Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

  When I went down to Lordville on Wednesday, I had hoped to maybe finish up in time to get a little fishing in. I didn't. It was 4:00 when I called it quits so I decided to take my bow and sit in a place where I've often seen does and fawns come out to feed in the evening. The first doe appeared at 4:15 followed closely by her two fawns. Another doe appeared moments later. By 4:30 there were four does and three fawns in sight. Shortly thereafter, a nice eight point buck walked towards the does. He seemed to look at me several times but was clearly more interested in the array of potential mates. When he got within 25 yards of me he stopped broadside, which turned out to be the last mistake he ever made. Called Jean in the morning, (her car has the trailer hitch), and she drove down, (an hour and fifty minutes each way) so we could transport the deer back home. Finished up the butchering Saturday night in time to treat Jean to a nice prime rib dinner at Dasher's Pub down in...

 Heading down to the Lordville Estate tomorrow morning. Will be stopping at Vicky's Unisex Hair Salon at 10:00 AM for my last hair cut there until next spring. The Troutfitter is closed and David is probably down at Hilton Head by now after spending over two-hundred straight days at the fly shop and inn. Down in Lordville, I've got work to do. It'll take me the better part of two days to finish the closedown. It's for me, a sad time, another year gone by, and at 81 you know there can't be many years left. When all the items are checked off the shutdown list, the place will be neat as a pin, the 'fridge turned off with it's door left open, stove ashes cleaned out, hot water heater shut off, the pipes drained, anti-freeze in the traps, the heat turned off, the bed stripped, and fly-tying materials moth balled, leaving the Lordville Estate nothing but a dark, cold, empty, unappealing  place. When I come down later to rake up the leaves from my neighbor's hu...

  It's October and my plans seem to change daily. CL Repair got my tires in at one on Monday and Craig was able to do all the work on the car while I was crossing off items on my closedown list. Car was done by 3:30 and I packed it full of stuff and headed home. Not saying I'm done fishing but my next trip down may well be to shut off the water and drain the pipes. Of course if I shoot that ten pointer Thursday, all that could change. Right now dry fly fishermen have very few good options. The EB fish have been pounded and are no longer eating on the surface. The WB is a sea of mud and the release has been raised. The BR is also very muddy and I have been unable to find good consistent bug hatches there for the last month. One ray of hope is that the UEB release is being stepped down, and at lower levels may offer some good pseudo fishing. The BK and Willow remain very low, and, at least when I've stopped by, bugless. I enjoyed excellent dry fly fishing right through Octobe...

  It may be time to go sit in a tree, but I'm still here at the Lordville Estate. Why? Several reasons. First, I made arrangements a month ago to get new rear brakes, a tire rotation, and an oil change at Craig's. CL Repair in Equinunk. Stopped by Friday so Craig could get the parts for the job and decided I needed to also get new tires. Craig said if his guy has them in stock he will have them on Monday afternoon and  he can do everything Tuesday morning. Second, it seems to take longer to do things than it use to. Planned on doing the final cleaning of the fly-tying room and bedroom today, but things just got in the way and only the fly-tying room got finished. Walked out in the yard and looked at my handy work on the two freestone peach trees and decided to finish the job on the cling. That took an hour and a half and I still need to rake up the branches when the deer finish eating what they want. If  you'd rather spend time watching analysts on TV talking about the el...

  Let me be clear about a few things. First of all fall fishing can be very good, if most people are hunting, watching football games or working on their honey do lists. Why? The browns are busy spawning, which takes a huge percentage of the river's fish out of the game. The hatches are mostly very small flies and don't compare with the blanket hatches of big bugs seen in the spring. You are mostly fishing for rainbows and juvenile browns. When there is an onslaught of fishermen, the fish that are rising, quickly learn to let the duns go and eat emergers in the water column. Today, the number of anglers on the EB and BK, (didn't look anywhere else), was for the second half of October, simply unbelievable. Every fishing access lot was filled with cars, there were multiple fishermen in every pool on both the EB and BK that I drove by, trailers were lined up at every takeout. Simply stated, I couldn't find a place to fish, IN THE MIDDLE OF OCTOBER! What did I do? Broke my ...

