Lots of fishing Not much sleep

[boom2it]

Headed up to the West Branch on Thursday 7/8 to fish the afternoon and evening before picking up my kids from Camp after their two weeks stay. For any of you with kids that you send to summer camp, Camp Lohikan at Lake Como PA (near Starlight PA) is a great spot and even better excuse for those of us who enjoy the Upper Delaware Rivers. Started Thursday off with a bang and caught a decent Sulpher hatch around 2:30, some big fish working the shaded side of the upper end of the river. This is just my second season on the West Branch and am finally learning a thing or two. After watching a very subtle rise two feet off the bank I made two decent drifts but not yet good enough, the third drift was just right, a quiet slurp, finally made a good hook set and game on, several minutes of a great fight we landed my biggest West Branch Brown to date, measured at 20" (20 1/2" LOL inside joke) on a #14 Sulpher Dun. I could have called it day right then and there but there was was more fishing to follow, unfortunately not a whole lot more "catching". I did land another 18" Brown on the same fly about 30 minutes later. We floated the rest of the evening and night until taking out around 9:30. There were many more follows and to many misses and bad sets on my part. Unfortunately as the day turns to night I get lazy and frustrated and cast and set like crap, especially when I can't see in the dark. After a quick snack and several cold beers and only 3.5 hrs of sleep we decided to meet at 4am and throw streamers to the banks. We both had to be on the road by 11 Friday morning. The conditions looked perfect it rained steady all night and most of the morning. We started off strong when I landed a big shouldered 18" brown right off a grassy bank, very strong fight! Moved and missed so many fish, and that was it for me the rest of the morning. My buddy had the same success, landed a nice 20" brown, moved and missed way to many, and we basically got our butts kicked. I had never streamer fished before and damn its ALOT of work, but really cool to see those "wakes" chase your streamer. Exhausted after fishing for 14 of the 19 hours, but extremely happy about my most successful trip to the WB yet, 3 fish 18" or bigger, I was even more excited to finally see my kids after two weeks of being away.

 

[ajfromnj]

Nice fish...

What color streamers did you use? I find that you get a good many chases on white, but many more takes and fish in the net with natural colors like brown and olive. It's funny that you mentioned that you had "perfect" streamer conditions. The best streamer day that I have ever had there was a bright sunny day without a cloud in the sky. It's just goes to show that at the end of the day that the fish shows us who the boss is.

 

[theartoflee]

By "we" you mean J.C. and yourself right? Good running into the both of you on the system!

Nice Fish!

 

[boom2it]

Yeah I guess in your mind you think this should be perfect for this or that, but at the end of the day you just never know what's going to work until you try it. I caught my fish on a Mickey Fin, with something else tied behind it, sorry can't remember exactly what it was or how large, but I am pretty sure it was white. I believe the other fish was caught on a white bunny streamer? Not positive though. It did seem to be a lot of "bumps" as opposed to misses or takes, maybe the fish were just chasing the streamer out of the zone or trying to stun them. I am no expert but it seems to me that if the fish really wanted to take our streamers they would have because they were definitely following and coming out for them.

Theartoflee, nice to meet you, was that you that we chatted with for a bit as we floated by your favorite hole?

 

[theartoflee]

That was me, always nice to run into fellow fourm members.