Gotta throw in an old story-
Years back my Uncle Ted and I were coming back to Ct after a GREAT SR trip in Oct.
Ted was a recently retired Chief of Law Enforcement for the CT Dep and I was a recently retired Detective in a local Ct PD.
Coming down the Throughway I had noticed a pickup on my tail for miles- Fast or slow it was right there.
Then fast approached 3 Ny State trooper cars all with lights and sirens and we  got  stopped.
 
Ted and I noted immediately that this was a 'felony stop'-them boys were serious and there were four alert and  cautious troopers around us.
That Truck behind stopped a bit back as well.
We put our hands where they could be seen and we gave ID and Truck paperwork.
After all was said and done it came out that a guy in the truck behind me had POSITIVELY identified my truck as one that had been stolen from him and called 911.
Troopers had responded from some distance and done their jobs.
Upon telling me this info I offered to be the one who 'spoke' to the 'positive identifier' but the Trooper at my window  politely advised that he would be quite happy to do that job.
 

Being robbed of anything can induce a lot of hallucinations.  I once watched the footwear of every kid in my neighborhood after a break in at my house, eventually singled out one kid who wore British Knights, which was the tread pattern left on the siding by the window.  The kid, who according to the local blue and whites was a trouble maker,  went away for a while for something else, and my paranoia also subsided.  I don't know what I would have done if more than one kid wore British Knights, I'd still be looking at sneakers all the time.

So--
Stan, Duda and Ed go swimming in the lake.
Duda drowns.
Ed says "Stan, ya gotta go tell his wife while I stay with the body".
Stan says 'but I stutter when I'm nervous and can only stop when I sing".
Ed says" go tell her, its important she know".
Stan runs to the house and when she opens the door he sings--
"Guess who drown in da lake today, Duda, Duda---"
 

OUCH!

Heading up tomorrow AM in the rain- will fish with my youngest son Tues and Wed.
Low reports stink as do upper reports.
Fish there- yea but not a great year.
Even a lotta guides saying its light.
Too bad-Columbus is usually the height of a run- Oh Well- thats fishing.

Well I can say my relaxation weekend was fun stuff. Besides deer camp, no place I'd rather be.
Didn't see a single person on my stream side adventures.
Caught all we wanted, kept what we will use.
My hands shook on some fish

Yes

Great Rich. I have been taking it easy and watching soccer and football games at the local schools. Elbow is on the mend but still barks when workec

To the unitiated on the Sr and 'fish talk'--
When was up last had a young guy tell me that we had all missed the 'big run' this year as it happened in Mid Sept.
said he had read about it and not been able to get up to SR-told him I was there and there was NO big run- he wouldn't believe it cause he had read it- he said.
In Sept heard the story about 3 miles of Kings just outside getting ready to run-also read a few days back of a large school  of Kings on radar just outside the river getting ready to run.
Neither 'run' ever occurred.
Keep seeing photos from guides, with great fish, posted  only hours before with green leaves in the background -implied good fishing - HEY the leaves are turned now- those are OLD photos.
Hear stories about down way low where fish are first coming in,  even those are thin, but uninitated hearing the fishing was better here or there may think that indicates  GOOD FISHING- NO -just a bit better here or there.
These 'reports' are generally honest but dont reflect whats  happening to anyone but those of us who have been reading between those lines for years.
ex- when they say ya gotta cover a lot of water to find them it means the fish are few and far between.
Too often they are given by business folks who make a living on the river and have to make ends meet- understandable-those MUST be intertwined with actual fisherfolks reports which have been all too few and far between this year.
Old story- Years back chomped at the bit for Summer run Atlantics- read a tackle shop story from way upriver how they had just come up in big numbers and 'even the kids are catching them'.
Took Vac. time and ran up immediately-went right to that shop and asked what they had used to catch them. Guy behind the counter said  he hadnt seen an Atlantic all Summer. Shrugged his shoulders when I mentioned the story and quotes from THAT VERY shop.
Turned around and drove right back to Connecticut- didnt even see the river. 300 miles each way for Bovine Field Splatter.
I was pizzed , and after all these hears- still am.
To you newbies -read between the lines and dont be duped.
Granted they have been better the past few years after gettin hosed for unreal reports for so long but READ BETWEEN THE LINES.
Its a great river with great fish but ya gotta realize that-lately- your not gonna fill the freezer- even one on a trip is a trophy.
 

On the other hand, west end charter guides were biotching that there were no fish staged off the west end streams, but Saturday I spoke with a friend from Holley NY who said the drop pool and riffs below  the falls on his local stream was packed with salmon since the rains two weeks ago. 
 
I have gone up in the summer and walked large stretches of the river without finding anything but fallfish, but have stopped at the 52 bridge, and the kids, and a Va. spin fisher using small spoons, both reported catching fish and watching them rise to flies in the evenings for the prior week.  And I have stopped to look at a small pool WAY up in the headwaters to check for brookie action and found large atlantics hiding in the shadows, so I know there are fish.  Two weeks ago, I got to see a fair piece of the lower river on two days, and only one spot had fish, but it was a mess of them, unfortunately dark salmon and headed upstream without hesitating, and some hens cutting, but still a lot of fish.  Unfortunately, that was the day my rod decided to fold up at the ferrule, so all I did was watch and get wet for a while, and take one set of drifts with 2B's rod while he watched and got wetter.
 
I know they got their eggs at the hatchery, and they never had to close lower fly to do it, so there have been fish coming in, just never the "100 rooster tails at once for an hour below Josh" kind of run.  And it's quite a gauntlet that gets picked from the DSR line upstream into 81, so a LOT of fish did get harvested in Mid September, although a fish cleaner I know says that was the only time they were really busy