Woke this morning to find the backyard covered with frost. Thermometer on the back porch read 30. Waited until 10:30 to resume the peach tree pruning saga. Happy to report that tree #3 is now finished. Will go back and "touch up" trees one and two, now that I have viewed several peach tree pruning videos. Thankfully, I have lots of helpers on the project. The peach leaves are still green but lots of them come loose during the pruning process. Yesterday six deer helped clean up and today the number swelled to nine. There won't be a peach leaf left in the yard tomorrow morning Skipped the lower WB and it's "green tinted" water and arrived at a pool on the EB higher up than I've been fishing, promptly at 3:00. Maybe a tad early, but there were some bugs and I saw a couple fish rise before my phone rang, it was a return call from a "How'd you do?" call I'd made earlier. While I was talking, I saw four more fish rise. Waded in, got in positi...

  Drove Jean to the airport at 4:30 AM for her trip out to Fargo, North Dakota. Was back to the house by 5:30. Had an early breakfast, packed up the car and headed for Lordville. Wasn't halfway there when Jean called to say she was in Chicago and ready to board the flight to Fargo after getting her exercise by first going to gate B22 and then having to go to gate F14 due to a gate change. Temp in the 30's all the way down. Stopped at the Troutfitter and Dave said there was a frost there last night. Arrived in Lordville too early to mow the wet lawn, so I started in pruning the third peach tree. First branch let me know that the tree wasn't happy being pruned, whacked me in the face drawing blood  on my cheek and ear. The deer were delighted that I was throwing down branches for them to chew on and within fifteen minutes there were six of them eating peach tree leaves and branches. Undaunted by my previous bad advice on where and when to fish, the Assoc. Eds. beat me to the ...

  It's 7:00 o'clock Sunday night and I'm in Lafayette. Had planned on coming down today and fishing until Wednesday. Have to be here early Thursday morning to get Jean to the airport. She's leaving me - again - to go out to Fargo N.D. to watch our granddaughter play volleyball. Our daughter is joining her and they will get to see six games in the 10 days they are there. Why didn't I go down to Lordville? At 11:00 this morning the temp in Hancock was 43 degrees. Pseudos and isos like it cold and if they hatched, I might well have missed an epic fishing day, but tomorrow is supposed to be just as cold with winds from the WNW at 15 to 20 mph and I decided to sit home in front of the fire. With rain/snow in the forecast for Wednesday, and some deer finally showing up on my trail cams, my departure will probably be delayed until after dropping Jean off at the airport Thursday morning. Took the time today to look back over the last two months of blog comments and I found ...

  Worked on my camp closedown list, and pruned one limb and several branches off the peach tree nearest the road while waiting for the grass to dry, then mowed the lawn. Finished up by 12:30, too early to go fishing, so I cleaned up, ate lunch, did a crossword and a sudoku, and at 2:00 I got in the car and went fishing. The options are limited. The WB, if possible, is getting muddier every day, to call it anything but muddy is a lie. The big river at Junction Pool has two sides, brown and black. Brown is of course the WB water and the black water is the gin clear EB water. With the sun so low in the sky the clear water looks black. The Willow and the BK are so low that only Ed S. can catch fish there. The UEB release is at 700cfs, the water is in the 40's, the wading is difficult, it's a brown trout stream, (and they are about to spawn), pseudos will be hatching, and fish will probably be up eating them, but I won't be there. Why? The fish will mostly be 1.5 year old browns...

  Truth be told, I'm sick of fishing in muddy water. Today I went east. The BK is so low, (77cfs), that there was no one fishing, except me. In the fall I look forward to fishing the BK which has excellent iso and pseudo hatches. Picked a long deep pool, walked up to where the riff dumps in and didn't see a single iso husk on any of the streamside rocks. Fished during prime pseudo time and never saw a pseudo or a rising fish. Unless we get some rain, I'll fish clean water elsewhere. Heading back towards Hancock, I decided to stop where I encountered the boat anchored and fishing to rising trout a week or so ago, and I'm glad I did. Today there were three boats, (there were only two last time), but today I beat them to the pool. When I walked through the cane and came out on the river bank there were bugs on the water and rising fish. Looked up river and there were boats. Got in the pool and when each of the first two boats came by I had a fish on. There weren't a lo...

