A Side Trip at Hausmann's
 

Mike, Julia, Jennifer and I took a side trip over to the West Fork of the Delaware River for some dry fly fishing on Saturday. It was a beautiful day.

Were any fish molested ?

That looks like a lot of fun

We were not skunked.

I our defense, it was very windy and the fish were not biting. No one on the river was catching anything and there was no hatch on. We probably would have done much better if we'd waited until about 6 o'clock to get started.

But it is called fishing and not catching. And any day fly fishing on a beautiful river is better than a day.....

Standing in a river waving a stick, as they say. What's not to love?!

Quoting John Gierach, one of my favorite authors, "Even Brook Trout Get The Blues."





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How far was the Delaware River from Hausmans? I came from the south and followed several Trout streams along the way. I didn't notice anybody fishing(not like western Maryland) but I wish I would have thrown a rod in my Yukon. There were some beautiful holes that I would have liked to fish.

Forgive my sidetracking for a moment, but like Dean, I'm a fan of Gierach. I don't recall the quotation exactly, but one of my favorite passages concerns a friend of John's who, after visiting the author's house (a very modest affair) in his beater pickup truck, asked how it was that John could afford costly bamboo rods and live in a "place like this" and drive a "truck like that?" John pointed out that it was because he afforded fine fly rods that he lived in a place like that and drove a truck like that. That passage hits home with me, but hey, what we value is what we value.

I often tell my wife that priceless and worthless are very similar in that there is no money involved.:whistle:

Okay, back to the fishing trip...

I know that pool you're standing in. Right below that at dusk when the little orange sulfurs show in the humid cling of summer and light is fading quick you can watch 20+" fish coming up at will. And there's not a darn thing you can do about it. Tough fish. Great river. I'm blessed to live within 20 minutes of it.

Most unforgiving hatch I ever fished was the tricorithodes hatch on the Battenkill River in southwestern VT. Simply impossible when the surface is absolutely covered with a thin layer of #24 naturals and I was casting a #24 imitation. What the heck was I thinking believing a trout would select my fly from a sea of millions of naturals. Heck, I couldn't even SEE my fly... big trout, little trout and medium sized trout were rolling and porpoising all over the river. Pulled my hair out and went back to the truck...





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It was about 30 minutes east of Vestal. Hausmann's was about 30 minutes west. If I have my compass right.