well, another sunny Saturday, another late-afternoon trip to the
Tulpehocken. The stream, again, was crowded with anglers, and somehow I
ended up finding some solitude within a quarter mile of where I was last
time. Nice water, with lots of choppy riffles and a few deeper holes. This
outing, the fish were not so cooperative. There were quite a few tannish
craneflies about, and over the years, a puffy variant-style dry would bring
fish up under such conditions. This was not one of those days. The grannom
caddis were also emerging, in fits and starts, so I switched over to a pair
of wets, one black, one dark olive, and worked my way downstream. In a long
riffle, I rose two fish, and landed a small brown. Otherwise, the fish
seemed unimpressed. I finally reached the sunken tree where I started in the
last time and had a sit-down to observe what the fish were doing. Twenty
minutes later, I concluded that the fish were largely sitting on the bottom
and laughing at me.
I put on a #14 Hares Ear nymph, a small split shot and rigged an indicator 7
feet up the leader. This rig got me a couple fish, but proved boring, as
nymphing generally does to me. I did observe three or four surface rises,
likely to midges, but the hour was getting late for a total re-rig to fish
#24 dries. So, I trotted back to the car, with a couple,three hours of solid
casting practice behind me.
I'm now ready to head up to Penn's next week with at least my casting skills
intact. Until then, I'll spend my time over the tying bench, restocking
Bruce's shop bins and my collection, with a few leftovers for my fishing
buddies.....
Tom