What Outings Present You as the Given

Our single fish, about 14 inches.

I got up at 3:45 a.m., put on shorts, a T-shirt, water shoes. Fixed eggs and coffee before I put a Woolrich shirt over my shoulders, a light jacket over that. Temperature was 59 degrees as I drove out of Bedminster. When I arrived at Cronk's, it was 56 and raining.

I got the dolly and put it on the back seat. I put ropes up front and back, the rachet strap beside the car, passenger side. Beside the back seat. Everything was quiet, Loki the black Labrador loping about leisurely, no evidence of my having stirred Brian's dogs. I had said we have a good track record in keeping quiet, when I submitted my request to secure the squareback canoe early. As it turned out, I would later be told to back in, in the future, as the lights did wake up the dogs. I just hadn't heard them. 

Oliver pulled into the drive. I put the blanket on top of the car and two pool noodles. We put the foam plastic on the gunwales and popped the canoe on top. The rachet and ropes were a breeze. 

Still 56 at Tilcon, we found carting the canoe in--heavy marine battery, Minn-Kota, and all--so easy and efficient everything felt dandy. Rain continued to fall, but surely temps would rise well into the 60's, towards that forecasted high of 70, and the rain would soon end. I had put my rain jacket on over the other. Oliver didn't bring rain gear. 

And the bass. Oh, they'd hit in these conditions. There's a hurricane off the coast!

I know. I'm always neutral when I approach an outing, but I did think fish might be active. Who wouldn't think they might be on a morning like this one? As it turned out, they not only definitely were not active, we couldn't even locate but a single salmon on the sonar graph as we crisscrossed over the 50-foot deep basin looking for them. Where did they go? (We never saw any on the graph in 35 feet, either.) Today the lake level is down about two feet, so most of the basin registered at 48 feet, some of it 49. We had Kastmasters to try jigging with. 

I told Oliver today that Tilcon is my favorite lake to worm for bass.

"Yeah, because we always catch some."

And we wormed plenty. He did have one on that took his Wacky worm twice, so probably a pickerel but who knows. I never got hit. Only sunfish played with my Chompers. I get that worm into all sorts of tight places, love the exercise of accurate casting, but today I couldn't help but feel bass had all but entirely vacated shallows. The water temperature was 77 and misting against the 56-degree air. So I tended to cast a little way out from shore. The worm dropped a good 15 feet, but still. Nothing happened. And we had a trying time keeping out of the wind, running out of spots to cast to.

So we trolled towards the back of the lake where a whole lengthy shoreline would be out of that wind. I got hit pretty quickly, missed it, using the standard Hot 'n Tot that gets down 15 feet.

We rounded the flat, and I said to Oliver, "Good chance of catching one here. We've done well trolling along the weeds here before."

Before we would turn right and head down along the shoreline, I ripped my crankbait through some weeds and a second later felt that whomp we all troll for. The bass would have measured about 14 inches. 

We trolled, and we passed up a lot of nice looking worm water, which I couldn't help but tell myself we'd revisit, give it the chance it seemed to cry out for. We crisscrossed the basin I told you about, nothing there, and then we gave up. It was still raining. When we eventually got in the car, the temp was 59, so it had never got out of the 50's. When we hit the gravel, Oliver checked his phone and said, "Four hours."

I thought more like two, but yeah. We had given worming a real chance. If we would catch more fish, probably trolling the opposite side would have been the wise move, but were soaked, my shorts were soaked and I even felt water on my back despite my rain jacket. Shivering. 

It's a tough day when you're reduced to the like, but you don't resent it, if you're wise. Take the good with the bad and get on with it; if you start putting conditions on what outings present you as the given, you're a fool. I relished my complaints with a smile. I did complain. But I knew we'd get in that warm car and it would all vanish, and when it did, we could almost have been still out there. 

Hurricane's at sea, but it was stormy out there.

Rocks in the background. I would have used my long lens, but I was concerned enough about the camera getting wet as it was.

Clouds and Wind

 

Scouted West Branch Delaware River Above Cannonsville Reservoir

 

West Branch Delaware River miles above Cannonsville Reservoir.

Every summer, my brother David camps near Roscoe, NY, with his wife Carol and his friend Steve Cane and his family. Last week he invited me up, and I got there Saturday at three p.m., after stopping in at The Beaverkill Angler for a couple of size 24 blue winged olives, a size 14 Isonychia, and a sulfur-shaded Cahill, size 16. David had our destinations planned, referring to a map that shows parking and access. Steve would stay behind.

I felt surprised at how narrow the river. Smaller than much of the Farmington in Connecticut. We drove for miles upstream before we found one of the spots. What I saw felt unpleasant, as the stretch accessed by descending a thickly vegetated bank on a narrow trail was muddy with carp visible near the surface. The water barely moved at all, low because of the drought. I assumed carp had muddied it. 

A little non-plussed, I turned back, got in Dave's truck with him ready at the wheel, and from there we rode to the next spot, photographed above. From the bridge, we spotted a smallmouth of about 16 inches--and more carp. At the least, the water wasn't muddy. David wanted me to get the temperature with his thermometer. He knew something was amiss, and he did not want to fish trout if the water was above 65. 

It was 23 Celsius. Way too warm. And why was that when Pepacton Reservoir, I thought, was not far upstream?

We drove on downstream to the next access point where the thermometer read 25 Celsius. The stretch was about a foot deep. Dave spotted a sip riser. I saw it when the fish came up again.

"It's a rainbow. About 11 inches long," he said.  

David had a little blue winged olive tied on, too, and either of us could have casted for the trout, but neither of us was really tempted to.

David had checked the latest fishing report from Hale Eddy, which claimed the water temp was 55 degrees F. That I couldn't wrap my head around, given that I believed the cold water release from the reservoir was upstream, but I wanted to find out what was up as much as David did.

On the way there, we passed by Cannonsville Reservoir, so I figured the East Branch Delaware flowed pretty close to the West Branch at this point. We got to Hale Eddy not very long after, and before I could even get the thermometer in the water, I felt the coolness of the water in the air. I let the thermometer sit a while, not convinced it worked, and then read 12.5 degrees C. About 55 degrees F. It works. And I clearly understood--at last--that of course it's the West Branch flowing from Cannonsville Reservoir. We had been scouting the river where it's not a tailwater, but there are trout up there, as signs nailed to trees indicate, though I'm not altogether sure the trout David saw was a rainbow. I found information from the State of New York only on the stocking of browns up there, the information also stating that a wild brown trout fishery exists.

We walked the bridge and otherwise observed the water, finding no bugs on it, seeing no rises at all. So we fished pheasant tail beadheads, at first about five feet under indicator floats, then freestyle. I took my float off when I approached a couple of big rocks creating slack water and seams where it's shallower but interesting. On my second drift, I felt a knock and reared back on nothing. I drifted that run inside and out about 35 more times and never replicated what I had felt, and I swear I had seen the line jump, too. Maybe I got hit. 

We continued to fish the deeper run, both of us without indicators, but nothing happened. We had pretty much run out of time. I guess we could have tried to dig up another access point, but not only is it clearly evident why fishing the river from a drift boat is advantageous; it proved best we got back to camp when we did. I ended up arriving home in New Jersey just before dark.  

Below Cannonsville Reservoir the West Branch Delaware is a much wider river.

Pepacton Reservoir