Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

Was uploading pictures from my camera and putting them in the "2015 trout" file when I saw a familiar face. The brown in the top picture ate the wrong olive on August 21st. He ate the wrong steno back on August 11th (bottom picture). I guess it's a good thing he lives in the no kill. (If you have any doubts about it being the same fish,compare the spots on the gill cover). This morning I opted for solitude.  With the water temp in the low sixties I fished a two riff stretch of the big river. In four hours of fishing I saw an eagle, a doe and her fawn, one kayaker who was paddling upstream, and a aluminum boat powered by an electric motor with an elderly couple in it moving downstream. Was tempted to holler at the kayaker that it would be easier going downstream but neither of us seemed to want to break the silence.  We both waved at the same time and he was on his way. The fishing?  Never saw a rise except to my fly. ...

It's been three weeks since the flow was cut back to five hundred in the WB and one hundred forty in the EB.  Flows have stabilized, hatches have become predictable and fishermen have learned to be in the right place at the right time. The fish? They have taken a beating, their mouths are cut up and sore. They fight like a punch drunk fighter in the fifteenth round of a fight he doesn't want to be in. They have developed stomach ulcers from worrying about what to eat and have become very hard to catch. Refusals have become the norm, takes the exception. On September first I believe the water releases from both reservoirs will be reduced. While this will concentrate the fish, it will also change where they hold and feed.  It will also have an effect on the timing and quantity of the hatches. Hopefully it will give the battered trout a few days to rest and heal while the anglers figure things out. The best thing th...

No there wasn't a frost.  It wasn't really that cold (53 here), but  the sun took it's sweet time burning through the fog and when it did  it didn't do much of a job warming things up. My trico fishing which  one day last week started at seven am, didn't get going until after  ten ( most of the spinners don't fall until the temp approaches  seventy) and it lasted until almost two. I was in deep water for over  three hours and drove home with the heater on. This evening I was undecided about where to go.  The WB has been  fished hard and the fish look at every fly carefully  before eating.  The big river is where I want to fish but warm water temps limit the  options there. Drove in to junction pool and with only two anglers in  the water, was tempted to fish there. Decided to look at the WB first and ."maybe" come back.  I never did. Saw olives and rising fish in a  down river pool and fished there. Had countless...

The weatherman is calling for no rain over the next ten days with  temps climbing into the high eighties early next week.The tributaries  are very low and the two year classes of trout residing in them are at  increased risk from predators. Humphrey's  Brook has gone underground  in places trapping fingerlings and yearling trout. Herons and  kingfishers have moved in and are dining on the trout trapped in  shallow pools. Many of the other tributaries are in the same condition  as huge amounts of gravel were carried downstream in the flood years.  When the flow is reduced the remaining water seeps through the loose  gravel near the mouth of the stream and the stream bed goes dry in  places. How's the fishing?  Well it sure isn't easy. Today I fished a good  trico hatch and cast to rising trout for four hours. Did fairly well  on the yearlings but the big fish ignored my flies until the spinner  fall was almost o...

When I was in college I worked summers at the Syracuse DPW. One of the office workers (who has long since left this world) was a trout fisherman and a commercial fly tyer.  For some reason he took a liking to me and kept me well stocked with flies. On Monday morning he always wanted to know how I  did with the flies he had tied. Very often our fishing results were much the same. When we both had a poor weekend fishing he would say " Isn't it funny, sometimes they just can't seem to get that fly in their mouth".   If you haven't already guessed, today was one of those days. I had  rising fish in front of me from three 'til seven thirty. Had between  ten and twenty fish come up to the fly and say no. At eight o'clock,  on a blind cast a fourteen inch rainbow ate my fly and became "fish of the day".   If you see Dave at the Troutfitter ask him how he did.  I'll bet he'll say  "they couldn't seem to get the fly in their mouth" ...