  When last Friday looked like a replay of Thursday's bugless adventure, I packed it in and headed for home. I was hobbling around on a bruised foot that just might have been caused by walking up and down streamside rocks in a pair of felt bottomed neoprene booties with felts worn paper thin from the seasons fishing. Found a pair of new, (twenty year old),  wading boots on a shelf in the basement and wore them today. Bruised foot feels good, and the new felt bottoms made walking on the algae covered rocks a piece of cake. On the trip down I drove over, or by, numerous road kills. Squirrels and Porcupines never seem to cross the road safely, but each fall dead racoons and skunks seem to be the most common victims, (until the deer rut). Two dead skunks were on the road before I even got to I-81. Several members of a racoon family were scattered along route 17, as was a possum that wasn't "playing dead", and what appeared to be a yearling, (not a cub), black bear. Also s...

  People often ask me where I'm going to fish, and I usually tell them I don't know. Sure, I have an idea where I want to fish, but if someone else is already fishing there I go someplace else. For the past two weeks there have been consistent hatches that got fish up on the river system. Some places the hatches started at 1:00pm and some places they started at 3:30pm. I even gave you the times in the reports. Today, I had occasion to talk with three river friends, and was so confident that the bugs would hatch when and where they had been hatching that I told all three people when and where to fish. I will never do that again. Why? Both the bugs and the fish took the day off. I mean there was nothing happening as far as I could determine, any where. Talked with numerous fishermen and guides that came down the river. No bugs, no risers, and no fish, except for one boat that "caught a couple on streamers in the fog this morning" and one wader that "caught a couple...

  Was on the road this morning in the pitch dark at 5:00AM heading for Ithaca where we were to arrive by 6:15 for Jean's second cataract removal. Jean was scheduled to be the second operation, (she was eighth last week), but there was a mix-up between the front desk guy, who said she wasn't supposed to be there until 7:00, ("You're way too early"), and processed several patients scheduled after Jean, and the OR nurse who had called the house and said to be there by 6:15. The OR nurse finally came out looking for Jean and she was processed and slipped into the order batting 5th. The whole snafu didn't amount to a delay of more than an hour and we were back on the road home by 8:30. Jean, apparently tired of what she considers my pokey driving, got approval from the Doctor to drive herself down tomorrow for the post op appointment. On the way back home she said, "It's still early, I'm going to drive myself down tomorrow, and you can be in Lordville ...

It doesn't seem possible but it's the last day of September and therefore time for my sporadic and intermittent message.  Have to go home tomorrow and drive Jean to her 2nd cataract operation. The first one was last week and already Jean's crowing about how well she can see out of that eye. My GHOF is retired but he was able to schedule Jean with the surgeon that he says is the best resident he ever had. Found out at the post op meeting that the surgeon is retiring at the end of the month, (September), and that Jean is one of his very last patients. During the course of the cataract thing, it occurred to me that my GHOF is way younger than me, and that one of his residents is retiring. It's why I look at the obits before doing the eggs each morning, if my name isn't there, I crack the shells and scramble the eggs. As most long time readers are aware, I both dry-fly fish and bow hunt. At 81, I'm not embarrassed to say that 30 yards is my maximum shooting distance...

  It's six-thirty and I'm off the river and typing the report. There were bugs from when I started at 1:15 until just before I quit at 6:00. What kind? The usual suspects which haven't changed much in the past few weeks, olives of all sizes, isos, Hebes, the odd Cahill, and some fall brown caddis flying their way upstream.  Started out on the lower WB and was immediately confronted by a drift boat back rowing up the river that would have run into me if the sport hadn't told the guide I was there. Wasn't his fault as he had apparently drifted down in the time it took me to park and get down to the river. They had seen some fish and the guide was trying to give his sport another shot at them. He rowed across the river and fished down the other side. A few minutes later two younger guys walked down the shore behind me without saying a word and started fishing just below where I was. It was my intention to fish a couple hundred yards below them, so I walked down past th...

