Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

With the River Master sending 1500 CFS of dirty water down the WB and Lordville going from 500 CFS to 1700 CFS,  I was off to fish the Beaverkill and EB.  Both are incredibly low and clear and many of the pools and runs do not seem to hold fish at the current water levels. I found fish (mostly rainbows)  in some of the deeper runs and riffs.  The fish are no doubt wary of eagles, mergansers and osprey and will not stay in quiet pools that are too shallow to offer  protection from predator attack.. There were very few flies hatching and I saw but one fish rise. Pseudos were again the most abundant fly hatching.  At the end of the day my fly patch had a pseudo, an iso, a spinner and a caddis on it.  The only fly that failed to catch a fish?  You guessed it, the pseudo. A beautiful and heavy 19 inch rainbow was fish of the day!

Motivated more by the lack of deer sightings from my tree stand than the expectation of good fishing, I drove down to the river.  It was bright and sunny without a cloud in the sky and the foliage colors were beyond belief.  If you have a chance go this weekend do it.  The trees will be bare a long time.  Syracuse to Binghamton and back will do the trick but the whole ride to Lordville was beautiful. I wanted to fish downstream on the big river while the water was low so I went all the way to Callicoon.  Did not see an angler from Deposit to  the bridge in Callicoon.  Fished in solitude for almost three hours.  There were pseudos but with the warm sun they were popping quickly off the water and there were no risers to be seen.  Rose four fish blind casting, three of which ate and were landed.  The fish (all rainbows) were  quite heavy (perhaps they have eaten a lot of shad fingerlings) and were all between 16 and 17 inches.  ...

Drove down to the camp yesterday with my bride to take in the foliage and to do some  "shutdown" work. The leaves from Syracuse to Binghamton were  beautiful with bright red and orange maples glittering in the sun.  From Binghamton to Roscoe the colors became more muted as the drought in the ares has caused the leaves to turn in on themselves.  The big river and the Beaverkill  are nothing but stone piles with water  flowing between the rocks. I've never seen the big river this low.  As is our custom when in the Roscoe/Cooks Falls area we stopped at the Riverside for dinner.  The restaurant overlooks the Beaverkill and the food is very good.  We were enjoying the meal when a river acquaintance saw us and came over to our table to talk.  He guides part time and said it had been very slow lately but that he did have one good day fishing  down river. He was looking forward to the pseudos and said that they never get going until the s...

With the entire river system at it's lowest flow level in years, now is a good time to get to know it better.  The big river, which is sometimes intimidating to anglers, will probably hit an all time low today.  The temps remain ok for the fish and you get a chance to learn where the main channels, deep pockets and fish holding structures are located.  The fish will be concentrated and may even be willing to eat a carefully presented fly. The manner in which the flow was  dropped will no doubt adversely affect the insect population as some have limited ability to follow an abrupt reduction in stream flow.  The saving of water over a gradual step down is minimal compared to the loss of stream life but that has been NYC's manner of doing things and it apparently isn't going to change. If you do plan on going, check the release at Stilesville as the flow will no doubt be bumped back up as soon as the Wallenpaupak draw down ceases. It would sure be nice if Mat...

Arrived at the Beaverkill at 1:15, just in time for the pseudo hatch (they forgot to show). Found a pool with no fishermen and six good fish rising.  Tried to figure out what they were eating but there wasn't anything on the water that the human eye could see. Perhaps they were just practicing but it was exciting - - - until I tried to catch them.   The first one ate and I rose the other five and got several other looks, but never touched a second fish.  Quit after about two hours (it was clear long before then that they were better at what they were doing than I was at what I was trying to do). Drove up the upper east intent on fishing a low water pool that I have tried to fish two other times lately only to find someone else there first. There was a car at every pool I drove past (except Long Flat and Power Line which are usually the two most heavily fished pools). When I got to "my pool", sure enough, there was a guy up to his elbows right in the middle of it. D...

It's been a week since I promised you sporadic/intermittent reports. So here goes one. The West Branch release continues to be adjusted almost daily to meet minimum flow requirements down river. Thankfully PPL is drawing down Wallenpaupak so it can perform a dam inspection and routine maintenance. Without the additional flow from the Lackawaxen the West Branch releases would be up around 1,500. The fishing remains very difficult. Got a report from a group of the Troutfitter's more experienced Delaware River fishermen who spent Sunday fishing the WB and main stem. They saw no risers and caught no fish. Fish have seen so many stream that fishermen are left counting swirls rather than hookups. The fly hatches have been consistently poor and very few fish are taking on top. The main stem and presumably the East Branch are full of shad fingerlings making their way to the ocean. They offer hungry trout an ample food supply and perhaps cut down on the number of fish trying t...

Today I gave it a good try. Left camp at noon and fished four pools on the Beaverkill. Two did not seem to have repopulated and there was no sign of fish. In the third pool I had two fish come to the fly. Both were rainbows and both ate and were landed. They were long and very lean. The fourth stop was a riff and I found numerous yearling rainbows and a few browns all of which were about 9 inches long. Saw a few olives hatching in the riff but saw no bugs or rising fish in the slower pools. Drove from the Beaverkill to the WB where I tried two places both downstream from Balls Eddy. Saw nothing (bugs or fish) at the first stop. The second pool had a few olives hatching. Cast at three or four subsurface swirls without getting even a look. Did get a nice brown to eat a spinner blind casting. The clouds came about two and thickened as the day wore on. The wind was gusty but since there were no risers it was not a big factor. Before calling it a day I made one last stop on the...