Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

The season is speeding by - Green Drakes are all but over on the Upper  East and there was a big spinner fall at the one ninety one pool on  the West Branch Thursday  night.  Fished near Balls Eddy on Thursday  and saw neither Duns nor Spinners. Isos normally follow the drakes  and appear in numbers around Memorial  Day.  Often times you can see as many as a dozen nymph husks on stream  side rocks.  This year you have to look at a dozen rocks to find one  husk.  Is it a poor year for Isos?  Has the heat held them back or are  they over? Who knows? The Cornuta (large olives)  arrive after all the big bugs and usually  hatch in the morning in early in June.  I have looked for them both  last week and this but in all the wrong places.  A Troutfitter regular  called the shop to report seeing them Friday  morning at the game  lands. Friday  night at the one ninety one bridge the trout and I were  treated to a good Cornuta spinner fall.  Sometimes you can't miss,  other times you don'

Returned to the river this morning - with the five hundred cfs release  in the WB the worst of the algae problem has been sent down river for  now. The unfishable high temps have continued on the Big River and the Big  East. The Beaverkill?  Who knows?  There have been no temperature  readings at the USGS station there for years. The three most critical stations (where thermal stress is most likely  to occur )are Fish's Eddy on the EB, Lordville on the Big River and  Cooks Falls on the Beaverkill.  They stopped reporting temps at Cooks  Falls years ago and no one seems to care.  The shop owners who post  water temps seem happy to write NA next to the Beaverkill water temp  and people go right on fishing.  Perhaps they feel its better for  business to have the people fishing. Someone should get this long  neglected matter corrected (DEC, FUDR, TU) come on, step up! Fishing remains poor - had enough hookups today but lost over half.  Bugs were scarce morning,  noon  and night (except

With the Big River, the Big East Branch and the lower Beaverkill all too warm to fish, there just wasn't enough river for the holiday weekend throng to fish.  Add to that a week of unseasonably hot weather, the algae problem on the West Branch and bright all day sun and you had the makings for a very poor  fishing weekend. Surprisingly the algae problem improved slightly the second day after the increased release ( beware another increase in release is scheduled for June first) but it made little difference  in the fishing, there were just too many boats and fishermen.  The fish were either rowed over or cast to non stop and never settled down to feed on the surface.  With the algae situation, nymph and streamer fishing were taken out of the equation. On the upper East Branch there were plenty of bugs and feeding fish but the sheer number of anglers limited most anglers success. Parking areas were jammed and fishermen lined pools less than a cast length apart.  The fish responded

The upper East Branch is marginal it hit seventy at Harvard yesterday.  The Green Drakes are hatching and it has been SRO up there.  Unfortunately the lower part of the upper EB is where the drakes are.  Use a thermometer and discretion fishing there. West Branch - Went out early on the lower WB and saw more boats than fish.  The  flow increase cooled the water and slowed both the bugs and fish.  Fished the no kill and above in the late afternoon and early evening,  there were a few boats and almost no wade fishermen. It's been dead up  there since the end of the Hendricksons.  Did see a few of the spring  sulfurs (the big ones) but the fish were not impressed. Went  downstream below the gamelands about 7:30  and found a modest  hatch of green drakes and isos.  There was some feeding subsurface but  there weren't enough bugs to get the fish going on top. The West Branch is a mess - algae carpets the bottom, the near shore  water and back bays are also full of it.  Flow increase