OK, I have been lazy. I haven't posted in a while. My wife was away, helping care for her mother and that left me at home with my daughters. That was fun for sure, but it limited fishing.
Also, I stopped tying, because I had no read need to tie flies that I wouldn't be using for a while.
That changed last week. I drove upstate and fished the Big D on 8/14 and 8/15 with my bud from work Eric. We floated on Thursday with Ben Turpin. It was slow in the morning, but picked up big time in the afternoon. The biggest fish was a 16" brown I took on a nymph, but we had the numbers. I think I boated 15 fish, most on dries. It was whack a mole at dusk, with too many fish to throw to.
They were on #16 and #18 sulphers and #14 cahills.
The next day we waded. The morning was slow again. But again, towards afternoon, things heated up. I probably landed 10 fish in total where the riffles rolled into the pools.
On Saturday morning, I fished the East Branch by East Branch Outfitters before I had to hit the road. I took two browns on nymphs and a bow on a sulpher comparadun. Nothing of real size, but fat and healthy. Ben Rinker says (and he had an article in the local paper about it) that the East Branch is fishing the best it has been in a decade due to the cool night temps out there.
The best thing about the East Branch is that you just don't see any other fishermen. That's worth it on its own.
Around 11am on Saturday, I left Hancock, headed to Vermont for the second leg of my vacation. More on that later today.