Today held little promise as a fishing day for me. Why? Syracuse was playing at noon today and the game would last the entire time that I saw hatching bugs yesterday. I've been away for a week and the lawn has to be mowed. Needed to clean out the accumulation of empty boxes and other detritus that has accumulated in the garage over the summer by making a dump run, and with October 1st just around the corner, I needed to pay a visit to Marino's and get my archery tag. With a light mist falling I took care of the dump trip and the archery license before the game. Thankfully it was dry enough, post game, to get the yard mowed.  At five o'clock I was ready to go fishing. Stopped at Junction Pool, (if you're wondering, sometime I capitalize things and sometimes I don't, there's no rhyme or reason to it, if Mrs. Haskins isn't looking, it's fun to make up your own rules), two fisherpersons were leaving and the one just walking out of the river said he hadn'...

  It's 7:30 and I'm back at the Lordville Estate, Perfect Manhattan in hand, ready to write a report.  Drove back down this morning after a week in Lafayette. Was surprised by the number of fishermen on the river this morning, and was even more surprised when I went out to fish at 1:00 this afternoon. Drove up the PA side and went down to the Buckingham launch site to look for bugs, (there weren't any),  lost count of the trailers at over 12. Five of which were pointed out towards the road with their boats presumably on the way to Long Eddy. There were more cars and two trailers at Stockport, and a half dozen trailers at Shehawken with cars, SUV's and pickups lined up down in the parking lot. It's the last week in September and when I left last Friday, I thought the fishing had gotten tough and people would be gone. The fishing - Found bugs and rising fish at a place on the lower WB, and hooked a fish on the very first cast, which was a nice way to start the day. Ha...

  Those of you on the pay side who sneak a peek at the blog before it's posted on the Troutfitter page were no doubt disappointed last night. I was disappointed too, as I watched Stanford kick a last second field goal to beat Syracuse, in lieu of writing the blog. Took a long walk to a section of the river I haven't fished in several years. Picking a hot sunny day for the trip just wasn't very smart. Was in a lather by the time I got there and sat on a rock out in the stream for a good hour before the first bugs hatched. Got takes from the first three fish that rose. One is wearing a brand spanking new olive that he acquired by streaking downstream and creating enough drag to break my 6x tippet. Landed the other two and thought it was going to be well worth the walk. It wasn't. There were bugs and there were splashy rises of educated fish taking the nymphs on the way up. Didn't get so much as a refusal until, when wading back downstream towards the car, I saw a fish...

  Got half the lawn mowed and tied some flies. It occurred to me while at the bench, that I'll never be a fly tyer, rather I'm a fisherman who uses a lot of flies and they need to be replaced. Have taken my tying stuff down to Florida but somehow just never  sit down and tie a bunch of flies. Guess I need the possibility of immediate gratification to get me tying. Left the fishing camp with no clear plan, wavered before turning left up Lordville Road rather than going over the bridge and up the PA side, hesitated again when I got to 97, then turned left foregoing downriver options. Ended up driving up the EB and fishing one of the places where I first hit the fall isos back in late August. I had only fished about half of the water that time and decided to give it another go. The fishing - Was not at all what I expected. Saw some slashing iso nymph eating rises and several quick but delicate sips. There was no question there were fish, and they were feeding, but on what? My iso...

  Finally have something a little different to talk about. Started out at 3:00 with a place I was intending to fish clearly in mind. Pulled into the parking area and there was a guy with his waders on fussing with his equipment in the back of his vehicle. Asked him if he was coming or going? Said he was done, and that he had done very well with the rainbows on little olives and big isos. Told him he beat me to it by a few hours and headed for another spot. When I got streamside I was treated to the sight of isos in the air and rising fish. Not a lot of isos but enough that you could mark a rising fish, move close enough to make a cast and wait until he rose again before casting. Again, no yearlings, just big fish. Lost three of the first four I hooked, then landed five in a row before losing the last fish. Was back to the car just before six. Last evening I saw lots of bugs but almost no rising fish. Tonight I found a place where there were plenty of both bugs and rising fish. Most...

  Thankfully both last night and today turned out to be cooler than what was forecasted. It got into the forty's last night and I took full advantage of the cooler temp this morning to do some heavy duty yard work. Rested up mid-day, tied a half dozen flies, and at three-thirty I set out for the days fishing. For the past two weeks the fishing has fallen into a routine that for me, is what fishing is all about. I've avoided both the Willow and the Bk because they have been too low and warm. I've avoided the WB because it's now pulling silt out of the reservoir along with the algae and there has been a dearth of bugs and risers there.  So where have I fished? My time has been divided between the the EB and the BR. I've chosen a new place every day, except for my return to a spot on the EB two days in a row just to prove a point. Some of the places I hadn't fished this year, one I hadn't fished since before covid, the rest I visited in the spring before things...

