West Branch/Upper Delaware 5/24-5/25

[Lard Almighty]

Dad and I made our spring trip to Hancock this weekend, once again booking a full day float on the river. We got up there early on Saturday, so we fished the stretch behind the hotel for a couple hours. Dad used spinners, and I tried to look like I knew what I was doing with a fly rod. Neither of us accomplished anything. Saw one guy get a small trout on a nymph, that was it. Lots of baitfish in the shallows, water was high but pretty clear.

Sunday we met with our guide Mike for a float from Balls Eddy to Buckingham. Day started out foggy, and I quickly put two nice trout in the boat, and dropped a N-I-C-E brown after about three or four ridiculous jumps. Then the sun came out, and the fish got a little skittish. Had a lot of follows right up to the boat, and many strikes were tentative. You don't know heartbreak until you see a 3-lb brown following an inch behind your spinner for 20 yards, and then just swim away. Despite the weird bite, Dad and I managed to boat around 20 trout between 10 and 18 inches, mostly rainbows, with two bonus walleye. We (mostly I) lost about the same number, including a couple of bruisers that we never even saw.

Spinners accounted for most of the fish (especially Dad's vintage Swiss Swing), except for the walleye and the big brown of the day, which went for jerkbaits. Lots of people on the water for the holiday weekend, not all of them fishing. Water was perfect; about a foot or so high and slightly off-color. Lots of hatches going on, including March browns and sulfurs. Got scared to death by a beaver slapping its tail in a backwater slough.