Yesterday I took my usual weekend fishing trip to the Catskills' mountain streams and the West Branch of the Delaware.
I fished the Mongaup Creek in the state land with a tenkara rod. It is one of the branches of upper Willowemoc Creek.
I caught some browns in the lower section and brookies in the upper section of the stream.
There is a state campground in the middle of the mountain, so the traffic on the road along the stream was busy yesterday. Even though the stream was beautiful, the noisy traffic took away my feeling of solitude of fishing in such a mountain stream.
I started fishing in the West Branch a little earlier than usual, at around 3 o'clock.
The cool and cloudy weather brought more insects hatching on the water, and this brought more fish rising.
Last week when I fished with no-hackle flies, I got a 17-inch brown.
The wing material for those flies is Shimazaki Flywing III. But it doesn't last long in the water, so I look for some strong material that can also be easily obtained.
My wife gave me a sheet of white and a sheet of lilac mesh material from her craft drawer.
They seem to be stronger than the Shimazaki, so I make aluminum wing burners to shape the wing of this new material. The finished flies look good to my eyes, but they didn't attract any fish yesterday. They probably need some refinements.
In the early afternoon, I couldn't catch any fish though they were rising.
At dusk they seemed to become less cautious, and a 17-18" brown took my CDC sulphur dun.
The fish in the West Branch are very strong. I had quite a battle with this brown of so-so size in this river.
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