to drop out.  While we had a great trip, we didn't love it down there.  We stayed a great cabin on the East Branch of the Delaware, with riverside access, and had we stayed and fished  from camp probably would have caught more fish than floating. Ill preface this story with the fact that I have fished just about every western state, eastern state, Alaska, Canada etc and not had anywhere near the issues I had on the Delaware. The big problem was the absolutely insane number of fishermen and drift boats on those rivers, and the fact that many, though not all, said fishermen  were assholes. In fact we were swore at by fishermen, had a boulder sized rock thrown from the bushes at us by other fishermen, and to top it off some piece of crap stole the pin from my trailer hitch and my trailer came off the while  towing the drift boat.  Luckily I had a backup trailer hitch so grabbed that pin and kept going and the trailer didn't do any damage to my truck or get damaged itself.  I guess its too close to NYC or something but 75% of anglers wouldn't say hi or clearly acted pissed you were there. There were times we could see 7 drift boats in sight while floating and places there were 20 or 30 anglers wading.  Being that the wading anglers have the right of way we were constantly maneuvering around behind them and most every good piece of water we didn't fish because its bad etiquette to fish a wading anglers water.  Well, a lesson learned, as I said our cabin was great and Ryan Fifield of Fifield Outfitters was a big help.  If I go back it will not be on a weekend, and if the flows are low like they were I will just wade fish. There are some big fish in those rivers for sure so I'll be back again.