Thursday, May 4, 2017

Training Wheels


A stunner...

After our inaugural float with the Stealthcraft Hooligan XL, we witnessed the potential of our home river from a radically different point of view. No longer were we tempted to drive an additional few hours to fish the Upper Delaware. In fact, we ended up fishing the Upper D zero times this Spring despite it being the main reason for obtaining the three person raft. The Lehigh proved too tempting to pass up and usually had no other people on it to compete for runs, pools, and rising fish. Our first float produced two stunning wild brown trout, one on a nymph and the other on a Quill Gordon comparadun. On this float, we broke out the streamer rods and Ryan drummed one up from the deep. The fish, whether a holdover or a wild brown, was absolutely stunning and was another reminder of the potential that the Lehigh holds...





No boat launch required.

Two additional April floats helped me learn the river a little more and give me some quality time behind the oars. Ryan and Adam partook on the floats and I tried positioning them the best I could to get some trout, even though Adam fished for musky half the time. My only rule as guide was that if we saw some rising fish, I got first dibs. Unfortunately, on the two days on the water, there weren't that many rising fish. One float was borderline blown out and the other produced a tough upriver wind that wasn't too convenient for my dry or die approach. 


A slice of perfection...


Batwings


Adam came trout fishing with me for the first time in almost 5 years...


Nymph, dry, swing...




Battle of the chubs...







LRSA brown trout.



Lots of smallies...



Lehigh River birding tours...


A brown tiger thing... 


Thought I had on a big brown...


Clean...


Fresh from the truck...



Most rising fish are wild fish...


A hungry bow...



Streamer eaters...

On the high water day, we fished streamers by pounding the banks. We took the home invader approach and slammed our weighted streamers down hard to illicit a response from the trout and smallies hanging in the slack water along the banks. We missed more fish than we landed but the ones that were brought to hand, were very nice fish. 



Stuck at the boat launch for an hour...

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