Report from the Circus!

We sallied forth seeking the most storied of mayflies, the Green Drake.
The most elusive of mayflies was indeed found, poor photography skills excused please.

An unexpected encounter with hugemongous black stoneflies pictured above, and unpictured golden stoneflies.

Above photo of the resting place of bazillions of Green Drake spinners, aka Coffin Flies.

Also in abundance, March Brown spinners.

Photo above depicts the ~6 ft. Black Snake which surprised me, and I believe I it.

A mossy root system under the overhanging streamside trees revealed a rather large Dragon Fly nymph case.

Curli models the pool we staked our claim on for the evening. We had to Minion out two pairs of other anglers who sought to share our glorious pool. This was deftly accomplished by either casting directly at them, ala Curli, or threatening them via a long backcast, ala Coach.

As Coach had the only camera on stream, these are his feesh. Above is a fine brown in the 14 inch class, and below is the evening's largest feesh, a brown close to 20", with the landing assist thanks to Curli.

All in all a pretty good showing by the mayflies and the Minions.

It's On Like Donkey Kong!

The Drakes that is...

See you all at the streamside circus later today!

In keeping with the Motivational Poster theme...

Day ahead Friday bacon!


Go ahead, just try!

Wednesday Motivational Posters Unlimited

Memorial Weekend Festivities! (Sunday Version)

The scene was scenic and the pictures are picturesque.
The view downstream..

and the view over the rowers shoulder. The Blue cans seemed to be much less of an entanglement hazard than the Sierrra Nevada bottles whilst shooting line to distantly rising trouts.

We added a few more patches to Curli's waders. He is rapidly approaching having more patch than wader.

The Feesh!
Sunday evening was bountiful in the trouts and insectoid categories. Exclusively brown trout rising exclusively to sulphur duns at dusk and slightly beyond.

Stew displays a fine specimen...

Coach shows he can still hang...

Stew, we hate you, but this was a dandy of a brown.

Memorial Weekend Festivities! (Saturday Version)

The intrepid anglers passing under Hale Eddy bridge.

Said anglers heading of into the fishless sunset.Stew hit paydirt and then, just dirt.

Oh, the humanity!

Stew modeling the latest in ultralight fly rods, the whorvis 18" 5 weight.

Sasquatch on the Delaware found streamside this evening. Sasquatch knows the feesh too.

Spring Creek 05/18/09

On Monday I decide to make the 2 hour trip up to Spring Creek for wily brown trout. I arrived on stream @ 2:00 pm and fished for about for hour with no luck. Sulfur's were hatching sporadically all day. About 6:00 the Sulfurs starting hatching in earnest. There were big yellow eastern sulfurs (Size 14) and orange miniature eastern sulfurs (size 18). At about 6:30, the fish decided to feed on the surface. That's when things got interesting. The fish were rising but the were divided into three categories: Those taking the small Sulfur duns, those taking emerging sulfurs, and those taking a little of all three. After several frantic fly changes and refusals, I finally arrived at formula that worked. I went with a traditional size 14 dun trailed by a size 18 yellow sulfur emerger. Most of the fish went after the emerger pattern. I was positioned in the run and pool below the handicap platform. After landing fish in the middle of the pool and tail end. I switched to a size 16 no hackle dun and was able to full a few more fish in deep run. By the end of the day, I landed about 7-8 trout all about 10-14 inches. Due to technical difficulties, there are no pictures.

Curly

Just in case somebody wants to get me a cooler for the driftboat...

This is possibly the bestest cooler known to man.
The 35 quart Tundra model Yeti cooler pictured above would be, in my estimation, the most perfectest and bestest cooler for keeping "beverages" ice cold in my fine driftboat.

As you can see below, the cooler is bear proof as well, and approved as such.

At less than $250 this cooler is of course a bargain as well.

Can't you just picture its incredible awesomeness ensconced behind my rowing seat?

Find out more at: http://www.yeticoolers.com/index.php

Musconetcong Report!

Escape from the incredibly poor fishing in NY to the scenic and beautiful Musconetcong!

Curli hooked up with this pig on a green rockworm pattern.

The near dark spinner fall yielded this decent brownie...

It was a pleasant but weather challenged weekend.

Friday Bacon, Jersey Style!

Found this bellybuster of sweet delicious sausage wrapped in savory bacon at the Grease Trucks at Rutgers. The Musky fished sweetly today, full report tomorrow.

No fish here!

Typical scenery in the Upper Delaware watershed.
The rumors you've heard about the Delaware River are craftily fabricated by the greedy New York State Department of Economic Development. All of New York is paved and covered by skyscrapers. The only fishing that occurs here is when they flood some city like Hancock – so that the dignitaries will visit and allocate bags of money to the “recovery.” Stocked fish are trucked in from the Lower Hudson River because everyone knows they're crazed zombie fish that will bite anything. The truth is that Delaware is a Native American word which translates to either; “No fish here.” or “Fish broken here.”
The rumors you've heard are not true, there are no fish here, there is nothing to see here, nothing to do, no good places to stay and threats to bodily safety are lurking behind every tree and swimming in the highly polluted river. The trout left years ago when the dams were built and can now be found in New Jersey... go there instead. For cripe’s sake, there isn’t even any water in the river! We send it all to New York City for them to drink, yuck! The locals are crazy, Appalachian militia types who think that tourists are great for target practice. They love picking fights with “city folk” in the local taverns and grocery stores. New York ranks last in education, first in unemployment and has a high poverty level. Every year hundreds of fisherman and Girl Scouts are reported missing. We love New York, we must, why else would we stay.
The perils that await unsuspecting visitors in New York are a closely guarded secret. Flesh eating creatures await behind every tree. Lodges and bed & breakfasts are located on disposable diaper landfills and medical waste dumps. A well known fact around these parts is that visitors lose a lot of spouses in New York. Wives get “lost” on shopping and antiquing outings and husbands wander off to the ditch we call a river, never to be heard from again. Yep, New York is a dangerous place and is probably the worst choice you can make for fishing or vacationing. Try New Jersey or Pennsylvania, the fishing and tourism is great there, now go tell all your friends.

