Sunday Morning Coming Down.

With Jean out walking with her sister, I finished up the things I had to do back home, fed the trout in the pond, packed food and clothes in the car and departed Lafayette so as to be in time to fish this evening.

 The drive down showed that Mother Nature has been busy turning summer into fall despite the warmer than usual daytime temperatures. The fallow fields are a bright carpet of yellow as the golden rod's tall stalks dwarf the other plants, the vine that climes the hardwoods along the road, and goes unnoticed all summer, is now bright red, the sumacs have started to turn but have a ways to go, the swamp maples along 81 near Preble are all a brilliant red while most of the wooded hills are just starting to show a muted rust color. 

It seems like forever since the last rain. The release from Cannonsville has been stepped up to 800cfs and is drawing more silt into the river, Wallenpaupack has been running most days and still can draw down the reservoir another foot and a half before October 1st. Without rain the freestones are mere puddles with both the BK and EB maxing out over seventy again today in the bright sun. There were between six and ten trailers at all of the takeouts and both boats and wade fishermen seemed to be everywhere. 

The fishing - Picked a place below a takeout and saw neither boats nor waders. Arrived streamside at 5:45 expecting to see olives in good numbers as the bugs were plentiful the last time the release was raised. Tonight, not so much, there were almost bo bugs on my arrival, then the usual suspects appeared along with a few Hebes which DRC has been mentioning but which I hadn't seen. The hatch was fair at best and tapered off before dark. The fish were unimpressed. Risers were hard to find. Four ate with no apparent concern about the possibility of being hooked. Another half dozed were less impressed with my offerings. Walked out before dark with only a few bugs on the water and no fish rising.

The outlook - Unless it rains the best place to fish remains the BR. Hopefully the additional release will get the bugs going and the fish feeding there. Even with the elevated release, wading levels on the BR are good and the water is still quite clear.