Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

It's Friday morning and I just checked the Thursday fishing report. Was surprised to find a post from a new contributor who claims to have read my reports for the past five weeks. Says, "he couldn't disagree more with what I am saying" and that "he finds it comical that I am swaying anglers to stop fishing due to my findings". He also said typically you can rely on the last 45 minutes before dark to get some good bugs and fish taking note of them, (which is true). As many readers are aware, I have posted reports for the past eleven years, always striving to paint an accurate picture of the fishing conditions on the river system. I checked back over the 28 reports since August 15th when I q uit the Sulfur Zone. Thirteen of the reports pertained to my experience fishing the olive hatches on the UEB and WB and tell of both my success and lack thereof. They told of the absence of bugs during the bright sunny days and that on those days the olive fishing was in t...

 Today was full of surprises, woke  to find that all the apples under both trees had been eaten which isn't unusual except that I haven't seen a single deer in Lordville all week. Normally there are more deer present in the greater Lordville metropolitan area than people. A week or so ago I mentioned that any apple with broken skin is  covered with bees. It has only gotten worse and perhaps the deer are waiting to eat the apples at night to avoid the bees, (of course they may also just be up on the hill feasting on acorns which are very plentiful this year). Started mowing the yard around 10:00 and quickly discovered that not only had the resident skunk been here digging up grubs, (which I'm fine with), but he had solved the mystery of where all the bees were by digging a hole the diameter of a football in the side yard and extracting the honeycomb and eating the honey. The bees were not happy and some seemed to blame me and the lawn mower. In addition to digging up the g...

 It has finally become evident to me, (I'm a slow learner), that I'm just not going to catch many fish waiting for the bugs to hatch in the last hour of daylight, so I decided to start earlier and see if I couldn't do better. Shot the bow in the morning, (it was easy to see that I hadn't shot since last Thursday). Left the fishing camp about one, took a short mushroom walk, (it apparently didn't rain hard enough here for another burst of mushrooms), and was in the water by 1:45.  The fishing - Saw less than a handful of iso's on the first two stops. Caught two rainbows on blind casts, (these were the pools where I caught 7 nice fish one week ago). Third stop was worse. Had two small fish refuse my fly. Walked one hundred yards of shoreline in a pool where isos usually abound and counted just four iso husks, (there's usually more than that on each shoreline rock). Fourth stop was on the EB at a place I haven't been able to fish since last June. From 3:30 ...

 While Brian C. was catching fish Sunday on a rainy, cloudy olive kinda day, I was home grinding  my teeth, knowing that I was probably missing good fishing and yet, because of the rain, unable to get much accomplished on the bass pond restoration project. Got out early this morning and finished up some of the work I had planned for Sunday, then packed the car and headed for the Lordville Estate with a heavily overcast sky and fog, (maybe just maybe??). Alas by Cortland the fog had lifted and there were patches of blue. At Binghamton the sky was blue with the sun shining brightly. Was out front when the postmaster went by, (our mail lady is on vacation), and he stopped to talk fishing. Told me that the eagle that patrolled the lower section of the BK and took fish that were hooked by fishermen had met his demise. Apparently landed on a hot wire and was fried. I may have commented in my reports that I hadn't seen him on my recent visits to the BK. I love to watch eagles and it ...

 It's Saturday at 7:30pm and if you haven't already figured it out, yesterday I bailed, (and I wasn't in a boat). It was sunny with a 10/15 mile per hour breeze, drove around for an hour and a half without seeing a bug on the water or a trout rising and quit. It has been another tough week, one super day and three days where two fish was apparently my limit. Have much work to do getting the landscape around the bass pond back in order so I headed home. Those of you who have fished, (despite my warnings), thanks for your reports. There is almost no one on the river and those that are have found the fishing very difficult on the seemingly endless string of beautiful bright sunny days. I bailed on a rainy evening with fish up to watch a Syracuse football game, (won't do that again), and now I'm in Lafayette with an all day rain predicted for the Delaware tomorrow. If you're on the water Sunday let us know what I missed. There are a few questions that have gone unan...

 I'm sitting on the back porch with my Perfect Manhattan and a bowl of kettle corn listening to the rain pound down on the roof. The mini spike and his sister with her fawn are bedded down on my neighbors lawn, (the grass is longer and perhaps softer). The deer have had a hard time keeping up with the apples, but by morning the day's drops are usually gone. There are two apples just out in front of the porch that haven't been touched. Noticed them Tuesday and they are still there tonight. If the deer take a bite out of an apple and leave it, the bees descend on the part where the skin has been removed. The uneaten two apples have neither bite marks nor bees. Don't have a clue why they remain uneaten. With a 100% chance of rain today, I was hopeful of a good olive hatch. Set out at 1:30 and gave the Lordville riff a try. It was bugless, riseless and within half an hour, fishermanless. (Left the porch lights on last night, the screens had about a dozen Pumpkin caddis on t...