Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

Freestone - Thanks for your very generous offer.  This makes three times I've gotten in trouble "adding staff".  I'm retired, spend an unconscionable amount of time fishing and enjoy writing the blog.  It's my way of giving back to the sport I love.  Hopefully the blog is more helpful and entertaining than it is misleading and confusing. The past week, unfortunately more the latter than the former. Dennis - You answered your own question.  Less people, less boats and more water to fish.  As the flows increase and the water cools the fish move back to their home pools.  Many of the fish out of the Sulfur Zone have been lightly fished since the last green drake spinner fell. If the hatches come off it can be very good.  Tricos and Ephron's (the white flies) are warm water bugs and should be around in good numbers, isos hatch in the daytime when the water is colder, hebes hatch about five in the PM - they apparently don't taste good as I've never see...

 Game called - field was deemed unplayable. It has been tentatively been rescheduled for Sunday. 

 After a good 8 hours of fishing yesterday I slept until 8:00 this morning. With the late start I had to delete something from the schedule so I left the cover on the paint can.  Drove along the river on the back side from Hale Eddy up to Deposit. Didn't see sulfurs or rising fish until the big pool below the town bridge. Seemed like the hatch was just starting so I kept on driving and ended up at the red barn.  There were four anglers nicely spaced in the pool with good bugs and rising fish. Parked, paid my $5.00, chatted with a TFR who ended up not fishing and then joined what turned out to be two more TFRs and two elderly gentlemen in the pool. The entire time I was there (about three hours) there were  fish to throw at.  Many of them would come up and look at your fly, very few ate it. That said, everyone caught fish. Jean was at the camp when I got back at about 3:30.  She had driven down to have lunch with a Florida friend that lives in Honesdale duri...

As they say on another blog "Apparently it missed us or it all soaked into the ground".  When I looked at the WB last night at 6:30 it was a muddy mess.  When I looked out the camp window at 17,000 CFS of orange/brown muddy water in the BR this morning there was no need to change the report.  At  12:30 when I drove over 5,000 CFS of orange/brown muddy water in the EB, I almost went back to the camp to continue painting.  When I got my first glimpse of the WB from route 17 just above the game lands, it was running low and clear. The WB was not crowded, there were some boats and a few wade  fishermen who were here because it was there week to be here or they were local.   The fishing - Of course I fished, how else could I do the report. It wasn't hard to find a place to fish (it wasn't crowded), there were bugs (a modest hatch) and there were some rising fish (not like in a good hatch). Every fish in the "Sulfur Zone" now knows my flies and they no ...

We got what what we needed and then some.  The last three months have all been well below average in rainfall and July was the hottest on record. The tribs were drying up, exposing yearlings and fingerlings to predators and thermal stress. While the new flow regime has provided a huge thermal refuge in the BR by keeping the temp below 75 at Lordville, the EB and BK have suffered the lethal  (to trout) combination of  historically low flows and high temps (several times over 80 degrees). Today it started slowly with a light but steady rain that softened the ground and allowed much of the rain to soak in.  By late morning (about the time I made my dump run) the real rain started.  It came down hard for a good five hours.  At 2:30 little Humphreys Brook that runs down the three mile long road from route 97 into Lordville was a roiling orange sea of mud.  The Town has recently done work on the drainage ditches along the road and the under the road culv...

When things fall in place like they did last week (excepting Thursday morning)  you just kinda assume that it's always going to be that way.  You've forgotten about the Hendrickson winds, the rains that put the rivers off color and too high to wade, boats coming by every five minutes, the hatches that didn't come off and the fish that didn't feed. Dave and Rick from the Troutfitter tried to fish Sunday night.  It's Ricks day off from the Syracuse Shop.  Dave, who's only been at the Deposit Shop a little over a year, still doesn't yet get a full day off, he's done at 2:00 on Sundays.  Sunday afternoon use to be the time to fish.  Everyone rushed to the river Friday afternoon, fished all day Saturday, Sunday morning and then left for home.  Not any more.  This year Sunday is crowded all day.  Dave and Rick finally found a place to fish, in near gale force winds, yes the bugs came but getting the fly to even land on the water was a challenge, ...

Sitting home on a Sunday afternoon in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic there was ample time to tally up both June and July fishing results.  The stats book I brought home only goes back to 2010 but even ten years is enough to put things into perspective. As I anticipated both months were very good. June of 2020 was nosed out for first place by June of 2011 by a mere 2 fish. July also finished second all time losing out to 2012 (the best year I've ever had) by 22 fish (If only I'd fished last Thursday - maybe, just maybe). More interesting was the percentage of fish over 17 inches.  In June it was 21%.  In July it dropped down to 10%, with browns of over 17 inches making up less than 8% of the browns caught. The only July with a lower % of big browns was 2012. What does it bode for the future - clearly good things.  The rainbow population has very few big fish.  Yes there are some 19 inchers and a very few twenty inchers but most of these fish are past th...