Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

Last night I was in bed typing the "Some Habits Are Hard To Break" page when the good fairy tapped me on the shoulder and said  "It's time for you to go to sleep". I dutifully closed the PC cover, set it on the floor and dozed off. When I awoke this morning I took the laptop out to the kitchen table to read the paper and to see if the Troutfitter Tech staff had added the new page to their site. At the last second I decided to see how it ended as I couldn't seem to quite remember. It's a good thing I did because some people might have thought I was sleeping on the job, for right after  the word Because in paragraph six, someone had obviously hacked into my computer and added six nice neat rows of small c's. Our in house TI (or is it IT?) is on it and you can be sure that nothing important or relevant to the investigation will be erased.  Had to take a drive over to the Home Depot in Honesdale this morning. Last time I drove on 191 south the road was a

 It was probably almost thirty years ago when the DEC employed college age kids ( I've been told that one of them is now head of the fisheries department at Cobleskill), to interview the anglers on the Delaware River.  They told me that they knew where everyone parked and where they fished (there were no boats then), except for me. It became an unspoken game of hide and seek.  Almost always they found me. When they asked  why I moved around so much I said that I liked to explore. What I didn't tell them was that whenever I went to the same place two days in a row I ALWAYS caught fewer fish the second time. Today the drift boaters are in a new  place every five minutes. Wade fishermen, however, seem to still be stuck in their old ways.  Most leave their garage knowing where they will park and where they will fish no matter how many people are there before them. I believe that fishing different water every day is the third most important thing (after casting and flies) if you asp

 Tuesday's gusty winds made presentation of a dry fly problematical. On some casts my fly was windsurfing past the bubbles on the water, on others it seemed to be moving upstream as the bubbles sped by it going downstream.  The trout weren't bothered by the wind one bit and were happily feeding on all sorts of things. Do any of you ever stare at the water right in front of you for a few minutes? There was a sulfur nymph husk every six inches at one point. There were also olives served up both medium and small, and all sorts of tiny, tiny little living creatures. When the sulfur hatch waned two things happened, Adrian floated by and the fish just kept on feeding. In fact there was a noticeable increase in the surface feeding activity.  The fishing?  Fair weather fishermen and novices did not  fare well.  Two young fishermen were about a hundred yards below me. They were enthusiastically throwing bobbers at rising fish.They waded out deeper and deeper as the fish moved to keep ou

Headed for Deposit about 9:30 Monday morning. Was delighted to see that paving has started on the fourteen mile stretch of I-81 between Marathon and Castle Creek. The top coat was being ground off, a tack coat applied and a long line of trucks full of asphalt were waiting their turn to fill the paver. Got in the water just as the sulfurs (and olives) started hatching and had three hours of good fishing until I stepped on a  large slab of  very slippery ledge rock that tilted towards deeper water.  Couldn't stop the slide no matter how hard I tried to curl my toes. Wasn't in any current and the water was no more than three feet deep but my waders were full of air and I had difficulty getting my feet under me. I do not wear a wader belt for this very reason. If you are fishing in a place where you have the possibility of being carried into deep water, a wader belt will help keep you afloat. If, however, you are wading in relatively shallow water there is no advantage in keeping t