Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

With the home waters  high and unwadeable, I have flown out west to fish an under the radar tailwater called the Owyhee River.  It's a tributary of the Snake River located just over the Oregon border from Boise Idaho. The water from the Owyhee is used for crop irrigation. It's a small river with a current flow of 120 cfs. The river flows through a remote canyon for about 25 miles and then is piped out into fields to grow a variety of crops including potatoes, onions, hops, corn and wheat. There is no lodging in the canyon with the nearest motels an hour away in Caldwell Idaho. It's hot, air temp in the canyon hit 108 yesterday, (it was only 105 when I got here  Thursday ).  It's a high desert and everything has to be watered to grow.  The Snake provides most of the water but there are a series of reservoirs that supplement the Snake's water supply. The drive over to the river passes through the crop fields and you see   pheasants, quail and turkeys a...

It started out sunny, then dark clouds rolled in.  It spit rain several times in the morning and I had my raincoat on when it rained the first two places I fished. I was hopeful but really I knew,  The wind was blowing out of the west, there were patches of blue poking out between the clouds, and then bright sun. The dreaded high  between two lows. Fishermen hate it, fish hate it and even the bugs hate it. Yesterday there were olives and the fish were on 'em. Today I stopped and fished five different places (one twice) and I cast at one fish (a hatchery holdover at that) feeding on top. Fish just don't like the day after a low passes through. The olives?  they weren't fooled by those dark clouds. I never saw a single one.

It was the last day of June and the last day of fishing before my trip out west. The morning found gray skies and a light drizzle, mother nature, however, wasn't satisfied and she opened up the spigot and it rained, hard at times. How hard?  Hard enough that a drive over the Hale Eddy bridge at  2:00pm  confirmed that my planned destination for the day was nothing but a sea of mud. Shifted to plan B and headed up the EB which was high but clear.  At the EB Sunoco Station, the upper EB was colored but I decided to drive up and try to fish above one of the offending tribs.  Found clear water and my good friends the dark winged little olives. The fish had found them before I arrived and were making up for  not eating yesterday. I had rising trout in rising water from  3:00  until I quit at  8:00 . The bugs? Everything hatched, olives of all shapes and sizes, isos, sulfurs, pink ladies, orange cahills and every other may fly you could think of. A...

Saturday I was at a reunion, it was a good time for everyone. But the light rain forecast had me thinking about fish eating olives. Today, I headed for the river hoping that it hadn't blown out. The 17 bridge over the WB showed Oquaga Creek belching silt laden, orange colored water into the river.  Farther downstream, below the gamelands the river was still clear enough to fish but you knew what was coming. I drove into Hancock and found the EB running clear so I tried it just above town.  Hooked three nice rainbows blind casting (no bugs on the water) and landed two. Then drove down river to Buckingham in hopes of getting ahead of the rising water.  The water was clear and there were a few bugs but it was high and difficult wading.  Saw three rises, rose two of the fish, hooked one, lost it and bailed for the upper EB. At 350cfs, the upper EB is a joy to fish.  There were no anglers to be seen anywhere so I had my choice of pools.  Picked one...

At  1:30pm  the Oquaga is gushing orange water into the WB which has risen to over 1,500 cfs at Hale Eddy with the graph still going straight up.  The lower WB below the gamelands isn't colored as bad but will be in the next hour or so.You can still fish the big river, the lower east branch near Hancock and the upper EB above jaws.