Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

Went out this morning in hopes of finding  Cornuta. They usually appear sometime during the first 7/10 days of June.  Unlike other olives they are happy to hatch (for reasons known only to themselves) on bright sunny days.  They hatch in the morning, usually between eight and eleven. By  11:30   it was obvious that I was not going to find the Cornutas so I spent from then until  3:00  fishing a riff in the lower WB. There were no bugs hatching.  Saw no more than half a dozen rises that were not to my fly. I rose 12 fish, hooked 7 and landed 4.  Lost the first 3 rainbows that I hooked trying to land them in the riff.  It's always best to go to shore and get them into soft water if you want to land them. In the evening after waiting out a good shower, I decided to test my skills by fishing a stillwater pool on the upper EB. If it was a fight they would have stopped it.There were sulfurs enough to get trout rising (boiling subsurface takes ...

I started out this morning fishing a large olive.  The cornutas are hatching and the trout love'em. My olive, however, got refused by two different fish so I decided to change flies. While pondering what to put on I saw a hard splashy rise from which an isonychia emerged. I put on a White Gloved Howdy and the problem was solved. Didn't see more than a dozen isos all day but the trout have been on a feeding binge and with the waning bug hatches they are looking for something to eat. Blind casting produced many rises, not every fish ate but enough did to make it my best day in two weeks. Would have been even better but for a one for seven stretch which included three breakoffs from large fish. The White Gloved Howdy, don't leave home without'em.

Despite the fact that the fish were rising to Hendricksons up near Stilesville yesterday and that there are still a few March Browns and isos to be seen, the 2015 big bug season in the Delaware River system is nearly over. Fishermen coming up for the weekend can hope for a spinner fall but that's about it. The strange weather pattern that seemed to vacillate between too hot and too cold, got the Hendricksons here a week late and the Green Drakes a week early. The six week season ended up crowded into less than five. With low water forcing most of the boats to fish the main river and crowds of wade fishermen on the two branches the fish were pounded non stop. The mouths of some of the dumber ones look like they have been chewing on barbed wire. Feeding fish are looking carefully at every fly and refusals are far more frequent than takes. If you plan on fishing this weekend don't expect to catch large numbers of fish. Spend time enjoying your surroundings and marvel at how hard t...

First saw  Isonychias at Shehawken on the 24th.  By the 27th they were at Balls Eddy.  Had a date with them at the upper game lands on the 28th but they stood me up. At  3:00pm  yesterday they were all over the water at the Hale Eddy bridge.  The fish love'em but have learned to ignore the duns (which sometimes have hooks in them) and key in on the fast swimming nymphs with hard splashy rises. I found two fish eating duns, both of which ate my fly.  Spent until  5:00pm , when it ended, casting at the splashy risers, only two of which looked up.

Fished the West Branch in a couple of places above the Gentleman's Club.  It was a  Saturday  and I wanted to avoid the crowds.  Just a few years ago this was the most heavily fished part of the entire system. Yesterday I had my choice of almost any pool. Why?  There are almost no rising trout.  The bug hatches  that once flourished there have disappeared.  The trout that are there are big but few in number.  There are almost no small trout in a part of the river that contains the largest spawning area in the entire river system. The decline  seems to have drawn little attention from the DEC or river support groups such as FUDR.  I am not a fishery biologist and have only personal  observations to go on but there has been a tremendous buildup of silt in the affected area over the past few years.  The silt covers the bottom and the only significant fly hatches seem to occur in that part of the riffles where the current has ...