Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

  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...