Delaware River, Wayne County - 4/15-18/12

[dryflyguy]

I finagled 4 days in a row off work, and went to the delaware for the first time in 2 years.
And it was time well spent.
The flows were as low as I've ever seen there in the spring time.
The WB was around 300 cfs, and the main stem ran around 800 cfs.
Made wading it - and reaching the fish - rather easy.
And we just caught the end of the hendrickson hatch I believe. Not heavy enough to blanket the river - but there were still certainly enough around to provide plenty of risers to play with.
Also saw blue quills and several kinds of caddis hatching.
And the last day, I even saw a few sulphers starting on the main stem. Heard reports of march browns hatching further downstream of where we fished - which was mostly around Hancock
Water temps were mostly in the mid 50's, although I did read 61 on tues - when the air temp shot up over 80.
For anyone who has never fished this great river, now would be a perfect time to do so IMO

 

[IdratherbePhishing]

Just got back today from there fished it Wednesday which the hatches were full bore. Buddy of mine hooked to rainbows over twenty there. And I caught a 15 inched. Thursday sucked. Still more risers but were very selective.

 

[DaveKile]

Bill,

Looks like you made a big cross state trip for you. Sounds like a good trip and thanks for the report.

Did it rain while you were there?

 

[dryflyguy]

Dave -

It rained a little sunday evening -certainly not enough to raise the river at all. And they can certainly use some there
Monday was very warm and sunny.
Tuesday, a cold front came through, and the wind made casting pretty tough. Still managed to catch some fish though - in the rare instance it was possible to get a fly over them.
Wednesday was overcast and a lot calmer.

 

[JohnPowers]

We fished the lower game lands last fri, sat and sun. Saturday was very good but Sunday was very tough. You can Wade everywhere and boat traffic was nil but it's too low. Never in 25 years have we seen it so low this time of year.

 

[FlySwatter]

I just spent the day on the Upper Delaware and the Hendricksons (which should be just starting to hatch) are nearly done. There was a forecast of heavy rain so the river was not crowded. On the advice of the guys at The Delaware River Club fly shop, I fished 2 areas I hadn’t explored. I started on the Main Stem about 3 miles below Starlight. As I arrived at 9:30 AM there were already a few hatches in progress. I saw medium-sizes yellow stoneflies (#12-14), Apple Caddis and Smallish Dark Hendricksons (#14-16). I found an area of the river about 2-3 feet deep with a slight riffle and a few big ocks for holding lies: perfect dry fly water. There were at least a dozen risers within 50 yards of me. It took some will power to suppress my ”angler ADD”. The action lasted for a few hours and I ended the morning with 6 brought to hand (including the 14” female rainbow in the photo) and 4 lost via long-line release.

Since things were slow I drove upriver about 5 miles to the West Branch and walked downstream of the Balls Eddie PA boat ramp. This, too was a new stretch of river for me. It started to rain pretty hard so I put some nymphs on and pounded a deep run. After a few casts I hooked a big trout that ended up being the colorful male rainbow in the other 2 photos.

As soon as the rain stopped around 2 PM the Hendricksons stared in earnest and lasted until 5 PM. I landed one small brown and one small rainbow. I took me a while to figure out the trout switched from Hendricksons to blue quills.

Around 6 PM, just when the evening festivities should have started, the thunderstorm rolled and ended my day.

The photo is the big male rainbow (about 17"+). All the torut seemed healthy and well fed.