from another Catskill board on last weekend - I’ll put up the results from scouting there this last 3 days
Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 9:08 am Post subject: Weekend 21-22May on Willow and BigB
PA had been ffishing so well and it’s been a lot of work up in the Catskills so I wasn’t going to ffish this last weekend in NY, until the rain dumped 1"+ down here, spiking up our water flows. Too bad this didn’t happen in the Catskills too - the watershed needs the water.
So I called a buddy from Manhattan with water on the Upper Willo and we arranged to spend the afternoon there. Having read the MB thread and since I’ve seen March Browns once in a while the last 10 days on the BigB (and since MB’s were killer on Penn’s last week for me), I started with old fashioned (or out-of-fashion?) #10 March Browns, tied in the Flick/Jennings style by me 35 yrs ago - I was on pocket water and wanted to see how the 7’6"#4 cane I was using would work with such a big fluffy fly before I hit the pools. To my surprise, 2 streambred 8" brookies and a 16" brown ate it, so I was stoked to do MB duns, emergers and spinners even though the water temp up there was very low 50?'s.
But when I came to the 1st pool and actually saw a rise, nada. There were clouds of shad flies and midges as well, but the fish weren’t moving to them there. I did get a nice 17" brown with a Quigley, then I saw caddisy slaps the next pool up.
Most of the next dozen were to various caddis - Henryvilles, Colorado Kings, CDC&“Elk. But when the sun came out and some trouts were visibly feeding but ignoring my caddisses, I saw a lot of wind drift on the water, so I got a couple on black ants and beetles.
What was key for the next day was the evening when a variety of sulfury duns and spinners began to work. I was surprised since the season has been running so slow in the NE that though I had great sulfurs down in PA, I didn’t really expect them yet in the Cats, especially so far up the Willo. Most years I expect sulfurs after the MB’s are mostly done. The last 2 hours delivered a catch rate of 4-6/hr - the browns were big and fresh enough that it took a while to land them. There was a stray rainbow in the mix too.
Sunday I spent the afternoon on everybody’s favorite pool on the BigB. I found a small pod of sippers/sniffers, and I went thru a multitude of flies and tippet trying to see if any merited a nod. As I got in the pool, in between drizzle showers I actually saw a #16 sulfur. One of the trouts ate a Quigley type (heavily modified) sulfur, but the other 4 gave it one insincere shot. I am always mystified by how they can make the fly disappear but I can’t feel a thing.
Several folks got a few on midges (I got misses on Griffiths) and tiny spinners. Then literally thousands of tiny (#22-26) BWO’s peppered the water. The weather was ideal Baetis weather, which is to say cold, drizzly. In slack areas, the flies never seemed to leave the water, and I wondered why few fish cruised the slack water to slurp them up (maybe too many humans around?).
There were a few MB’s, and even 1 Gray Fox (if you consider that a different species). Also the occasional Yellow Sally, but strangely hardly any caddis - not till later. I was using 6X and wasn’t willing to go down to serious midging because of the size of the trouts I could see rising here and there.
Running a big cripple (thinking MB still) over a bubble stream in deeper water got some of the holdovers, including a bow - these didn’t take me into backing, but if the water flow was more like 500 instead of 200, they would have.
The haze and overcast and drizzle made for somewhat constant activity, but only in spots at a time. The action was best at dusk. Recalling Saturday’s experience in colder waters with sulfurs, I pulled some out. Sulfurs worked in the faster water, but the most consistent for me was midges and small rusty spinners (saw some Para spinners in the backwaters), using easterncaster’s trick, which is to drift the invisible flies, quartering downstream into the glare. Kind of like Henry’s Fork.
I was using a plastic tube rod, so I didn’t hold a number of trouts, but they kept me fairly busy. Only landed a dozen in the end, using up about 2 yards of tippet from the fly changes (but no breakoffs, for a change).
The holdover browns are gorgeous colors, with red adiposes and buttery bellies, and tones of pink and lavender as they roll in the water. The ones over 14” make you pay attention to line tangles and wind knots. Cold, but worth it, I guess.
The floods certainly changed some pools, and maybe the bugs were somewhat diminished. I can’t tell if the overall trouts population was reduced - the activity on the surface all year (3 multi-day sessions) is much less than usual, even with the low water now and cold air/water. For what it’s worth, Mary Darbee told me they were stocking Monday (yesterday). This may mess things up for a day or 2, but we will see how things are later this week.
tl
les
PS - for those upset about out-of-towners - ffishing in the same pool with me were other Keystoners, a Texan and 2 from Cali - they were having a great time with their pilgrimage. Some of them even hung a couple trouts and others (that’s payback for nymphing).
