On the Delaware - it's not just about the fishing...
My son Scott and I fished the Delaware River this weekend. We fished the Main Stem on Saturday and the West Branch on Sunday. This trip had a little bit of everything. Saturday it was cold and windy with rain on and off making for some difficult fishing with only a few bugs hatching. BWO's, Sulphers and some dark brown caddis were all that I saw in very small numbers and zero Isonychia's on this trip. Later in the evening, just before dark we were able to catch a few and lose a few on Wiese's Coachman Clacka Caddis and some dark brown Korn's Spent Wing Caddis flies. But the highlight of the day for me was seeing a bald eagle flying low, down the river towards us with a fish in it's talons. It landed on the bank right behind us and started tearing and eating it... very cool.
Later in the day we watched a Heron as it hunted not 10 yards from Scott. It caught a mouse, killed it and then swallowed it whole... Seems everybody was on the hunt this weekend.
On Sunday morning the fishing was off with no bugs hatching and a cold front moving through. Needless to say we didn't catch anything, however I did manage to sink a size #14 caddis fly deep into my ring finger well beyond the barb, which by-the-way was not mashed down. That got me hopping. Scott then got a "hands on" lesson on hook removal 101. He did the honors using some 2x leader around the bend of the hook while I pushed down hard on the eye of the hook, giving him the nod to yank away, he popped it out... Yooowza! (sorry no photos of that)
Near mid-day it got a little nicer with temps rising from the 40's into the 50's. Even so, we saw very few trout rising and had some slow fishing until we went to throwing some meat. The old faithful Simi-Seal Leech in black seemed to do the trick and we were back in action. (for tying instructions see my YouTube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ4A9VM0FtQ&feature=plcp)
Then it was back to Scott's house for some football and Erin's hot minestrone soup to warm us up for dinner.
All-in-all a great weekend with my son and more memories made, who could ask for more!
