Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

With most all of the anglers and guides concentrating on the upper WB where the fish have been pounded for the last three months and where the sulfur hatch has all but disappeared, I took my game elsewhere. In the am I tried the upper big river. It looked good for the first ten minutes as I hooked and landed two small rainbows, got a refusal and saw another fish rise. Then nothing for two hours. In the evening I cut my way into one of the better pools on the upper EB with a pair of pruning shears and then sat and watched the water go by. No bugs or risers. Just before dark when it looked like my 12 inch rainbow from early morning would be fish of the day, I saw two fish rise. They turned out to be a pair of 15 inch browns that shared the daily award. The hot weather, bright sun, restricted fishing area and dearth of bugs have combined to make the fishing about as difficult as it can be. We need a cold front with a rain heavy enough to freshen the system. There is rain pred

If you want to go trout fishing you really don't have many viable options right now. It's been hot and in many places, dry. Freestone streams are too low and warm to fish. Tailwaters? You've got the Delaware River System, arguably the best trout stream east of the Rockies right in your back yard. Big browns and rainbows sipping dries, any anglers dream. Just hop in the car, head on down and catch a few - but wait - before you go, take a look at the Delaware River Club daily report. They are trying to encourage people to come and fish, it's how they pay the bills. They like to have a picture in every daily report showing one of their anglers gleefully holding up a big fish. Since back in early June there have been a lot of pictures of river flow charts, may flies and "fish caught last week". Delaware River fishing is never easy and right now its very demanding. The Delaware River fish are perhaps harder to catch than fish in any other river. Why?

First of all, my apologies for the appearance of the reports. I DO break the report down into paragraphs but for some unknown reason it has been printed in one big paragraph the last few days. If someone can tell me how to fix it please do.  If anyone has a friend who is a golfer, you know the fatal mistake is to ask him how he did. You can only hope he just played nine and he shot a thirty nine because you are going to relive every shot, no matter how many. Fly fishermen? Not like that at all. First of all, no one, not even your best fishing buddies or the most loving wife, cares or wants to know how many fish you caught, how big the "monster" was, what fly he ate, how many times he jumped and how far into the backing he went. Fly fishermen, of necessity, are much smarter than golfers. We only hit the high points in recounting our days fishing. Seldom to you hear about the dark side. Because broken rods, leaky waders, keys locked in the car, no hatch, no risers, los

For you early risers, the trico hatch offers an opportunity to sharpen your dry fly skills. Be on the river early and look for a cloud of the little buggers swarming over a riff (Cedar Waxwings will be having them for breakfast). Get downstream in a quiet pool below the riff and wait for the fish to start feeding. Most literature says the spinner fall will occur when the temp hits 69 degrees. I've gotten to the river when the air is 67 and found the water covered with spinners. Play it safe and get there early. If its windy or it rained hard during the night, sleep in. Tricos don't like cold water, they can be found on the big river, the lower half of the west branch and on the upper east branch below Shinhopple. If you get there early you can fish duns. The fish eat them but the main attraction is the spinner fall. Six-x will do the trick but seven-x will give you a better presentation. The yearling trout (they are now about 9 inches long) will be up in pods and are

Left at 7:15 this morning to try a little trico fishing. Found a good sized group of spinners being attacked by waxwings over a run on the EB. Got in the water and saw fish eating duns. Within fifteen minutes there were spinners on the water and even more risers. Had fish to throw at for two hours. Hooked about a dozen and landed about half. Fun? You bet. Exciting? Not so much. As is often the case with trico spinner falls, the majority of the risers were juveniles about nine inches long. Usually you get a shot or two at bigger fish and the stocked fish, of course, love to eat anything on top but today I didn't see anything but the little guys. Perhaps the higher water cooled their ardor for the tiny spinners. Skipped the afternoon fishing. The sulfur hatch has run its course on both branches. To be sure there are still sulfurs but "the hatch" is over. In it's place there are olives, isos, caddis and the Yellow Drakes. In twenty five years of fishing the

The parade of storms last night missed us. The water was lower, clearer and colder. I was there at one pm for the sulfur hatch. Donned my waders, vest - - - and then my raincoat. When the flash and boom came I decided to sit in the car and wait it out. Good decision. It rained hard enough and long enough to get all of the tribs gushing brown. When it finally let up I drove down stream to get ahead of the mud. Fished a couple of hours until the water turned brown. Hooked a couple of 15 inch fish. Landed the brown, lost the rainbow at the net. Saw no bugs and no risers that didn't come to my fly. A cold front would sure be nice.

For the second time this season I had to brake hard to miss a bear crossing the road against the light. This one chose to cross an unlighted area on route 97 in downtown Hancock just three houses up the street from the Rite Aide Pharmacy. You never know. The entire system was hit by thunderstorms Friday night and was high and muddy Saturday morning. With tricos out of the picture, I waited until three o'clock to venture out. Surprisingly, with almost no place else fishable, the upper WB wasn't crowded. With the warmer water temps from the rain, however, the sulfur hatch had started early and was for the most part over. I decided to stick around and stand in the cold water to beat the heat which again was well into the nineties. Not having fished the river for almost three weeks I didn't have a clue what to expect. From the time I started until dark, sulfurs and olives hatched in modest numbers, there were more isos than I have seen hatch since early June, but the star