  Today was another in a seemingly endless string of beautiful fall days, (unless you are a fisherman). Checked the weather forecast and those two rainy days I was so looking forward to, have now been replaced by two more orange suns smiling at me from my lap top. Have a number of unfinished to-do list items waiting for cooler temps, but the way things are going, it seems I'll have to do them in 80 degree heat.  The Beaverkill went a little above 71 degrees today after topping out just above 70 the last two days. Thankfully with the big 600cfs release of 42 degree water from Pepacton the rest of the system is in good shape. The fishing - Left the fishing camp at about 3:30 and went to a place on the BE that I haven't fished since May. There were fish there and they were feeding, but someone had obviously reminded them that some flies have hooks in them. Saw a rise, waded into casting range and on the first business cast, a nice fish ate the fly and ten seconds later came unstu...

  It's Saturday night, I'm back in Lafayette attempting to type a report on a notebook.  Yesterday's fishing was the same as the previous three days. Fished both the BR and the EB. Found very few bugs during the day, but if you floated a fly over a fish that hadn't been hooked since last June, he ate, (no matter what fly it was). If you cast at a recently hooked fish the best you could hope for was a refusal. How do I know? Just for the fun of it, I went back where I fished Thursday again on Friday. Caught five nice rainbows, none of which had a recent hook mark in their mouth, The fish that were willing to eat were all caught either upstream or downstream from the area I fished the day before. Got three refusals in the area I fished on Thursday.  Fished two other places with similar results. Had several fish eagerly eat what I offered while others that I saw rise wouldn't give my fly a look. Ended the day with nine rainbows all but one of which was between 14 and 1...

  A couple weeks ago I caught the laptop charger cord with my foot, yanked the laptop off the table and in the process bent the charger cord prong. Today I finished the job, by once again catching my foot in the cord and snapping off the prong, in the laptop. Future reports will be dependent on both removing the prong and obtaining a new Lenovo Ideal Pad charging cord. And yes I'm still wading without a wading staff. In hopes of finishing the report before the battery dies, I'll get right to the fishing. After Monday's sorry effort, (notice I blame it on Monday, not on me), of but one fish, I've put together three solid days. Today was the best of the bunch. Started out at 3:00 and with the bright sun and hot temp, I picked a place where a steep hill provided early shade. When I arrived the fish in the sun were rising while the shaded part of the river was quiet. Found fish more than willing to eat my fly and in seemingly no time at all, I had landed seven fish. Then I ...

Spent the morning filling another five gallon bucket with apples , (which went directly onto the screened in porch), shot the bow, (didn't find the missing arrow,but shot well), finished my blind alteration/repair project, vacuumed, (put two c's, one u and one m in on the first try), up the grass I tracked into the house from yesterday's mowing, did the breakfast dishes, and presto, it was time to have lunch. Encouraged by yesterday's good hatch of bugs, and the resulting good fishing, I decided to fish another section of the BR today. It's a longer walk, so I left about 1:00, two hours earlier than yesterday. I needn't have bothered. With the sun beating down from a cloudless sky, I was hot and sweaty by the time I got to the chosen pool. Apparently the bugs had been told by their parents to stay out of the sun because, while there was an assortment of bugs hatching, they fell far short of the numbers necessary to get the fish up and feeding like yesterday. How...

  It's fall, no matter what the calendar says. Except for the two fawns that live in the backyard, all the deer in Lordville are proudly wearing their new winter coats. The orphaned fawn of last year is sporting his one, three inch long horn, sans the velvet,the sun is in your eyes all day long, the goldenrod and fall asters are in bloom, there's space behind the hills, and at least today, the fishing was over before dark. Spent the morning mowing the lawn, tying a half dozen caddis, and shaking down a five gallon pail full of apples. Set the bucket on the porch steps, put out the archery target and shot the bow. Moving from twenty to thirty yards I buried an arrow in the grass when I used the 20 yard pin at 30 yards, ($hit happens when you're over 80). If I'd gotten a job at Mickey D's, I could have purchased a dozen arrows in the time I spent unsuccessfully, (why do you have to double the c's, s's and l's), trying to find the short shot. Finally said ...

