Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

It wasn't pretty today.  Rain/snow showers with gusty winds and rising water.  Water temps that have plunged below Hendrickson hatching levels and more of the same to come tomorrow. Since '91 I have gone "O" for April exactly once.  This year seems a sure bet for number two. It's "One Bug" weekend (I think) and you couldn't pay me enough to be out on the water in a drift boat in this weather.  Hats off (ear muffs too) to the fishermen and guides.  It's for a good cause but casting streamers into a 20mph wind in a sleet storm is not for me. The forecast for the coming week isn't much better with rain and cold temps predicted for almost every day. But, sometimes the water keeps dropping even though it's raining.   If we can just get enough  sunshine to raise the water temp into the 50's, we might get that day when the rivers are covered with bugs that can't get off the water. I'll be there,  will you? 

With the Beaverkill flow about to go below 1000 cfs and the spill from both branches of the Delaware continuing to decline, wade fishermen would seem to have a chance of getting a toe in the water by this weekend - -  were it not for the fact that weather forecasters are predicting almost two inches of rain to hit the watershed starting tonight. There's really nothing else to say.

Despite knowing that there were Hendricksons hatching in good numbers on local streams and that no part of the Delaware River system was even remotely wadeable, I filled my SUV with gas and took a long drive. In almost six hours of driving I saw eight drift boats (all on the West Branch) and one fisherman  in neoprene waders standing on the bank of the Beaverkill. Were there bugs?  My windshield says yes. Were there fish caught?  Who knows.  The DRC's fish of the day picture hasn't had a fish on it since April 15th.  At about 4:30, however, most of the boats I saw had a fisherman standing in the bow casting. My journey took me along the Delaware, the Beaverkill and as far as the Neversink where there was "only" 600 cfs spilling.  The river was "stained" and (during prime hatch time) there was not a bug to be seen. The rivers are slowly dropping. the water temps have risen, (due to the warm spill water) the Forsythia are in full bloom and some Dand...

Yesterday before writing my report I looked at stream levels, weather reports and the weather radar. The streams were up but not as bad as expected.  The storm had split in two.  There was heavy rain out west over Lake Erie and rain pounding the coast.  New York was escaping the storms wrath.  All the forecasts said so.  I almost put a cautionary note in the report but the system was unfishable anyway and I wanted to get away from gloom and doom. Stopped at the Troutfitter's shop in Syracuse Saturday morning and exchanged frustrations with the crusty old regulars who gather there for coffee and donuts.  Talk was about last winters bonefishing trips and the snow pack in the Rockies.  No one wanted to even guess when we could get into the Delaware. With all the local streams over their banks and muddy, I took a drive along streams I fished before my Delaware addiction.  Ended up at the place I caught my first trout.  It was also probably on...