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West Branch Delaware - 6.7.2008

dcabarle

Administrator
So here it goes. I woke up a little later yesterday (7am or so) because I had a late hockey game on Friday night. I got home and went to bed at 3am. Why??? Because I'm an idiot.

This week, I knew my only option was going to be wading the WB. I left the pontoon boat at home and instead, brought Kramer, my dog. I was a little nervous about getting on fish with him but I hoped he might just chill on the bank while I fished.

CLICK TO ENLARGE.
[coverattach=1] Golden Retrievers are however one of the most playful dogs on the planet. They crave lots of attention, just like a baby. He was far better behaved than I would have ever imagined. He was on a leash all day but I did let the leash free from my hands. He stayed by my side all day and never left. This is good and bad... See.... I'd try to sneak up on a fish but with 4 paws kurplinging almost simultaneously in the river, it was quite difficult.






I know I posted the following picture up above, but it seams like people don't click them too often. I'm including this one in the post because I thought the fly in front of his nose was pretty cool looking.

If you want to see the x-large version, click here:

http://www.njflyfishing.com/photopost/data/507/DSC_2842-flyfishing.jpg

DSC_2842flyfishing-1.jpg



[coverattach=2]I finally made it to where I wanted to fish, then sat back for a while and hung out with Kramer. I finally managed to start casting to a rising fish when 7 anglers with what appeared to be a fly fishing school of sorts came stumbling down the river. The 4 people up front never fished before. The easy tell was that while walking in the river, they created a wake in which I wish I'd brought my surfboard. While the fish were down, I could have been surfing. Speaking of surfing, thats where I really should have been yesterday. Anyhow, the 3 people in the back of the crowd (although too late) where courteous enough to walk on the bank as much as they could. I suppose it didn't matter anyway. The fish were rising so sporadically, you never knew where to put the fly. Blind casting was an option but after every cast or two (depending upon how unlucky you were), you had to peel off the nasty algae. So why waste a cast?

There was hardly any wind through-out the day and hardly any bugs on the water. BUT.... There were bugs.... Big nasty black flies. At any given time I had 5-6 of them on each arm, hat, back, neck... everywhere. I could have probably kept them off of me with a little bug spray which I actually remembered to bring with me but then forgot it in the car :mad:. I was at least a mile from the car, and the majority of the walk was in the water so I wasn't going back there to get it.

So basically, No bugs, lots of algae, and that was it until 8:30 or so.

[coverattach=4]At about 8:30, I saw two fish working pretty good in a riffle. I put on a little sulpher and stung one of them. Went to lift my rod and it was a little heavy. The algae was all over my fly. I got most of it off but changed the fly anyway. I put another sulphur on and a few casts later hooked into another fish. He jumped out of the water 3-4 times then I lost him. No big deal, right? It just started up so I'll get to fish to rising fish for an hour or so right? Uhhhhh NO. I saw 1 more fish rise about 5 minutes later and that was it. Done. Deer are a dime a dozen. They're like big rats. This one was good enough for a picture.


CLICK TO ENLARGE.
[coverattach=3] So that was the day, and as mentioned in This Thread... The algae was terrible. If you click the picture, you can get a good idea of what was in the water. I'm not talking about the March Brown either.





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When I was a teenager I once had a dog (cockapoo) when I lived on a trout stream. That dog would love to come fishing with me. I had one little problem with him. When I hooked a fish he'd jump in the water to retrieve it! I tried to solve this problem by sneeking out of the house. However, almost every time he'd track me down even if I was 1/2 mile away from the house.

So I suggest you teach Kramer proper technique for catach and release! Teach him how to net a fish for you. Then you would have something!

On a separate note... that algae does look very thick for this time of year... nice pictures.
 
I headed out to the WB last night seeing that the BK was going to be too hot to fish. The water at Balls Eddy was about 67 and a passing guide told me it was 71 at the same spot the previous day (Saturday).
Went up to Hale Eddy and the water was 60, compared to the BK's 74. It seemed like the fishing would be great but the algae and grass had a knack of finding my fly. I only saw 3 rises between both spots. Nothing consistent, very little bug activity. And I had stayed until dark. I'd love to say my first WB experience lived up to the WB's name but I'll give it another try down the road. They must have released water recently from the Cannonsville.
 
Does that mean Kramer is now going to post under the nick...

FlyDog?

..OOPSssss... I hear some growling from the HotDog...

Chill out CoolDog.
 
I headed out to the WB last night ...


Burt:

Who cares!!??

You read the original post and had no comment for Kramer...

You are to stay off line till you come up with an appropriate response.
Meaning.... Petie-Po moves or scrubs it.

As always, willing to teach others ... the road to detention.

AK Skim
 
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