Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

As most regular readers know, my fishing is done Monday through Friday. My bride is in charge of the weekends and this weekend is our 34th wedding anniversary. We had originally planned a three day trip but the forecast for rain each day led us to postpone the travel until sometime after Labor Day. The net result is that I fished today and am now obligated to write the report. It's a Friday and it is noticeably different from the rest of the week. Traffic on Rt 17 picks up by early afternoon with people heading out of NYC for the weekend, more trailers are parked at takeouts, more drift boats are on the river, cars are parked by pools that haven't been fished all week, no vacancy signs appear at motels. In short the Deposit/Hancock metropolitan area comes alive. So what does that have to do with a fishing report? Nothing. Except that on Friday it becomes harder for me to find the solitude I need to truly enjoy fishing. Finally he is going to talk about the fishing. Thi...

Last night I got back to the car at 9:05. The night was clear, I was on the Big River facing the western sky and there was a full moon just coming up over the hill. Tonight I was fishing into steep bank that blocked the sky, it was overcast and the moon hadn't risen yet. I was heading back to camp at 8:25. Its mid August and the days are getting shorter by 2.5 minutes per day. I don't like it, but it's going to get worse before it gets better. Fished the BR this morning with good water temps and expectations of big things. Life is full of great expectations and sometimes no bugs or rising fish. Never saw a bug hatch or a fish rise. This evening, with dire predictions of severe thunderstorms and 1 to 2 inches of rain in the forecast, I kept close to the car. Went to the UE and steered clear of the fish that beat me up earlier this week. Found rising fish in an empty pool (a guy had just quit after leaving a fly and tippit in a fish) and got some to eat until they backed...

Did a split day again today. With the August nights getting longer the rivers have a longer time to cool off and the morning fishing opportunities are increasing. The Sulfur Zone offers the only real opportunity for fishing to rising fish during the mid day. When the sun goes behind the hills things pick up again and there are feeding fish to be fished to wherever water temps are below 70. Today I was able to fish the BR both morning and night. The morning fishing was all blind casting. Never saw a bug hatch or a fish rise except to my flies. Rose five fish, three ate and stayed stuck. All nice 17 and 18 inch rainbows. About 6:00 I tried the upper gamelands. There were no bugs or risers until the sun went behind the trees. Saw two large olives on the water and a few Stenos in the air. Risers were one and dones (due to lack of bugs). Caught one 12 inch brown and a couple of yearlings. Thinking it was about seven, I decided to leave and try junction pool. Got to the car at 7:49...

I've always felt that if you get fish eating duns off the surface, you can't ask for anything more. Well over on the UE late this afternoon there were olives and there were rising fish (lots of 'em - good ones too). The roofs of their mouths were so far out of the water you could have checked for cavities. They were happy, relaxed and feeding steadily. I slowly worked my way into casting range without alarming them and made my first cast. It floated down to a nice fish that rose, opened his mouth and when he started down I hooked - nothing. The half dozen fish rising around him all stopped feeding. My next cast was to a fish a little downstream. He ate the fly and tore all around the pool. When I landed him there wasn't a rising fish to be seen. The fish settled down and began cautiously feeding again (some not more than twenty feet away). In the next two hours I cast only at rising fish. Changed flies many times and got a total of two more refusals and one take by a...

Arrived at camp about noon and elected to take care of chores around camp rather than heading out fishing in the midday sun. With water temps lower than they have been in weeks the upper pools of the BR were in play and I fished there hoping to find Epherons (white flies) and or Isos. Epherons are a warm water loving fly that hatches, molts, mates and dies all in the hour just after sunset. The hatches can be prolific but are dependant on the water during the summer being quite warm. The hatch on some rivers can be so thick that you can't see your fishing partner standing across the river from you. I've seen them on the BR at Junction pool in modest numbers and on the lower river near Callicoon in numbers that could sink a boat. I saw none tonight. What I did see were a few Isos. There is a big hatch of them usually around Memorial Day and then they hatch sporadically during June and July. Sometimes in August there is a second hatch of them that gets the fish up top feedin...