mudbug201
loose loops, sink tips
Before the lower east branch turned into a bubbling cauldron of sulphuric demon piss, I got out with my four year old on a few mornings over the weekend.
Our routine consists of him waking me up at 6am, cereal, scooby doo, and he's ready to head down to the river. In the meantime, I drink three cups of black coffee and two Advil and try to undo the damage of half bottle of Maker's Mark and whatever it was that I smoked by the campfire.
He hunts frogs in the shallows while I target bigger prey in deeper water toward the center of the river. There's one large rock that on a typical morning in May or June holds two or three fish over 17" in the dead water fore and aft and another two or three in the bubble lines. Every once in a while, I catch one.
5/8 - Refusal city. Three or four browns rising calmly around my rock. Irregular rises, and they're switching bugs constantly. Porpoising rises one minute (probably on caddis pupa in the film), sipping spinners the next. The east branch is slow, low, gin clear, and is a enormous, all you can eat, Cracker Barrel buffet line of dead or dying insects. 6x. Tiny flies. No dice.
Brutal. Two hours later all I have to show for my morning is a sunburnt neck and the knowledge that I've turned the same fish five or six times, but not really come close to sticking him.
Meanwhile, the imp is onto something good. I know this because the little fucker talks pretty much non-stop between 6am and 8pm, when he falls asleep, but he's been silent for at least 15 minutes over on the rocks. He's stalking something, moving slow on a big shelf between two boulders.
A few minutes later, a splash, and he's hooting and jumping around waving something clutched in both hands. Kid caught a juvenile smallmouth with his bare hands in a small eddy in the mighty Delaware. I don't know whether to be proud or worried that he's going to go feral and start making neighbors pets disappear. Four years old and he's a cold blooded hunter. The fish didn't survive the attack and my son insisted I grill it up for lunch. Catch and release will come later I guess.
5/9 Same thing. This time the wind gets up and the grannom go down at my rock, so I take the kid up to the house and leave him with his granddad and seek out a sheltered spot where the bugs are still going in flurries. Maybe five casts later I bring to hand a 23" brown with a small elk hair dry. Biggest trout I've caught on a dry to date. The fish was rising in 8 inches of water, two feet from somebody's back yard, within view of the "Brooklyn bridge." (If you think you know the spot PM me and I'll confirm if you've got it right.)
5/10 Same thing, back at my rock. Refusal city again. Put everything including the kitchen sink over a fish that was rising every 20 seconds for maybe 75 minutes straight. Not even one take. By 8am the sun is on the water and I quit.
One day you're a peacock. The next you're a feather duster.
Our routine consists of him waking me up at 6am, cereal, scooby doo, and he's ready to head down to the river. In the meantime, I drink three cups of black coffee and two Advil and try to undo the damage of half bottle of Maker's Mark and whatever it was that I smoked by the campfire.
He hunts frogs in the shallows while I target bigger prey in deeper water toward the center of the river. There's one large rock that on a typical morning in May or June holds two or three fish over 17" in the dead water fore and aft and another two or three in the bubble lines. Every once in a while, I catch one.
5/8 - Refusal city. Three or four browns rising calmly around my rock. Irregular rises, and they're switching bugs constantly. Porpoising rises one minute (probably on caddis pupa in the film), sipping spinners the next. The east branch is slow, low, gin clear, and is a enormous, all you can eat, Cracker Barrel buffet line of dead or dying insects. 6x. Tiny flies. No dice.
Brutal. Two hours later all I have to show for my morning is a sunburnt neck and the knowledge that I've turned the same fish five or six times, but not really come close to sticking him.
Meanwhile, the imp is onto something good. I know this because the little fucker talks pretty much non-stop between 6am and 8pm, when he falls asleep, but he's been silent for at least 15 minutes over on the rocks. He's stalking something, moving slow on a big shelf between two boulders.
A few minutes later, a splash, and he's hooting and jumping around waving something clutched in both hands. Kid caught a juvenile smallmouth with his bare hands in a small eddy in the mighty Delaware. I don't know whether to be proud or worried that he's going to go feral and start making neighbors pets disappear. Four years old and he's a cold blooded hunter. The fish didn't survive the attack and my son insisted I grill it up for lunch. Catch and release will come later I guess.
5/9 Same thing. This time the wind gets up and the grannom go down at my rock, so I take the kid up to the house and leave him with his granddad and seek out a sheltered spot where the bugs are still going in flurries. Maybe five casts later I bring to hand a 23" brown with a small elk hair dry. Biggest trout I've caught on a dry to date. The fish was rising in 8 inches of water, two feet from somebody's back yard, within view of the "Brooklyn bridge." (If you think you know the spot PM me and I'll confirm if you've got it right.)
5/10 Same thing, back at my rock. Refusal city again. Put everything including the kitchen sink over a fish that was rising every 20 seconds for maybe 75 minutes straight. Not even one take. By 8am the sun is on the water and I quit.
One day you're a peacock. The next you're a feather duster.
