Delaware River, Wayne County, 5/1/2009

[dryflyguy]

I spent all of last week - 7 days in a row - on the Delaware river, and had my best fishing ever there.
The water level is quite low for this time of year, making it easy to wade and fish any section - even on the main stem.
There were blue quills, hendricksons, and caddis hatching pretty much all day, providing consistent dry fly action.
I caught most of my fish on hendrickson duns during the day, and rusty spinners in the evening
Size wise, they averaged 18-20 inches.
And I saw my backing more times than I can remember.
My buddy Mark caught the biggest of the trip, which measured 23"
Of course we also caught some "small" ones in the 12-15 inch range.
But this river is still the best big fish river in PA IMO.
I've been fishing out west 10 times, and can honestly say that the Big D is as good as any of the streams I've tried out there.
Of course, they're a lot tougher to catch. But I love the challenge of it

 

[govtmule]

wow that's a great report. did you hit all the branches? was one more productive than the other?

jeff

 

[afishinado]

Nice job! Good for you, I'm glad you hit it right after traveling all that way.

Some may not believe your report about the size of the fish, and all caught on a dry fly. Believe it!! I agree with you that it rivals many of the rivers out-west, but it IS so much harder to catch 'em.

Any pics?

 

[dryflyguy]

mule:

We fished the west branch - within the PA boundary up to the game land- and main stem about equally, and both fished very well. However, with the low flows, the west branch was even more challenging than usual. On the flat sections, I had to go down to 6x often, which I don't really like to do up there. But I was able to stay with 5x on the main stem.
Also, toward the end of the week, the hendricksons were over on the main stem, except for the evening spinner falls. But they were still hatching on the west branch as of my last day there, on sunday the 3rd

 

[dryflyguy]

Afish:

I do have pics. However, I just recently switched to a digital camera, and still haven't quite become adept enough with it to post yet. I don't want to get Jack PO'd because I didn't do it right!

 

[JackM]

No need for sniping. I'm not "POed," but it isn't that hard to post the reports the way the board owner requested and it only means more work for someone else when you don't. If you would prefer not to comply, you are welcome to post the thread in either the General Forum or Stream Locations forum, where no particular format is requested by the board owner. Thank you for your understanding.

 

[dryflyguy]

Jack - I know that posting pictures requires them to be sized to certain specs, and I didn't want to make any extra work for you.
I didn't really intend to snipe at you because of my lack of savvy with a digital camera.
As for the reports, after fishing for 10 days in a row, I honestly don't remember the specifics from every day - ie weather and water temps. However, I thought that the info I did post could still be of use to other PAFFers.
I spent very little time on the driftwood branch, and normally wouldn't have even bothered posting about it. However, after the event of a few years ago there, I thought it was pretty noteworthy that there was some hatching and rising going on there, and just wanted to share it with you guys. I'll just have to remember to post it elsewhere next time.

 

[Acristickid]

DFG- figured you were out there since had'nt see you around for a week or so.

Just wish that water was'nt 8 hours away for us Pittsburgh folk. Caught my biggest ever wild trout there last year- that is the most challenging water I have ever fished thus far.

I get baffeled when I look at the usgs reports- one day it is 260 cfs and the next it's 1000. Makes it hard to plan a trip there- with the whole not knowing thing.

Know this is a source of great debate but why on earth cant they have a scheduled high flow release one day a week or at least some consistancy.

In any event- I am very jealous, glad you had a great time.

 

[JackM]

I recognized there was some helpful information and that it why it wasn't moved or deleted, but in each case of the three reports, I had to amend the title and even guess at the dates. I thought as long as I was going to post a notation about titling, I may as well refer you to the stickies to see if it might cause you to add additional stream condition information as well.

Photos are so well-received, that I rarely complain about having to resize them and also because learning the HTML tricks is too much to expect folks to do-- in contrast, proper titling and issues of content are not too much to ask folks to observe.

So, post your pictures and I'll clean them up for you without a whimper.

 

[dryflyguy]

Paul,

Yes, with the crazy dam releases, going up there certainly is dicey. In fact, a few days before we left, one of the local fly shops up there put up a report to get up there while the river is still low - believing that a water release was overdue.
So, we actually went up hoping to get at least a few days in before the river rose. To our delight, it never happened, and we just stayed and enjoyed the great fishing

 

[JakesLeakyWaders]

When I lived in Susquehanna Co. I was a 30 or 40 minute drive to the West Branch on backroads. I fished it a few times but with no luck. That was over ten years ago though and I was new to the sport. I saw an eagle come down and grab a trout, then it perched itself on a tree downstream and ate it. I wish I lived up there now. Although I didn't have succes there, I can remember one evening trying to wade out to where some giants were feeding on the surface and just not having enough distance to get to them. I had to tip toe out of the deep water up to my chest. That place really turns on after sunset. It can drive you nuts when you can't catch them, yet they are feeding everywhere just out of reach.

 

[pete41]

Eagle or Osprey?

 

[shultzy501]

Nice report! I'm really jealous. I live very close, but haven't had any time to get up there this spring. Maybe soon!