Delaware River alert

[dryflyguy]

I just returned from a 1 week fishing vacation - hitting my favorite central PA streams.
After a spending a few days around the state college area, I went up to Hancock, NY to fish the Delaware river on Monday, Oct 8.
After finding all the other PA streams in drought conditions, I was quite surprised to see the big D high and brown colored.
After checking with an outdoors shop there, and also talking to a few other fisherman around the area, I learned that they were draining down the reservoir on the west branch above Deposit to give it some holding capacity for the heavy spring rains that have caused flooding there the last few years.
This had started at least a week before i went up there, and who knows how long it will go on.
But the water condition will definitely put a crimp in to any plans for dry fly fishing there.
I was told that the resevoir was already down to around the 50 percent level, and once there, the discharge will still stay off color, even if they cut back the flow rate.
Just thought I'd pass the word in case any of you guys are also planning on fishing there this fall. I would check conditions thoroughly before going up, and hopefully not waste a lot of time and gas like I did.

 

[lestrout]

dry - before I spend the 4 hrs to go to the Catskills, I always pull up catskillflies.com to get the weather and stream conditions. Looking at the graphs on USGS can also give you a handle on flow. In fact, I won't even go 15 min to my nearest spring creek without looking at USGS 1st.

tl
les

 

[dryflyguy]

Les-

I did check a few sites before I left, - i saw that the west branch did rise to almost 1200 cfs on Oct 1. I just figured that they got some rain up there. As I said before, I left friday the 5th, and fished state college area over the weekend - not going to Big D until monday the 8th. Haven't figured out a way to use the computer while camping out. With the hot sunny weather, I figured the river likely dropped by the time I would get there. And, I've fished the west branch at 1,000 cfs and did allright
I also checked the Delaware River club site before I left - they mentioned nothing about the river being high and brown

 

[fly_flinger]

Anyone making the trip up the the Catskills should look out for didymo and make sure to take the necessary precautions to prevent the spread when finished fishing for the day. I don't know if it's officially been announced but several fishermen in the area have witnessed it in some of the rivers. From what I've read, it sound like it could be a real problem for that region or any region if it were to spread. I was reading about it on www.catskillflies.com forum if anyone is interested in it.