MACFLY
Too many streams too little time
Hit the poconos with BHC last night for some late spring action. Arrived onstream at 5:30 water has been dropping steadily since the last line of storms moved through Monday night. Stream temp 64 degrees taken in relatively shallow water. Fished a nice stretch of stream that begins with a long riffle and then fans out into some slower moving water. ISOs were popping in the riffles when we arrived and fish were on them from the beginning. The hatch really started get going after 30 minutes and the riffle area was hoppping with plenty of rising fish making this tell tale slashing takes on ISOs. Started with a dun as the ISOs this year are just huge and wanted someting with a long profile. The fish were clearly not interested and so on went the emerger and soon after that I had my first fish to hand. BHC was content to hang out and watch for a bit as he likes to fish when its darker. In the middle of the riffle there was slight break and a good sized fish was working intermittently. I got a good drift over him and he was looking up. All I saw was gigantic mouth engulf my ISO emerger and vanish. It was a very good brown who bulldogged on the bottom and started heading south. I had on 4x and kept turning the fish only to have barrel down to the bottom every time he got close. After about 3 minutes he was tired and came to the net (Thanks BHC for scooping him up). It was a fantastic wild brown about 21 inches with a mean looking jaw. Al got an underwater shot as he swam away to think about what had just happened to him
Plenty of time left and the hatch was taking off so back to work I went. I took several nice browns and after releasing the last one I noticed Al had decided to join the fun. He was fishing right where the riffle becomes more of a run and hooked into a beautiful fish within 5 minutes. Got him to the net for a couple of pics and released unharmed to fight another day. At that point sulphurs started to mix in with the still strong ISO hatch. I switched over to a parachute sulphur but with so many naturals on the water it was tough to get the fish interested. I switched back over to an ISO and picked up 3 more browns and a rainbow. Meanwhile Al had worked downstream a bit and was working back up when I saw an absolutely ginormous brown come head and tail out of the water to take a big ISO. That fish was easily 23 inches. A couple of minutes later I heard Al say good fish and looked down to see his rod doubled over. He had the brown in the net and we snapped some pics as the evening turned to night time. It was a very clear moonlit and night and fish were still working in the slower section but since it was already after 9 and I had to trek on home we called it a night. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening catching a good number of fish with a handful of some brutes thrown in for good measure. I had to drag Al off the stream as he wanted to stay and fish the night hatch
I hope the weather stays cool over the next couple of weeks and we continue to get some rain to keep the streams running. Wouldnt mind another night like that before the heat sets in for the summer. For some reason Allens second fish will not post. I estimate that Brown was just a bit shorter than my fish. Sorry Al. I will try to post it separately it was a great fish and a great night on the stream. Enjoy the pics everyone!!!
