Upper Delaware River - Memorial Day Weekend

Spence, Cooper and I broke from our yearly Penns Creek Memorial weekend routine and changed it up this year by going to the famed Upper Delaware River.  The Upper D has a reputation of being the best western trout river in the East boasting more than 80 miles of wild trout water filled with big feisty rainbows and bulldog browns. 

We stayed at the Delaware River Club and found the accommodations to be clean, comfortable and convenient.  The place was full of anglers mostly from NYC, New England, and Philly area who were more at home with fine wine and a Cuban cigar than the crowd we usually see drinking PBR's and dipping snuff.  Haha.  I kept reminding Spence 'We ain't in Poe Paddy anymore.'  Everyone was super nice, though and all were serious about their fishing. 

Our first evening, we went down to Home Pool right below the DRC.  I put on a nymph rig for Spence and before I even got my rod strung up, she had a really nice brown on.  That fish fought hard and it took her a while to get it in, but she eventually ended up landing one of her biggest trout to date.  I don't know exactly how long the fish was, but I know it was longer than she is wide!  What a way to start a trip!

The sulphurs picked up that evening and produced some really good action in the runs.  There was also some grey fox, march browns, and black caddis. I even saw a few coffin flies on the water at dark.  Then the fish just shut down for the evening and never picked back up. 

The strange thing about fishing the Delaware was that the fishing crowd never really started until almost noon when the guides started taking all their trips out.  With the peak of the trips being the evening hatch this made sense for the guides, but I have no idea why no one fished the mornings??  Pretty weak.  This was great news for a fishaholic like myself, though, cause I was on the water by 6 am for three straight days nymphing to hungry trout that I'm sure weren't accustomed to being tricked that early in the day.  I caught a lot of really nice fish in the morning by myself while Spencer and Cooper slept in and and I never saw another fisherman.  It was almost zen-like and the best way imaginable to start a day.

Picture doesn't do this huge rainbow justice.  Just look at that head!  

Nice 19" brown that took a nymph in the riffles

After the morning fishing, I came back to get Spence and Cooper and we went on our first float in the new RO together.  We put in at Balls Eddy (West Branch) and floated to Buckingham (Main Stem.)  It was a 11 mile float and probably a little longer than we should have started with.  We floated the first few hours, stopping and fishing, and taking our time.  But when I finally sat down to figure where we were, we had only gone about 2 miles and it was 3 PM.  At this rate we would be at Buckingham sometime after midnight.  Ughh.  So the next portion of the float turned into more of a paddle than a drift, but it was all good because it was a beautiful day and we got a good flavor for the West Branch and Main Stem.  We were able to stop and target fish rising whenever we found them and I quickly learned why these fish have a reputation for being tough on top. 

Captain Cooper

Cooper and I tying on #20 Baetis dun for the rising fish in this huge Main Stem pool

Working a sulphur hatch with Bob Marley playing in the background at this Memorial Day party

Spence taking a turn on the oars

Long 12-15' 6X leaders with perfect drag free drifts were a definite prerequisite just to get you in the game.  Then it was a matter of figuring out what the hell they were taking.  On one section of the West Branch, I found fishing rising in the riffles to #14 Cornuta Olives, then #16 Sulphurs in the next pool and fishing taking Grey Fox and March Browns at the tail out of the same pool!  The problem was they would typically work a few times and then just quit for no rhyme or reason even before I made a cast.  It was truly maddening.   But if you like technical dry fly fishing, this was the game. 

Home Pool on the DRC property

Grey fox, March Brown, and sulphurs all hatching around 2 pm on a sunny Saturday

Wild chrome bow that took a snowshoe sulphur dun

Sunday, we went up towards Deposit, NY and got to see the summer sulphur hatch first hand.  With the consistent cold water releases, these sulphurs hatch almost on a daily basis for a couple months from about 1-4 pm.  It was awesome watching this hatch take place in the middle of a hot afternoon day and casting to rising fish and not needing a head lamp to tie on a new pattern (and I tied on a lot of different patterns!) I ended up getting sucked into fishing for these fish rising in a deep long flat pool.  I tend to stay away from water so unforgiving, but the ability to watch fish hoover in this hole and rise to passing sulphurs was too much to withstand.  I got a lot of refusals and the only fish I ended up catching was because my emerger actually sunk.  Hmmm.

All in all, a really awesome trip and we will definitely make a return trip back out this way again in the near future. I am thinking fall alewive streamer fishing for some aggressive hook jawed browns...