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The rules keep changing.

Posted on August 26 2018

Four days ago in my "killin' time" posting  I said that with the warm spill water, hatches would be restricted to the last hour before dark.  Also said that any tricos or ants would likely go uneaten at "current water levels" which on the big river was at 8,000CFS. Well, welcome to the Delaware. The spills have stopped, the water is very cold throughout the system and there are olive and steno hatches in the middle of the afternoon.  As for the ants - I don't know if the trout would have come up in 8,000CFS to eat them when I wrote the article but they had no problem slurping them down tonight in 3,500 CFS.

After two days of limited wading in the WB, I opted for the "ideal" wading conditions being offered by the BK.  It was like fishing in early May (without the Hendricksons) or any other bugs for that matter.  In about two hours of fishing I never saw a bug or a rise except to my fly.  Rose four fish, hooked two (one a good one) and lost them both.

On to the UEB, with the now ice cold water there were olives and stenos on the water at 3:15.  There were also rising fish (lots of them) unfortunately they were all 1.5 year olds.  In two and a half hours of fishing, I hooked lots of fish but never one over 12 inches.  It was pretty much the same on the WB the last two days with the majority of fish being of the 2017 year class.

Left the UEB about 6:00 and worked my way down the BE looking for bugs and risers and finding neither.  What I did see in the sunlit areas near Hancock were flying ants.  Stopped at Cadosia but the water was too choppy to see either ants or risers. Drove over to Junction Pool and saw rising fish.  At 3500 CFS you can get in but you can't get out very far.  You didn't need to, there were rising fish in easy casting range feeding on what else, ANTS.  Small ones, they were so small even God couldn't tie one on a hook.  It really didn't matter what size they were because my ant box was back at camp.  Threw at ant slurping fish until 8:15.  Got two refusals, one take and a whole bunch of ignores.

 My ant and trico boxes are on the table next to my car keys and will be in my vest tomorrow..

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