Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

Was taken by surprise when I looked at the stream flows this morning, either the weatherman forgot to mention that the river system would get an inch of rain yesterday, or, I forgot to look at the forecast. At any rate, the only part of the system that could be comfortably waded this morning was the UEB, yes you could get in the Willow and Neversink, but neither fishes well a todays levels. So, I decided to take a tour. People are so obsessed with the Delaware and it's trib's that lots of little streams get ignored. Drove east, either caught up with yesterday's rain, or found some that the weatherman wasn't talking about. Saw a lot of little brook trout streams, half a dozen waterfalls, several lakes/reservoirs with tiny camps side by side million dollar second homes, and two buck deer standing beside the road with horns just starting to grow. Never saw a fisherman, a rise, or for that matter, even a bug hatch. Crossed the Neversink, Willow, BK, BE without seeing more t...

 Left the Lordville Estate at 7:15 this morning. Why? My GP spends Mondays with his grandchildren,  so I have to get my annual  physical on a Friday. The good news is that he scheduled me again for next year. It was cold, windy and rainy on the drive home this morning, (there were even a few flakes of snow here in Lafayette). Saw that the temp in the lower WB did get up to bug hatching level, but the upper and even the middle sections were probably too cold for Hendricksons. Had time to read all of the comments from the last few days and if you piece together the contributing anglers experience it sorta all makes sense. On most days there are places in the 90 miles of river system where there are bugs hatching and fish feeding. Being in the right place at the right time is obviously the key to success. The worst thing you can do is go to the same place every time you fish, (except perhaps during summer sulfurs). The best advise I can give is both read and contribute to th...

 Nobody ever accused me of being smart, but today for sure, I was smarter than yesterday. A front blew through two days ago while we were fishing, dropped the temp from 78 to 63, but it stayed in the 60's all night. Never gave the water temp a thought in the morning. Went out, sat streamside on AN OVERCAST, CLOUDY, (I'm being redundant to make a point), day and never saw a bug hatch or a fish rise. Why? 'Cause the air temp doesn't mean manure when it comes to raising water temps, it's the SUNSHINE that counts. The water yesterday, where I was, never got above 46. Today, I woke to bright sunshine and 35 degrees, watched the gauges like a hawk and when a place I wanted to fish got to 48 by 12:30, I left camp, sure there would be fish feeding on the paraleps and Hendricksons. The bugs - Arrived at 1:45 and there were a few apple caddis popping, but nary a fish stirred, (they knew what was coming), by 2:15 the paralep scouts were on the water, by 2:30 the entire army ar...

 It's 5:14, the Perfect Manhattan is on the table beside me. Mark headed for home at 8:30 this morning, (he hates fishing in the rain), and should arrive within the next couple of hours. Did a little house work this morning and intended to take it easy and limit my fishing to the Hendrickson hatch. Left early enough to drive over to Roscoe to pick up a 100 1x long, 12 and 14 dry fly hooks, (using 1x long hooks gives me the illusion that there will be room behind the eye to neatly finish the head). Neither fly shop had them, so much for buying local.  Drove back 17 to the WB, arriving streamside after a 15 minute walk, at 2:35. The water was "snow melt green", and judging by last year's Knotweed floating by, was rising. There were Hendrickson spinners in the air and both paralep and Hendrickson spinners on the water. Sat until 3:45 without seeing a rise, gave both the bugs and the fish a three fingered salute, and headed for the Lordville Estate. (The WB water temp at ...

 Today was the last day of Mark's trip. We left camp at about 1:00 with the hope of finding bugs somewhere above Hale Eddy. We did not. Stopped at numerous places where we looked for both bugs and rising trout, nada. It is strange to see, what is the most heavily fished water in the entire river system from June through August, devoid of bugs, rising fish, drift boats and anglers. The Hendricksons are slowly making their way up the river and should be in Deposit soon. At about 2:30 we got serious about fishing and headed downstream to the middle section of the WB. It was warm, (74 on the car dash), the smokestack at the Deposit on ramp could not get the smoke more than a foot above the top of the smoke stack before the wind cut it off, the number of boats was about the same as yesterday, cars parked at the gamelands was down a bit from yesterday. We made the decision to go to a place where the boats probably wouldn't get to us during the hatch, and they didn't. Access to th...

 Back down to the Lordville Estate by 11:30 this morning after a quiet weekend home with Jean. Bill Gross who has done our shuttles, said he did 145 shuttles this weekend. So far Bill Peterman is the only fisherman who bothered to file a report. Mark floated amidst the West Branch armada on Sunday, saw a huge paralep hatch, a good Hendrickson hatch, and very few rising fish. On the way back to the fishing camp he blew a radiator hose in downtown Hancock. He called Bill Gross, the shuttle guy, who trailered both Mark and the boat down to Lordville and arranged to have his auto mechanic look at the car first thing this morning. Mark had  called me and I called Barry Weinperl from Equinunk who also volunteered to haul both Mark and the boat back to Lordville. Called Barry back and told him he was fired. Small towns are different than big cities, thanks to all who offered their help. With the water levels on all but the BR ideal for wading, we opted to leave the boat in the yard. ...