2023 Hatch Activity - Frustrating to me so far, what about you?

[Tigereye]

Pretty hit and miss here in NEPA some MB, sulfurs, and iso's. Cahills are starting. Very little caddis activity. Nothing worthy of comment.

Still had decent luck with adams, royal wulffs, and slate drake compara dun. Seems these 3 have been the go to flies the past 2 years. Even tbe sulfur emerger which was a good fly for me is lagging big time.

 

[caddisflyer]

Hendricksons and early hatches seemed normal. Now Sulfurs seem a bit behind. Tricos seem actually early in places. Yeah, it's been weird.

 

[DaveKile]

Every year has some sort of oddity about the season. Too cold, too wet, too hot, too dry, too sunny, too cloudy and so on. Never the whole year, but a stretch of a couple weeks or more that leaving you scratching your head as to what happened.

This year for me it was the middle of May on the Little J and Penns over a six day period. During the time I was there in the evenings the sulphur hatches were much lighter and very little reaction from the trout. I never saw one of the famous big evening mixed hatch and frenzy of trout. No spinner fall frenzies. At the Jam it seemed to be the same for everyone that weekend. Even the drakes were casually emerging during the week with no big hatches.

When I was at Kettle in early May I did see the trout boil when the spinners hit the water for a few nights in a row. But never while on Penns for many days. I still caught fish, but not like a normally do at the end of the night.

 

[PennKev]

Hatch chasing takes total commitment, and no life or job. Too many variables so that it's very easy to get in a rut where it never works out. One year you hit a bunch of hatches, the next you struggle with even the ultra reliable bugs.

Which is why I don't really plan around hatches, if conditions are decent, I fish.

 

[dryflyguy]

Hatch chasing takes total commitment, and no life or job. Too many variables so that it's very easy to get in a rut where it never works out. One year you hit a bunch of hatches, the next you struggle with even the ultra reliable bugs.

Which is why I don't really plan around hatches, if conditions are decent, I fish.

Well, I ditched the job a few years ago. But I wouldn't say that I have no life.
More like enjoying the best fishing of my life.

So nice to be able to get out when the getting is good.
And when it's not, back home to deal with other life issues.
But, it's really all good now!

 

[JeffK]

I am an old guy and remember real hatches. When I fish with younger guys and they see a sulphur come off every 5 minutes and call it a hatch. A fish will come up now and again. I don't think they would believe seeing thousands of bugs on the water a dozen or two fish steadily working in a pool.

 

[Nocktavius]

I am an old guy and remember real hatches. When I fish with younger guys and they see a sulphur come off every 5 minutes and call it a hatch. A fish will come up now and again. I don't think they would believe seeing thousands of bugs on the water a dozen or two fish steadily working in a pool.

Those were the days. Rowing 15 miles into the wind upstream both ways.