May 28, 2009 - Lehigh - - Sulphurs

Lately we've been seeing quite a few sulphurs on the River. Now is the time to get out there in the lo-light hours - - or even the afternoon hours if we have cool/overcast days - - and poke around for one of our most prolific hatches.

For this hatch we like to fish a parachute pattern, with a brite white post...this lends itself to good visability in dusky conditions.

May 26, 2009 - West Branch Delaware Report

Could it be that the fish were stuffed, and were laying on the bottom digesting and laughing at us? Who knows, but if you did not know that the West Branch really is loaded with fish, you would have thought you were fishing in a sewer. At least that is what it felt like.

Bugs in the pm hours were somewhat prolific, but really only toward dark. We had some march browns trickle off during the daytime hours, but other than that, the bug life was concentrated to the lo-light hours. There were drakes, as well as some coffins, and sulphurs. Sulphurs ranged from the small dortheas to larger variations in all sorts of colors. There were also a few larger red-brown spinners here and there. However, nothing ever rose in the evening hours over the course of three days. Very odd for this time of year.

What did produce, and provided the best action was early morning nymphing. A large march brown nymph, followed by either a Lafontaine caddis emerger or our ultimate (photoed to the right), proved too tough to resist. Nymphing did take some serious effort since there was quite a bit of algae in the water. Though, not near as bad as a few weeks ago. The high water did push a lot of it up into the grass.

Water levels were perfect - - about 600cfs at the Hale Eddy gage. This is a nice level for both wading and floating. Sunday morning we did wake up to find the West Branch muddy in the lower reaches, but up in the no-kill it was pretty clean. I'd call it stained. That said...we had the no-kill to pretty much ourselves. That must tell ya about the quality of the fishing right now. Slow!

Another tough go. Multiple times on the water, and multiple bad outings on the Lehigh - - this stretch in particular. Today (late-morning, thru early-afternoon) we had perfect fishing conditions. Little bit of light rain here and there - - hardly any sun, and very little wind, except for some gusting here and there. Yes the water was a bit high, but clear. Though the water temps did nothing but fall thru the course of the day. We had some bugs - - march browns, sulphurs and caddis. But not near enough to bring the fish to the top - - especially with the way the water was running. Ended the day with two fish. Weak!

Word is - - team spin is has been doing well, so it just might be that the fish have yet to really key in on the bugs and our flies. Time will tell.

Pasted below is a graphic generated by the LRSA Jim Thorpe Water Quality Probe. This is a very cool tool. Follow the link to see how you can access some great data!

If only we could keep the current flows and color through the summer months. I don't think you could have better conditions for early May. On the limestoners - - fish are hanging anywhere you have good color. If you can't see the bottom, chances are there is a fish waiting to eat your fly. On the most recent outing, our Ultimate cleaned-up. We fished it as a dropper under a high floating caddis. The trout could not leave it alone!

May 6, 2009 - Update - Lehigh

I guess Mother Natures feels we need rain. She is partially right, but it would be nice to mix in a bit of sun from time to time. Just take a look at the chart to the right, and you can see, that since the beginning of the month we have been inundated with rainfall here across the southern half of the state. The northern tier should make out in the next few days. It would be nice if we could spread this precip out over bit more time, but we will take whatever we can get.

As for the Lehigh, we were out again this past weekend, and found some slowish fishing. It just does not appear the fish are too eager to key in on insects just yet. Year-after-year, we find this with the Lehigh during the early season. Face it, the Lehigh is still running cold with water temps mainly in the low-50s throughout the trout fishing stretch we like to hit up. Weather pending we might get after it again this weekend. Don't forget there is a whitewater release on Saturday.