This weekend I spent over 16 hours fishing in two days. And what do I have to show for it? Well, I caught one trout.
I'm not really at the top of my game.

After fishing this weekend in new sections of four different trout streams and coming up short. I started seriously thinking I could no longer call my self a fly fisherman. Although I caught fish in streams where no one else was fishing (in summer) I felt I had not given thought to how long I would stay in one spot and where sneaking up on trout was important. I guess I was just looking for that perfect "honey hole". I think I did more scouting out of the streams than anything else.

Saturday:
I entered the Cohocton river in Avoca, New York around 7:00 am. Located along Rte 390 and 15 where Rte 17 and 86 split. Near the southern ends of Keuka and Canandaigua Lakes in Steuben County. I caught one trout in fast riffles as a morning Trico hatch filled the sky. I had another large brown hit my fly before moving upstream under a tree.

I fished until 1:00 when I finally found the honey hole I was looking for. Unfortunately it found me first. I was walking on the bank on the wrong side of the hole when I looked down and saw a 18 inch brook trout. Beautiful Blue and Orange color swimming slowly about 4 inches below the surface in 6 feet of water. The hole consisted of an uprooted tree and about 3 other logs crisscrossing the river. There was only a drift from the opposite side of where I stood. but I tried nymphs for a while and only came up with creek chubs. I saw two other small browns and one 14 inch brown surface under the same logs.
I left there and drove southwest to where I would spent the night.

Sunday:
I got an early start to fish the Ishua river in Franklynville. There was fog thick as rain until about 6:00 am. It never burned of until the sun was high over the hills. The area was recovering from that tornado and flooding. So what was two weeks ago a clear trout infested stream now was high muddy water. I had to fish it like opening day spring run off without success. I found a feeder stream called Gates creek that flows from Case lake into town. It was shallow and I only caught creek chubs.

I went back to another section of the Ishua for the late morning, I found a huge hole but again with everything I tried I came up short. I found weary sunfish, largemouth bass, carp, crappies and trout all holding around a run off slouth half filled with clear water but they were not having lunch.

So about 3:00 I drove to my last destination, the Wiscoy in Pike. I discovered a nice section west of town and walked it about a half mile. The water was too cold to walk in sneakers. I saw three trout about 6 inches long in 4 hours. Plus I spooked up a beaver. But what a beautiful day to be fishing. About 19 hours of fishing in two days. and I hope to get out tonight again after work.

Keep thinking about the game.