Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

t rained last night.  Got up this morning and looked at the Harvard gage.  It had peaked at three hundred and was on the way down. With nothing else to due I got in the car and drove up to Harvard.  Put on my waders and walked down to the stream.  It was high and muddy. Drove home and looked at the gage again.  Sure enough it had started down then went straight up to over five hundred, game over. Fished the no kill in the afternoon in a hatch that was good enough to get trout up occasionally, but not steady.  Did land a couple of nice ones but spent a lot of time trying to fool some others that were smarter than me. Retreated to the lower WB around 6:30  and found fish willing to look at my offerings, some even ate. If you are going to the Delaware this weekend the WB is the only fishable part of the system. Everything else is either too warm or too muddy.

With rain overnight and wind in the morning the outlook for trico  fishing wasn't great to begin with.  When I got up at  six thirty  the  temp was seventy one, tricos run out of gas and fall when the temp is around sixty nine. Grabbed two pieces of toast, a cup of coffee and headed for the river. When I arrived there were tricos on the water and in the air. There were pods of fish up and eating. How long the spinners had been on the water I don't know but  it was over almost two hours earlier than yesterday. How'd I do? 0!  Caught several of the nine inchers, had two twelve inchers within reach of  the net when they came unstuck and had several indignant refusals from quality  fish.   Beat the rain mowing the lawn and tied some new (hopefully better) trico spinners and was about to head out when the first rain came. When the rain let up I went out looking for (what else ) olives. There weren't any. Spent two hours blind casting and hooked and landed three  quality fish

The trico hatch is in full swing and pods of as many as fifty fish are up eating them. But wait.  Before you call in sick and head for the river know that the pods are made up mostly of nine to ten inch fish. There are big fish eating them but they know the game and don't get fooled often.  As a matter of fact even the yearlings are hard to fool. The ants?  Haven't seen any yet but they are about due. There have been reports of sightings  and I talked with a fisherman at junction pool last night who said he saw some earlier in the day but nothing was eating them. Seven X?  Fishing is a unique sport in that you can change the rules to make it as easy or difficult as you want. One rational for fishing seven X is that it allows you to present the fly better, it's thinner, more flexible and therefore allows you to present the fly in a more natural manner (less of the dreaded drag). Trust me on this one, you can catch fish on tricos and ants using six X. However, using (successf

After three days off for our anniversary weekend I returned to the river hoping to make up for lost time. It didn't work out that way. The day started out hot and humid and from a cloudless sky thunderheads suddenly appeared. The thunderstorms that followed cut short my attempt to fish on the way down and then kept me pinned in the camp (without power) 'til after three. It didn't matter, the WB up river sulfurs didn't amount to much and the only fish I had to throw at were the nine/ten inchers that seem to be everywhere and even those were difficult to catch. Tried around Deposit and again above Hale Eddy with the same results. At about seven, I reeled in and headed for Junction Pool.  There were three fishermen upstream and none down so I tried it at the tailout.  Hooked three fish and avoided a shout out by landing a nice brown and rainbow. May again try Tricos in the morning.