  Had a number of things to do before departure today and decided to take my time and limit my fishing to the evening hours. Have been doing quite well during those last couple of hours of light. The waters have cooled off and are all in good shape to fish.There has been enough flow of cold water on the Delaware from the increased releases at both Pepacton and Cannonsville since earlier this month, that most of the fish should be back in their home pools. The problem with the fishing has been the dearth of bugs. If it's because of damage done by Debby there is little likelihood of improvement. If, however, it's because the water has been too warm, things should be picking up. Went out tonight at about five-thirty. It was overcast and chilly with little to no wind. Picked a place farther down the BR, (Charlie, BR is the Main Stem a/k/a the Delaware River from junction pool down to Callicoon), than I have fished this fall and it may have been a mistake.  Stepped into the water a...

  Home and thankful to be here rather than trying to battle the wind on the river today. Put up a couple of trail cams, and will be heading back down to the Lordville Estate tomorrow morning. Now is as good a time as any to answer the weeks questions. Glenn wanted to know where have all the tricos gone? If anyone found good trico hatches on the UEB before Debby hit please let us know. I didn't make a trico trip to the UEB until after water levels got back to normal and didn't see more than a dozen of the little guys. I've also failed to find any good iso hatches. There's no grackles eating them along the shoreline rocks or cedar waxwings flying out to pick them off over the water. The obvious culprit is Debby as the flood waters moved tons of rocks around in some of the rivers. Many nymphs were probably crushed or washed down to Delaware bay. Greg Tarris wants to know what the clouds of little bugs he saw were. Best guess is either mating pseudos or midges. Tricos do th...

Big news in Lordville, the bridge is open on Lordville Road, the work isn't finished but you can use the road. Is our mail lady ever happy.  Coming back from Vicky's after my haircut and an enjoyable hour plus conversation at the Troutfitter among three fishermen with a lot of tread wear, I had an early summer question answered on my drive down Lordville Road. There are two hen turkeys with 20 almost full grown youngsters still alive and well and not more than a quarter mile further down the road is another hen with her brood of eight that were about the size of pheasants, (if anyone remembers how big pheasants were). I had seen them all back in June but wasn't sure if there were two or three broods. Spent the better part of the afternoon working around the house and yard. It wasn't until 5:00 that I gave a thought to where I would fish. The 600cfs release from Pepacton has invigorated the UEB and most of the freestone system. The BK and Willow are still warmish but fis...

  I was a little smarter today than yesterday. Spent the day sprucing up the Lordville Estate. Made and attached a screen on an attic window, removed the overflow Gorilla Glue from my threshold installation job of two weeks ago, replaced or straightened, and secured the bottom row of cedar shakes on one side of the garage, and still had time to eat lunch, shoot the bow, and do both a crossword and a sudoku. At six o'clock I went fishing. Yesterday from three in the afternoon until dark, (8:00), I hooked five "counter" fish, landed four of them including two big heavy 'bows. Today between a little after 6:00 and a little before 8:00, I hooked another five fish. Only trouble was today the two big rainbows both came unstuck, one from a spin out and one just because. The fish I caught were all browns, the biggest of which was 16 inches. These are some of the nicest days of the year, unless you are a fisherman. Dennis, go play another round of golf. I'll write Mrs. Den...

   Left the fishing camp at 2:30 and headed east, determined to right the ship. The WB release has been raised to six hundred, the silt is coloring the water, no one is reporting any bugs or rising fish and I wanted to give the EB, UEB, and BK a good look.  Started out driving up the UEB. With a release of 600cfs, it's fishable for waders, with care. The water was colored by the silt deposited during hurricane Debby's onslaught. The increased flow is a good thing for many reasons. First, it will flush out a lot of the silt. Second, it will raise the level of the EB and at the same time cool it off. Third, it will also hopefully encourage fish return to their home pools. Saw no fishermen, bug or rising fish. Did not fish. Drove over to the BK on old rte.17 and either fished or walked the banks of four of the best iso spots I know. It is almost a certainty that Debby had a profound negative effect on the insect life in the system.  The number of iso husks on the stream...

