Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

My wife Jean is down in Lordville to take in the fireworks and the Lordville parade.  We drove around a bit this afternoon and were surprised at how few fishermen were on the river. Looks like with Covid 19 in remission, families are going to be spending the weekend together (not a bad thing).  Ed & Ken you started a discussion that I thought would elicit more responses from Beaverkill fishermen. I have about 35 years fishing the BK mostly from Horton down to the junction. As usual my input is lacking scientific knowledge and is based only on personal observations from which I am sometimes guilty of creating reasonably believable scenarios that have no basis in fact.  So as not to risk the ire of Dr. M, we should be able to agree that global warming is occurring, without a discussion on man's role, if any, on the subject matter. Warming has caused hatches to occur earlier on average than they did during my youth. Some bugs do well in cold water (sulfurs & olives), while oth

With the yard still wet from last nights rain I was unable to cross the yardwork items off my to-do list. Copied some flies that appeared on my screens last night and at about 1:30, loaded up the trash and headed for the transfer station. Figured as long as I was on the road I might as well see if anything was going on. It was. First bridge I walked out on had sulfurs flying all around it with fish rising as far as I could see. It's Friday before the long Fourth of July weekend and at 2:00 pm people were already here, lots of them.  Two couples were gearing up and one fisherman was walking down the shore.  The two couples never got far from the bridge and the fisherman walked way downstream leaving me lots of room (and fish).  The ONLY complaint I had was that the sun kept coming out. There were fish (more than you can imagine), that were eating sulfurs (on top) and there were lots of sulfurs. When the clouds ruled there were fish up everywhere, when the sun was king the fish bowed

Took the obligatory once a week drive to the UEB.  At 2:00 this afternoon there was but one fisherman between East Branch and the Corbett Bridge. Never saw a bug on the water or a fish rise.  Strange as it may sound after dealing with 90+ degree heat all week, I felt, with the heavy overcast, that the water up in Deposit would be too cold to get the sulfurs hatching, so I looked downstream for warmer water and bugs. Found them both along with rising fish from 3:00 until 9:00.  After yesterdays dismal one fish performance, it felt good to get my mojo back. Aside from hooking  an olive into the back of my raincoat, a sulfur into my right cheek and stabbing myself in the hand with the needle like fastener of the zinger when it tried to escape from my vest, everything went my way. Put the raincoat over the fishing vest for a change (good decision) and was warm and comfortable all day. It rained for all but about an hour of the time I was in the water but it was a fisherman's rain, a li

In order for the fishing to be good three things have to happen. The fisherman has to be in the right place at the right time. I wasn't. The bugs have to show up via either a hatch or a spinner fall. They didn't. The fish have to rise. They didn't. Perhaps I was too far downstream for the evening sulfurs (the gamelands) but there were swallows eating spinners way up high before the last rain.  Based on my effort today I would suggest that days be spent above Hale Eddy. If you want to fish down river do so after seven in the evening. That said I have had good evening sulfurs above Hale Eddy and it's probably the safest bet to fish up there. The most recent heat wave has put the freestones (BK, BE and BR) on the do not fish list until the fall. Temps in the BE and BK both exceeded 80 this week (The area below Horton Brook on the BK is closed to all fishing until September).  The effort to keep the BR temp at or below 75 at Lordville missed the mark the last two days with

 Got the Lordville Estate down to 71 degrees at 6:00 yesterday morning then closed things up and watched the thermometer out on the porch climb into the mid nineties. At noon Mom had a coming out party for her fawn. It's the first one I've seen in Lordville so far this year. Have yet to see a doe with twin fawns. Both the bears and coyotes are grim reapers and have been busy thinning the heard. About 4:00 I got in the car, not so much because I thought the fishing would be good (it was 96 outside) but because it was up to 80 degrees inside and I was sure I could stand in both the cold water and the shade. It was strange being on the river. Sorta like going back in time 25 years.  Why? No boats, after two days of being cooked by the 90 degree temps drifters stayed home. In five hours of fishing on the WB only one driftboat went by me. The fishing - In the first two hours I saw five rises, cast to them all and got five ignores. Rose five fish blind casting all of which ate my fly

 The best part of fishing today was just standing in the sub fifty degree water and no, I didn't feel a bit sorry for the guys frying in their the drift boats.  Stopped in Deposit at about 11:30 on the way down to see if the midday sulfurs had gotten going (they hadn't). Drove to Lordville, unloaded the car, tied some sulfurs, had lunch and drove back up the river to Deposit. There was very little evidence of either rising fish or hatching bugs so I circled the wagon and drove River Road back down to Hale Eddy and Rte.17 back up to Deposit. Saw a pod of half a dozen really nice fish sipping something I couldn't see with my binoculars.  Jason, you missed it, they were almost at the end of your driveway. It would have been a half mile walk upstream in waders with the car showing a temp of 95 for me to fish them.  I passed.   The fishing - It was not hard to find an empty pool at 3:30.  There was a mix of spring and summer sulfurs hatching and occasional splashy rises of fish