Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

With bright sun, high water and a stiff breeze it wasn't hard for me to pack up my dirty laundry, the last of the peaches and my bow and arrows and head for Lafayette at 1:00 this afternoon. The peaches don't keep well and by 4:15 we had them all canned.  One of my grandsons has a volley ball game tomorrow morning and Syracuse plays Rutgers at 2:00pm. Will probably dine out with Jean after the game. In the back of my mind was an afternoon departure on Sunday so I could get in another session with the WB olives. A check of my schedule, however, revealed that I have a hair cut scheduled for 10:30 Monday morning. Hopefully the rivers will have receded enough by Monday afternoon to give me lots of options. If you are wade fishing the river system this weekend your best bet will be the WB.  I'm there all the time and under present conditions I wouldn't venture out until at least 3:00 if it's cloudy or 5:00 if it's sunny. Olives happen late. This time of year there ar...

Has it occurred to you that we are living in a strange world?  Politics aside, Covid-19 has been a huge disruption. It's been  over 20 months since the onset of the pandemic and the supply line is still in disarray. Manufacturers can't hire enough workers or even get the necessary parts to make their products. It is certainty symbolic of the problem rather than being an important factor in anyone else's life but I have been unable to buy a new pair of G3 Guide waders for the past several months. Simms just can't seem to make them fast enough. Turned down a pair that were "Camo" color a month ago, telling the very nice sales person that they were for duck hunters. Have been wading "wet" ever since.  As I'm sure you all know the freestones were all blown out again last night. That left the two tailwaters to fish and I decided to head to the WB. Picked the rest of the peaches this morning, got my archery license and headed up to Deposit to have Dave...

Left camp about 2:00 and decided to spend the day over on the BK. Why? It has been too high to fish since Ida, it has the best iso hatches in the entire river system, it has good fall olives, it was almost down to the level at which I like to fish it (300 to 450 cfs) and todays predicted rain would probably put it back up into the unfishable category. Found the rocks along the shoreline covered with iso husks. Some rocks had over a dozen husks on them and there were rocks that were still wet that had husks on them. So how was the iso hatch? Saw a few hatching during the afternoon but saw nothing that got the fish going. What did get the fish up were tiny olives hatching along the far bank of Cemetery Pool.  Cemetery is one of my favorite pools on the BK, it has some good fish, the riff dumping into it is an iso factory, there are fall pseudos and catching the fish that sit in the slow water along the far bank is a casting challenge. If you go there watch out for the big flat rocks,...

 Had three items to cross off the list before I could go fishing today. The first was to get the leak in my right rear tire fixed. Warning light came on Friday night of Labor Day weekend. Fortunately it was a slow leak and I had no trouble keeping enough air in it. Drove over to the Equinunk garage about 8:30 and was back on the road in about twenty minutes with the hole plugged. Next stop was the post office where I went to return a pair of Simms Freestone waders sent to me in error. I had ordered and paid for G3 Guides. Biggest problem was finding a box the right size to ship them in as the box they arrived in was battered beyond repair. Many places have boxes piled up for anyone who wants them but most have the top cut off. Finally found one at the liquor store, packed the waders into it, taped it shut but didn't attach the return label they had mailed me as I was concerned that all the writing and bar codes would be a problem.. Got to the post office and it was a no go. Can...

Yesterday the stars aligned. Heavy overcast with an on and off again drizzle, olives on the water with fish eating them. Fishermen had targets all over the river. Todays weather forecast promised clouds with a chance of a shower and maybe some sun. Well, there were clouds this morning, no shower and just when I started to wade out in the river, bright sunshine in a cloudless sky with a wind strong enough that I had to pull my hat down to my ears. Yesterday I had the river to myself, today, even further downstream, two drift boats, four pontoon boats and numerous kayakers went by (not a one bothered my fishing even a little bit). Shortly after my arrival there was a brief hatch of olives that I thought would surely get the fish going, saw two rises, neither of which I could get to and poof, the hatch was over. Fished from 3:30 until 7:30 and cast at two fish I saw rise. One ate and came unstuck, the other was apparently unimpressed with what I thought was a reasonably good cast of a fly...

 If you were ever going to hire a guide to float the Big River today was the day to do it.  Why? Well we just had the fall "redistribution rise" in water courtesy of Ida. The flow is now back down to around 2,500 cfs which can be safely waded if you are familiar with the place you are wading but is not a good level at which to learn the river. The BR fish have been lightly fished since the drake spinner fall back in June and are now back in their home pools.  Lastly, today was a five star olive day from the time the first drizzle began running off the porch roof.  There were about a dozen trailers at Buckingham and I bet most anglers left the river happy. I know I did. Didn't leave the fishing camp until about 3:00.  Would have started out earlier but had invested $6.99 in ESPN+ to see my granddaughter's North Florida volleyball team play a match that started at 1:00.  Thankfully they won in three straight games. Drove up the PA side of the BR and as usual,...