Angler 119's Delaware River Fishing Report

 Drove down with the same plan as last week, mow the lawn, watch SU football and North Florida women's volleyball and fish tomorrow. Funny thing happened. The SU game was on ESPN2 so You Tube didn't have it and neither did ESPN+.  At 3:30 I got in the car and headed east to the Willow which was at least fishable. Saw lots of fishermen but nary a bug or a rise.  At 4:30 I was in the car heading for the the UEB where at 900cfs you can wade out in some places far enough to make a back cast. Arrived at one of those places at the same time as a drift boat (the only one I saw on the UEB). They were great and floated down to the deeper part of the pool where I had no chance of wading.  There were bugs (pseudos) and rising fish when I got there and they weren't all that fussy about what they ate. Hooked half a dozen and landed four all wild and between 12 and 15 inches within a half an hour and then everything came to a screeching halt. There were still some bugs on the wate...

It doesn't really matter much what the weather forecast says, if the rivers get anywhere near a safe and potentially productive wading level, you just know it's gonna rain.  Woke up this morning and stepped outside to see if I could hear Humphries Brook roaring. If it's making noise you know you're done.  It wasn't too bad.  Looked up the BK flow and it was in the 800s and the rain had stopped. Maybe, just maybe I could fish the Willow again.  By 11:00 all hope was gone. It got black as the night and the rain came down steady and heavy for hours. At my last look the BK was heading for 3,000cfs and the BR out back is once again brownish orange and a rising.  Took an hour this morning to tie the last flies of the season.  Had to replace the pseudos that were either left in fish or were rendered useless by the removal of tiny hooks from head shaking mouths. That done I mothballed my feathers and finished cleaning up the fly tying room. Spent the afternoon...

With the water levels dropping and the grass growing I got up early Saturday and drove down to the fishing camp. Knew that I wouldn't be fishing as I had to mow the lawn and then wanted to watch Syracuse  play Florida State in football and North Florida (our grandaughter's team) play FGCU in women's volleyball.  The games were streamed back to back from 3:30 until almost 10:00. Both exciting, closely contested games but both SU and NF lost. Today just had to be better. Spent the morning crossing things off the shut down list. (FYI I did get the screens put away and the storms put up during timeouts and half time of the SU game). The BK water level dropped below 500cfs during the night, and with cloudy overcast skies and a promise of light afternoon rain I was hopeful of some good olive action. Stopped at the BK first and with only a very few pseudos in sight, fished an iso emerger. Got half a dozen refusals, and hooked and lost three rainbows. Headed up river and when I fou...

No, I haven't closed the Lordville Estate or even taken my gear out of the car but deer season opens Friday and it's pretty much time to move on. If I'm down at the camp fishing, I'll write, but reports are likely to be both sporadic and intermittent. The eastern side of the system remains very high and even without any additional precipitation it will probably be a week or more before you can safely wade the BK. The maxed out release from Pepacton  coupled with runoff from the most recent rains pouring in from the tribs makes the UEB also too high for waders. The EB below jaws  at 2,900 and the BR  at 5,900, are both floatable by experienced boaters but way to deep to wade. If you are familiar with the WB and know the levels you can safely wade as, it is now down below 2,000. There are several places I can fish at that level but I'm probably not going to. Why? The Cannonsville release is at 1,400 and the accumulated silt is being pulled out of the reservoir. It doe...

Headed for home about 2:00 this afternoon when it had become clear that the the rivers would be blown out once again. It's 10:00 pm and all of the USGS  flow charts are still going straight up. The rivers will be high and muddy for several days and there is a strong probability that NYDEP will again max out the releases from both reservoirs in an attempt to create a flood mitigation void behind the dams. I may be in a tree stand bow hunting before I'm able to fish again. With regard to the question raised by Dennis, and Craig's comments about tippet - Have talked with a guide that uses 4x exclusively and catches fish.  5x is probably the most commonly used tippet. I'm a dry fly guy and  use  the Trouthunter 12 foot finesse leaders tapered to 5x and add three or four feet of 6x Cortland ultra premium fluorocarbon as a tippet. The Cortland tippet is pricy, a little bit stiffer than some, has good abrasion resistance and doesn't get a curl in it when you tie on a fly, ...

 If there was a bug hatch on the river system, one thing was for sure, A-119 didn't see it. It was windy but that wasn't even a good excuse. The wind was from the south at ten to twenty. The rivers run basically east and west so there are plenty of places where the hills let you get out of the wind - and I did. It was 78 degrees on the car thermometer and that is way too warm for fall bugs. They just never showed up. They cut back the release from Cannonsville by almost 400 cfs and it opened up much of the WB and some of the BR for wade fishermen. If any of you got into places where the drop in flow turned the fish on let us know 'cause I sure didn't.  The fishing- For me, was dreadful. Never cast at a rising fish. There were no olives, isos could be counted on one hand and the few white flies I saw never attracted a rise. The only salvation was that I was able to get five fish to come to blind casts. Three ate and they all stayed on to be netted. The best was a fat and...

Spent the afternoon and evening (3:00 to 7:30) fishing the BK with my gray haired old friend. No, we didn't stand shoulder to shoulder sharing a pool, that's not our way. We both set out with a plan to go east and to have dinner and perhaps a libation at the Riverside in Horton. Plans changed late when we drove into the parking lot at the Riverside and found it was closed. Adjourned to the Hancock Hotel where Ramona fixed a perfect, perfect Manhattan and served us up a couple of Bleu Cheese Burgers with fries. Talked about the days fishing (GHOF caught a beautifully colored 18 inch wild brown that was easily fish of the day). We also touched on the years we have spent fishing together, the good times we have shared and the friends we fished with that have made their last casts. Raised a glass to the memories and made plans to fish again tomorrow, (assuming the rain holds off). The fishing - With both branches high from the maxed out releases, most of the wade fishermen were on ...