8/4/26. I haven't made a blog entry since arriving in early June. We will be here until late August, so a few weeks left for flyfishing. To summarize, it's been the best year I've ever had for catching big browns. For a while, I caught one almost every trip to the river (100 yards downhill) from 16-21." I counted nine browns and one rainbow over 16" which is very good for me, if not for most people on this kick-ass river.

The most I've caught in one evening is only three, so it's been a low-catching summer, as usual. This is not a numbers game, it's about having a good chance of catching a trophy fish every time I'm out. I've hooked a couple of truly large fish, but both pulled the fly after giving me a near heart attack with their power.

The hatches have been modest, perhaps because the river froze over this past winter. We expected the hatches to suffer, and boy are they off. I keep expecting more robust sulphur and olive hatches, but some evening recently have been devoid of hatches, although the suphur spinners have been thick after dark. The hatching has been much better in the upper section, but not much here. The fish rise on some evenings quite aggressively, but the duns have been few and far between. During June and early July, I had good action on sulphur emerges patterns, but not always the same fly. The browns shift in their preference without notification, of course, and have been fortunate to stumble upon the right fly on several otherwise puzzling occasions. More recently, spinners have been more effective. I've tied several different different patterns, but it's been very tough nonetheless. The rainbow action, which has been pretty phenomenal in a certain section of the river the past two years has been slow to develop. I'll post when there's any significant changes.

Two days ago, on 7/11, the hatch was on! the action reminded me of last summer after the big flood, when the action was phenomenal. I stood in one spot for two hours and casted to fish in every direction, rising rythmically. I looked in the water for some indication of their targeted food source, and saw small sulphur duns emerging, and lots of spinners, some rusty. The prvious Sunday, Ed had hooked two on a rusty spinner, so I thought that would be the key. But nothing seemed to work—standard sulphurs, parachutes, spinners, Cahills, etc. Finally I caught a nice 14" brown on the swing!, and missed two other takes. Based on the swing strike, I wondered, Were they feeding on caddis? The rise forms were not as dramatic as a caddis emergence might indicate.

After almost a week of high water, I started wading again on 6/27. The hatches were sparse, and shut down during the last hour of light, usually the best time. I struck out on Friday, and lost one on Saturday. Although the river was perfect in all ways, the hatches were minimal. Last night, there was a pretty robust sulphur hatch from 7-8, but I managed only to get two takes, one on a cdc sulphur emerger, and one on a parachute sulphur.

Ryan arrived on Monday 6/16, and we started flyfishing the next day. Fishing the same section of the river below the house we had a pretty good week. We each caught several browns, but the fishing was much more difficult than before his arrival.

Ed Rompala took us on an afternoon float trip down the lower West Branch (to Junction Pool). We landed one small brown, but hooked a couple of others.

On the last night, we fished with Ed and my buddy Paul Robilotti from Montrose, and struck out except for one hooked fish by Ed. Then the rains came and blew the river out, so our family duties on Ryan's last day were easier to embrace since the fishing was over.

The day before Ryan arrived from Texas, I fished alone on a section where he caught his first brown two years ago—a 22+" brown that came to the net after Ryan had fished in the rain for six consecutive days.

I landed a 20" brown, and then a 15" rainbow for the best evening I'd had in a long time.

Ed invited me on an afternoon float trip from Balls Eddy to Buckingham on the main branch. Before the rains came and immobilized us for about 45 minutes, we both caught 17-18" browns on a pheasant tail beadhead nymph below a snowshoe comparadoun floater. After the rain, however, we struck out for the remaining float to Bukingham.

I didn't fish 5/28 or 5/29 because of family duties in Brackney, PA, but the conditions continued to be perfect. Ed fished one of those evenings and caught "several rainbows" before the rains came for several days. The resevoir was already full, so the extra water had to be "spilled" while the bottom releases continued to regulate the river temp somewhat. The river was unwadeable until two weeks later!

I went back the next evening and fished alone below the cabin, and landed a 17" brown on a #16 sulphur. I took a quick picture before quickly releasing it.

We arrived on May 25, and found the river to be perfect for wading at 900 cfs. I fished May 26 with my neighbor Ed Rompala and caught two 16" rainbows for a great start to the season. Caught them on tradiitonal tie #16 sulphurs.