Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

One of the nice things about doing volunteer work is there is no reduction in pay when you quit. After fishing at least part of 10 out of the first 11 days of June, I needed to get home, pick up my wife (without her bag which never managed to make it out of Nashville, let alone JFK) at the airport, wash clothes, mow the lawn,etc,.etc., etc. If things progress in orderly fashion on the home front perhaps I'll get a get out of jail card for Father's Day. In reading the DRC's blog I couldn't help but notice that they are on their sixth day without an "angler with fish" photo. The fishing has really slowed.  Fewer bugs, smarter fish and still, at least up until last weekend, lots of anglers. I know the rise in the water livened up the action for me and hopefully for others as well. If the angling pressure drops off as I believe it will and the river master needs to call for releases to meet minimum flow, the fishing may well pick up again. For now, don't expec...

Last Friday evening I tried a pool on the upper EB in 150cfs. There were large sulfurs and feeding fish.  I caught one fish and got one nose bump refusal. The rest of my casts were ignored. Today with the water up to 250cfs I decided to try to get even. I arrived at about  5:00pm , the sulfurs were hatching and the fish were feeding. My very first cast was inhaled by a brown that was eating every dun that came his way. My second cast also found an open mouth. The third rising fish I threw at came right up to the fly, opened his mouth and did a back flip at the last instant to avoid eating it. Thereafter things settled down into a fairly even match of takes, refusals and ignores.  The sulfurs kept coming, not heavy but enough to keep the fish feeding.  Good casts got a response.  Bad casts put fish down. An adult bald eagle lit in a tree behind me, perhaps to critique my casting which was at times awful - (did you ever hook an apple on your back cast and on the f...

Game was called today due to rain (and muddy water). Teams will play two  tomorro

How many times have you heard someone near by say, "he missed it!"  No he didn't, something was wrong and he decided not to eat it. Trout are faced with many life threatening challenges but getting food in their mouth isn't one of them. I've seen a trout put his nose under my fly and drift downstream for three feet in frothy boiling rapids before deciding to eat. Years ago a trout drifted downstream just under my fly in a flat water pool for over ten feet. He never intended to eat the fly he just wanted to see how far I could float it before it dragged. If you think a trout missed you fly, throw it right back and see if he'll eat it the second time -almost never. Change flies whenever a fish refuses your fly - sending the refused fly back over the fish just tells him he was right the first time. With bad weather in the forecast I went out early and fished the big river for the first time in over a month. Never saw a bug or a rise except to my fly. Hooked and l...

It started off cloudy and calm.  It quickly became bright and sunny. The wind blew out of the north at ten. The barometer went straight up. The the fish went down. There were no risers. There were no bugs. The fishermen were as thick as maggots on a road kill. I caught my first fish, a nice 16 inch rainbow at  10:00AM . I caught my second (and last ) fish, a nice 16 inch brown (if you are wondering, any trout that eats my fly is nice)  at  9:15PM .  All told I tried seven different places on three different rivers, patched a leak (hopefully) in the porch roof, took down the storms, put up the screens and cleaned both porches. Oh yeah, almost forgot, there was an adult "Common Loon" fishing the middle part of Barrel Pool on the Beaverkill.  After watching the loon and the six other fishermen fishing Barrel Pool, my money was on the loon.