  Hats off to the grammarian who works tirelessly in the background to improve our end product here at A-119. Found a record five errors in yesterday's offering. I didn't get up until 7:45 so unfortunately, I had no chance to proofread my work in the morning, (as I usually do), let alone white out the errors the grammarian found before David at the Troutfitter posted it.  There were two bright spots in an otherwise difficult day of fishing. The first came when I was walking through the knotweed from a pool on the BK to my car.  I encountered Ed S., one of our highly esteemed Assoc. Eds., (can you put a period before a comma?), (Mrs. Haskins is tearing her hair out, 'cause I just did it twice). We had a nice chat, (there was no hurry to get back into the stream), and before we were finished, a blog reader pulled in and identified us both, (sadly he never asked either of us for our autograph). Without insulting anyone who was present, there was over two hundred years of exp...

  The trip down to Florida and back went without a hitch. Saw three volleyball games, and watched the team eat eight pounds of bacon, four dozen sausage patties, one hundred and twenty eggs, too many pancakes to count, five quarts of juice, and a mountain of fresh fruit at our daughter's house Saturday morning. Unfortunately they lost all three matches in the tournament (the last two in five sets). They were playing without their best right side hitter the entire match, and for reasons I couldn't fathom, one of  their two best outside hitters for seven of the ten games in the two five set matches. On the bright side, our granddaughter Logan made the all tournament team. Arrived at the Lordville Estate at 2:00 this afternoon after taking care of neglected items at home, stopping at BJ's for food, Home Depot for several items, and back home for the things I forgot. The Lordville Road bridge is still not finished, (thank God I didn't go 97). Put my food and clothes away, a...

  It's the end of August and time for a review of our musical experts success in identifying the months references to old time musical classics.   On August 2nd, "Hot August Night" was correctly identified by Dennis, (our expert on Neil Diamond), as a Neil Diamond song. On August 6th, Dennis took a called third strike on "Done Too Soon" which was a far more popular Diamond song. On August 14th, Keith, (our Harry Chapin expert), let "Changes Keep On  Changing" go by without comment. On August 21st  Maybe Tomorrow, an excerpt from Roy Orbison's "Only The Lonely", slipped by unnoticed exposing our lack of expertise in the country music field.. On August 26th our desperate need for a country music expert was  made clear when Terri Clark's "I've Got Better Things To Do", passed by without anyone saying a word. On August 27th Jim Dygert showed his worth by recognizing Leo Sayers "Long Tall Glasses", from the "Yo...

  Down in Ft. Meyers to visit our daughter and watch our granddaughter's volleyball team play in a weekend tournament.  Jim N. Wanted to know the maximum number of people that could fish the Red Barn pool. When I first started fishing the Delaware back in the late eighties the water release from Cannonsville was 45cfs and if someone was fishing there, you went to another pool. As both the releases and the number of anglers fishing the river increased, more people crowded into all of the pools, (after all, everyone is entitled to fish). The big problem was the lack of any established etiquette, I had people wade in at the Red Barn and actually both cast across my line and at the same fish I was fishing to. The lack of established etiquette problem also existed in the confrontations between waders and drift boats. Thankfully with the increased releases there is more room for both wade fishermen and drift boats, (and a far greater number of fish to fish to). The exact number of f...

  Decided to try some Trico fishing this morning in lieu of yardwork. Didn't have to rush as the morning temp was again in the 50's. Drove to the transfer station to get rid of the weeks trash and then over to the UEB. Arrived in timely fashion with the car showing 67 degrees, (Trico spinners fall at around 69 degrees). Knew it was a lost cause when there were no cars at Buck Horn. Continued on up to the wall, used the pull off to turn around and picked a spot downstream I wanted to try even if there were no Tricos. Never saw a parked car or another fisherman and I know why - there weren't any Tricos. Found a few fish practice rising, (there was nothing on the water), hooked four, landed three, only a 13 inch brown qualified as a "counter". Returned to the Lordville Estate, had lunch, went 2 for 3 on Sudoku's, and picked more peaches. About 4:30 I was bored enough to take a ride. Did the big WB loop, up 17 to 8, then along River Road down to Deposit and the Me...