Combat Fishing!

This week has seen EXTREME angler pressure in the Upper West Branch area. (Not quite as bad as this first day pic. from Peeyay, but close.) Yesterday there was a truck from Jersey with surf casting rods rigged with floats for trout fishing in the access parking lot. The kicker was, they had them in the front bumper mounted beach fishing carrier! However, they did have a sweet hibachi going on the tailgate.

Penn's Creek

Anyone interested in a Sunday trip to Penn's Creek?

Curly

Respectfully submitted by a Minion Associate

The Redneck Tape Measure!
Holy cow Billy Bob, that there fish has to be at least 6 beers long! Nope Bubba, it's 7.

Another reason to buy Sierra Nevada...

May 1, 2009
Beginning today, and for the rest of this month, you can save great rivers by buying great beer!
During the month of May, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. will donate to Western Rivers Conservancy a portion of the proceeds from every 12-pack of Pale Ale and Summerfest Lager sold in the United States.
This is your chance to help conserve vital waterways while enjoying great craft beer. Please help us spread the word!
"Our beer is a product of our surroundings," said Ken Grossman, Founder and President of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and member of the board of directors for Western Rivers Conservancy. "Sierra Nevada is not just the name of our brewery, but also a place with its own unique environment. We need to do our part in protecting that environment for generations to come."
Proceeds from the Wild Rivers campaign will support Western Rivers Conservancy’s work to create river parks and protected natural areas along rivers like the Klamath River in California, the John Day in Oregon, the Hoh River in Washington and the Bear River in Utah.
"Sierra Nevada is known for its quality and integrity. It’s an environmentally responsible company that makes great beer," said Phillip Wallin, Western Rivers Conservancy’s President. "We are proud to partner with Sierra Nevada, and with the public’s help, we can conserve precious habitat for fish, wildlife and people."

Minion Associate shows how he rolls...

Aspen Extreme displays the Yampa goods.
Nice work sir!

Memorial Day Weekend

What is the plan for Memorial Day Weekend? Coaches? Penn's Creek? Some where totally random? I know if will be taking off the 21st and the 22nd. What is everyone else doing?

-Curly

WB 05-02-09

Good day on the WB yesterday. A buttload of caddis hatching, but no fish rising to them. Sporadic emergence of Hendricksons got the fish looking up. Started the day by showing the trouts a pair of nymphs; a Hendrickson and a March Brown. Hooked 5 and landed 2 bruisers, all on the Hendrickson. Switched to a Comparadun Hendrickson when some rise forms started showing sporadicaly. Dick gave me a Hendrickson spinner with a yellow razor foam egg sac late in the afternoon. Landed 3 on dries, including one nice rainbow on Dick's spinner. A good time on the river chewing the fat between periods of activity with Dick and Brett.

Friday Bacon!

Mmmm, chocolate covered bacon!

When the delicious greasy, salty bacon just isn't enough awesomeness for your discriminating palate.

Thoughts on Beer and Fishing

When thinking about fly fishing, I imagine standing waist deep in a blue ribbon trout stream with an awe inspiring background of boreal forest below soaring bald eagles while perfectly executing a double haul to a riser 70 feet away. When thinking about beer, I imagine a cold golden brown liquid with a frothy head that has the sharp taste of hops and the smooth aftertaste of deliciousness. Fortuitously beer and fly fishing seems to go together like poo and stink. Even when you can’t count on the fish, a beer will never disappoint.

Although it may be theoretically possible to fly fish without beer, why risk a cosmic cataclysm? And not just any old beer will do. There is always the chance that today will be that, “epic day”, we all hope for. You wouldn’t want to celebrate it with a semi-warm macrobrew would you? What you need for a proper celebratory toast is a handcrafted micro-brew, or at the very least, a fine IPA.

On the other hand, after making the perfect cast, setting up the perfect drift and setting to the strike just so, almost any brew would taste pretty darn good. It is not too great a leap to hypothesize that indeed, fly fishing makes beer taste better.

Perhaps it is the quality of the beer that binds the memories of good friends together over special events, or maybe it is just the quantity of the beer. Some of my fondest memories involve a side note of particularly cold or uniquely tasty beer. Beer like fly fishing, brings good people a reason to spend time together.

I particularly like an A.K. Best quote that goes, “We said we were going to go fishing, and we did.” Maybe a more personal response to the question, “How was the fishing?’”, would be, “We went for good fishing and beautiful surroundings but only found cold beer.” There can not possibly be a more fitting end to a fine day afield than a cold microbrew.