Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

 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. ...

 Mark departed early this morning for a family reunion celebrating his mom's ninetieth birthday, (if Mark shows you this, Happy 90ith Carol Hellen).  Woke to a frost covered back yard with the thermometer on the back porch at 31 degrees. With bright sun the frost quickly disappeared and I was able to spend an hour raking up areas of dead grass from the grub invasion of last year and then planting grass seed where the grass was killed. The frosty night dropped the water temps into the low forties, but by one this afternoon the sun had the water back up to a temperature that both paraleps and Hendricksons will hatch in. Morphed back into my wade fisherman persona and headed for an area in the middle section of the WB that I am comfortable wading at current levels. Walked down to the river at 1:30 expecting to sit streamside and wait for the hatch to begin. Wasn't there two minutes when a fish rose not 100 feet out from shore. On her third rise I was close enough to make a cast a...

The rain didn't stop this morning until after I was finished with breakfast. It was a cold rain, (the red stuff in the thermometer on the porch couldn't get above 44). The forecast for today was grim, high of 49, with winds out of the north at 10 to 15. Mark and I sat in the Lordville Estate, with the fire going in the wood stove, and tied flies. At noon we were bored enough to begin assembling our gear from the various places it was hung to dry after yesterdays fishing.  Where to fish?  We knew the lower BR was entering the doldrums, the upper WB still had very few reports of bugs and risers, and that the caddis spinner fall had been called off due to wet grounds yesterday. On the positive side, the launch/takeout sites from Balls Eddy to Buckingham had but a third of the trailers they had last week. We decided to fish where there were still massive numbers of caddis egg layers primed to do their thing, both paraleps and Hendricksons were reported to be hatching in sufficient...