Well my two rods made a.ok, though I ended up just stuffing them in my carry on. Now my fiddle got obsconded at the seattle gate and the mis transfered somewhere, probably kicked as I write this .... on to fishing.
Today we headed into the town of Hancock, located on the Deleware river. We stopped at the local Marino sportings good store and picked up some fly fishing licenses. Next we stopped at a fly shop down the street and picked up the fly dojour ... sulphurs. everything we picked up were sizes 16 or 18. We had bh nymphs, cdc compardun sulphurs, elkhair comparaduns, etc. We accessed the river about 20 minutes outside of Hancock in the town of Deposit. We hit the river around 11, fish were already starting to rise. My first fish came on a nymph, and after a period of no fish I switched to an emerger. Most of the fish were around 12 - 13 inches. All browns, and all fought like crazy. Toward the end of the afternoon I spotted a large brown. I could tell he was big because of the leisurely way he was sipping flies. At one point he turned towards a fly and I got a great view of his mouth wide open inhaling a fly. I tied on a size 18 sulphur and cast it towards his lane. A little short I let it drift past and then picked it up and put it about a foot farther into his lane. I held my breath as it floated over him. No take. I picked up the fly again, and put the fly about another three feet ahead of this fish. I help my breath as it passed over him. He barely tipped his mouth and returned to his lane. I set the hook and he was off. As soon as he felt the hook he turned downstream, I let the line slip through my fingers trying to cushion his run. He turned back upstream and started shaking his head to flip the hook. He started to turn downstream again, I applied a little side pressure, not too muchs since we were fishing 7x, and the fly came zinging back at me. Even though he wasn't landed it was definetly the most fun of all the fish of the day. Weather here is great, 75+ degrees, water is coming down after a larger release of water a few days earlier. The water temp is around 50 degrees, nice and chilly. On one end my feet get a little cold, ontop I'm sweating and hot. And around me are lots of rising fish. Life couldn't be better! Cheers from the Deleware, Mark
