Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

I don't fish on the weekends, but here I am writing a fishing report on Saturday night. Our social calendar is quite rigid during the "big bug" season. My wife understands and I love her for it. This time of year I am happy to make concessions to preserve peace in the family and to see friends who aren't available on the weekends. The last two weeks have been a little jumbled but it's late in the season and the fishing has been slow anyway. It's the second Saturday in September and from 3:45 until 7:15 twelve boats went by me. The worst part is that I drove upstream past all of the parking areas jammed with trailers to avoid the congestion. Every one was polite and no one disturbed my fishing. But still. It was sunny, hot and muggy, AGAIN! Have never seen a summer with such unrelenting heat. The water temp at Stilesville is still cold (although the water below the thermocline has been depleted). This late in the season a small increase in the temp of ...

Its hard to keep up with the river master. He (she) has been increasing the release from Cannonsville twice a day to meet minimum flow at Montague. The West Branch is now difficult to wade in most places. The big river is cool to Lordvill and below. It is only a matter of time until the fish repopulate the lower river. There were seven anglers at Buckingham tonight. From what I saw they out numbered the fish. One guy caught a nice rainbow on a streamer. I saw on fish boil in my allotted space. Left to check out Lordville and was glad I did. The water was covered with ants of all sizes. The fish? Were no where to be seen. It takes time for fish to relocate. They want the cold water to be the real thing, they have probably been fooled by "thermal releases" before. An overcast sky and some cool rain would sure help matters. The fish in the big east and lower Beaverkill are still in thermal refuges, don't bother looking there. Have spent most of the week do...

With another bump in the WB release (now about 1040 CFS) I decided to try the big river down at Lordville before the additional cold water shut things down. In about 45 minutes of fishing I saw a few of the large black caddis hatching but I did not raise a fish. It will take a while before fish leave their summer residence and move back into their cool weather homes. It doesn't help that day after day features a beautiful. cloudless sky and unseasonably warm temps. Today was a stark contrast to yesterday. There were no fishermen or boats to be seen on the WB. The launch sights that were full yesterday were all empty today. The addition of almost 250 CFS of cold water into the WB seemed to stop both the bugs and fish. I drove along the river and saw neither bugs nor risers. With no rain in sight you can expect continued big releases to meet minimum flow requirements unless PPL again generates power. I was told today that starting the 17th PPL will begin to draw down Wallenp...

It's Labor Day weekend, a time when many fishermen close out the season with a last trip to Delaware. This year is no exception. Showing no regard for just how bad the fishing has been lately, they have dipped into their wallets and shelled out money for a guide to take them down the river. I wasn't here to count on Friday or Saturday (often the busiest float days) but today the launch and takeout sites (Shehawken, Stockport and Buckingham) were filled with cars and trailers. There were close to tewenty trailers and almost three times as many cars when I drove up the river at 5:00 PM. Being my usual contrarian self I kept on driving (Balls Eddy had only one trailer and there were only two cars at the game lands). Thought maybe the additional cold water would start the bugs on the lower WB. It didn't. There were a few olives and I saw two isos, nothing else. The only fish that rose were yearlings eating the olives. I hooked four and lost them all. Never saw a good...