Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

 With the weekend coming up, thought it might be helpful to try to bring you up to date on river conditions. The freestones (BR, BK and BE) have all had Hendricksons for over a week. The Apple Caddis are hatching throughout the BE and I assume on the BR.  I haven't seen them on the BK. When the spills stopped on the UEB and the WB the water temps plunged and the hatches slowed. The reservoirs are now below the lip of the spillways enough that NYC will almost certainly begin to reduce the releases and when they do there will be a bug explosion on both the UEB and WB. The fishing - The BK and EB went from easy pickin's to - Why won't they eat my Hendrickson?, in less than a week. Why? The drift boats give no fish a free pass, they are all within reach. By last Saturday most of the fish I was catching had hook marks in their mouth.  By Monday the fish were reluctant to eat a Hendrickson. If you are fortunate enough to be on the UEB or WB "when it happens", it should ...

 Back when "The Opener" was April first, trout fishermen had something to look forward to.  Preseason trips were made to finger lakes rainbow spawning streams to check out "the run" and lines would be in the water on April 1st at the 5:00am starting time in hopes of catching one of the big spawners. Ice in the guides, you bet, but you were fishing again. Now that trout season is open all year long, there's no need to suffer the harsh realities of April in the northeast. Pick your spots, go on the nice days and wait for the bug hatches to get cranked up.   Good advice? Sure, but I remember that nine pound rainbow I caught in Salmon Creek on opening day fifty years ago, the dozen fish that ate my dry fly in junction pool on April 4th just two years ago, that April 14th over twenty years ago  when every quill Gordon in the red barn pool hatched and every trout was up eating them and April of 2012 when there were Hendricksons hatching April first and my fishing log ...