  It's hot again. I must have read the forecast wrong yesterday because the 86 degree day with thunderstorms is scheduled for Wednesday. The BK, EB, and BR will all be over 70 degrees tomorrow and probably until Thursday. Do both the fish and yourself a favor and fish either the UEB or the WB. Am trying to get the yard mowed and the fishing camp cleaned up, as Jean and I will be flying down to Florida to visit our daughter, and watch our grand daughter play in a volleyball tournament. We leave on Thursday and will return on Sunday. Will probably fish tomorrow and then head home on Tuesday to can some peaches before we depart. Didn't leave to fish until after five-thirty. It wasn't because I was too busy, just felt the time was better spent taking a nap and screwing up a sudoku. There are a few bugs up in Deposit but I'm just tired of fishing there, and the freestones were too warm for me to fish. Could have gone back and fished the lower section of the WB where there ha...

  Spent the morning picking peaches, and pruning limbs from the peach trees that had either been broken by the weight of the peaches or by the deer. With the bright sun I was in no hurry to go fishing. At 2:30 I checked the freestone water temps and felt it would be OK to fish them. It's supposed to get to 86 tomorrow with thunderstorms. If it's sunny most of the day the freestones will probably end up over 70 degrees and should not be fished. Drove east on seventeen and got off at East Branch. Happy to report that the UEB has finally cleared. Debated giving it a try, but opted to continue exploring pools on the BK. It's down under 300cfs and at that level you are able to fish all the pools with ease, (just don't step on the big flat yellow/brown rocks).  The fishing - It was hot and sunny. There were no bugs of any kind until after seven o'clock. Found lots of wild yearling trout, (now 9 to 11 inches long) and almost no older fish. Saw just a few iso husks on rocks...

  Had no trouble sleeping last night after the morning, afternoon , and evening fishing sessions. Didn't get out of bed until 7:45, and with the prediction of bright sunshine, decided to do a split day. Walked out in the yard after breakfast to pick some peaches and my neighbor asked me when we were going to do the fence repair job he had volunteered to help on. I said how about today, and the morning fishing was cancelled. Been making excuses for not doing the job all summer and now I wonder why. It took less than two hours, spent time with a nice young man, and I think we both walked away feeling like we had accomplished something. I never mind driving along the river looking for rising fish, but when I left the fishing camp at 2:30 in the bright afternoon sun, I didn't really expect to see any, and I didn't. Stopped at the Troutfitter and chatted with David, Anthony and a Troutfitter regular who told to us about his most recent Atlantic Salmon fishing trip up in Canada. ...

  My fishing day turned into a triple header when, with the temperature climbing into the 60's at about 11:00 this morning, I looked out at the river and saw swallows everywhere. Put on the waders and waded in. False alarm. The birds were no doubt feeding, on what I couldn't say, (or see), but 45 minutes of casting failed to raise a single fish. I returned to the camp, and picked the ripe tomatoes and some peaches to take up to the Troutfitter for David. Had a late lunch, (a BLT). Watched my friends horse romp home first by so many lengths, that they showed a commercial before the other horses crossed the finish line. Around 2:30 I got in the car and drove up to Deposit, found a run I like to fish void of anglers, and waded in. It turned out to be the kind of fishing that I like best. Just a few bugs, (sulfurs and olives), with an occasional rise here and there. Got a couple of refusals right away that let me know that the fish were looking up. In three hours of fishing there w...

  After yesterdays fiasco I was in no hurry to get to the river. The meeting with the assoc. editors was scheduled for 4:00 and I saw no reason to fish before the meeting. Planned on doing a little yard work, and then shooting my bow. Finished up tying a few olives and isos by 10:30, walked out on the porch to get my bow and it was raining. Went back inside, did a hard sudoku, filled in a substantial part of a NYT Friday crossword, looked outside ,and the sun was shining. Took a shower and headed for the porch only to find the water was pouring off the roof again. It was after 1:00 when I said to hell with it, and went fishing. Drove up to Deposit where David was happy to tell me that there had been a sulfur/olive, combo hatch at barking dog last night and every fish in the river was up. There is a possibility he was pulling my chain. Walked out on the town bridge at about 2:00 and saw enough risers to merit suiting up. Glad I did. The fishing - Was very good. In the roughly two ho...