Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

It's Memorial Day weekend. Jean is on her way down and we will try to get a reservation at one of the nearby restaurants for dinner tonight.  The sole item on the to-do list for today is to clean the camp before Jean's arrival. Not that I'm putting off that little task but it seems that there is ample time to answer the questions you have asked so far this year. Mark asked one that has been asked many times.  What do BE and DR stand for?  BE is the East branch from where the UEB and BK come together at JAWS down to junction pool in Hancock where the WB and BE come together. The DR  is simply the Delaware River  (aka the BR or Main Stem) from junction pool down to Callicoon which is pretty much the end of the blue ribbon trout fishing portion of the river. When I published "A Season on the Delaware" I provided a list of most all my abbreviations. You can get the book from Amazon for less than the cost of half a dozen flies.  While the book has never ranked h...

 On Monday in the "Back into Backing" page I said the freestones were back from the doldrums. Are they ever.  Have spent an outstanding week fishing in virtual solitude with just me, the fish and the bugs (lots of them).  What's hatching?  In short, everything. There are still some little Hendricksons and caddis in the upper WB. The freestones (BR, BE and BK) are in the midst of the big bug explosion. There are march browns, gray foxes, sulfurs, brown drakes, isos, golden stones and green drakes hatching. Where? That's the big question. Guides float the rivers every day, they know. If you want to be sure of bugs, go where the boats are. It'll be crowded and the fish will be on alert.  If you are a gambler, look for bugs where the pressure is the lightest. Check the streamside rocks for iso husks, look for empty nymph husks floating in the stream, see if the swallows are working over the riffs or if the grackles are standing on streamside rocks.   When?...

The past two weeks you just had to be up above Hale Eddy on the WB.  There were a plethora of Hendricksons, grannoms, apple caddis and of all of the their spinners.  It  was crowded but there seemed to be enough fish for everybody.  The fish?  They took a fearful beating. Their mouths are full of hook marks and they are exhausted ( try fighting for your life at least once a day for two weeks and see how you feel).  Yes, there are still caddis up there, maybe even the odd Hendrickson spinner but it's time to get out of Dodge (Deposit) and give the fish a rest.  Where to go?  The freestones (BR, BK, BE) of course.  I left the WB last Thursday morning and have fished the freestones since then, with mixed results. BK had fish eager to eat a Gray Fox during off hours but there were no bugs or rising fish.  EB had a few March Browns but almost no rising fish during prime time. The BR had bugs Thursday night but shut down when the sun went behi...