West Branch of the Delaware - Day 3

 

 

We had big storms roll through at night which brought the rivers up and muddied them up.  Unfortunately, the temps also dropped like 20 degrees and the fish did not like that.  The wind was Still here blowing 20+ mph winds again, but this time blowing us straight down the river.  Honestly, I don't think we could have gotten 3 crappier days of weather and this one was going to be by far the most challenging.

We started early around 830 and we came throwing the meat.  Big meat.  We pounded the banks relentlessly every 10 feet.  strip, strip, strip, cast, repeat.  And we didn't move a single damn fish.  It sucked.   I mean that water was something that makes you day dream of monster brown trout explosions and we didn't even get a look.  Weather just sucked.  We planned to float to Buckingham, but at home pool we changed plans and Bart at DRC adjusted the shuttle to go upstream.  At lunch we hustled upstream and found the water levels to be perfect.  We didn't paddle too long til we saw bugs galore.  Baetis everywhere.  Quill Gordons, hendricksons, blue quills, and caddis.  And not a single damn fish on them.  Talk about a major bummer.  I think drastic temp changes just turned them completely off.  We found 2 fish rises the entire stretch and only one to cast to.  And we fished our asses off ...streamers, nymphs, head hunting with dries, wade fishing.  Just plain work and nothing. 

 

As we rounded the bend to Hale Eddy, we both commented on not remembering a time when we were skunked after an ENTIRE day of fishing.  Its pretty hard to do at this stage of fishing.  I decided to finish strong anyways and kept pounding the streamer.  The fish Gods must have felt pity on us and a nice 17" brown pounded my articulated streamer putting our first fish in the boat in 10 hours of fishing within 100 yards from the take out.  What a major relief!  And once David was able to get back into his honey hole at the takeout, he was able to get one rainbow to bail him out too.  We both landed one damn fish.  Somehow, it was still an awesome float and we learned a lot more of the river.  I read the reports the next day (why would I do this to myself??)  the onslaught of the wind  had completely died down and the trout ate the Hendricksons without abandon...Oh well,...always next time.

 

 The trip was a total blast and so nice to get out on the water no matter what the conditions.   The make things even better, the next morning on our way home, I bought a used shovel at a farmers store and went back to my wild ramp honey hole.  Leek on!  I could have filled my pickup truck full of them, but instead took two bags.  Plenty enough for some soup and some pickling.

Ramps as far as you could see.  Oh baby!

Pounds of fresh wild mountain ramps!

West Branch of the Delaware River - Day 2

 Tom's wife got really sick on this trip and he had to go back home which was a pretty big bummer for all of us, but definitely the right call for him  It got me thinking that if this had happened to Spencer with the twins, that would have canceled the whole trip for everyone.  Or maybe they would have sent me in a rental from Binghampton and David took my boat?? 

 

 

I left David at the Hale Eddy put in while I ran Tom to the airport and in that time he managed to land a dozen fish with 4 of them at the 20" mark including both rainbows and browns.  Not bad.

When I got back he had the boat sitting right in the riff and his rod was bent in half.  If there was any place to be left on the river to nymph before the bugs started, this was the spot.  I waded out to join him and he had all the rods rigged (guide skills for sure.) He handed me a rigged rod and within minutes I had a nice WB wild rainbow to hand.  I was instantly much, much better. 

 

 

 

I liked the top half of this section a lot and we managed to find quite a few rising trout that were taking blue quills.  The only problem was the trout would only cycle for 2-3 rises on average and then just stop.  So when we saw one rise, it was row to position quickly and make a cast.  There was no time to piss around.  The nice thing with the wind and being early season was if you made a decent cast and drifted the fly through the lane, the fish complied nicely and typically ate it on 5X. 

 

 

Nice fish on a dry

There were Baetis and Blue Quills out and David's showshoe dun probably didn't match either perfectly, but it had a nice profile and we never changed that fly once.  It caught probably 8 fish including my fish of the trip - a nice 20" brown. 

 

 

 

 

We had floated through a really nice section and there were actually hundreds of Hendricksons on the water and we saw a nice rise along the bank behind a big rock.  One cast, one drift and that pig ate it.  That is why we drove 7 hours to this river.  A 20" fish on a sz 18 dry.  money.

 A bald eagle's nest (with an eagle in it) on river left before the Ball's Eddy take out.  We seriously could have fit the boat in it and had we got any closer, one may have plucked David off for fledgling food.

We totally missed Tom on the water today.  He's a dry fly dude no doubt and though this wasn't nearly as good as it gets here, it was a pretty good day for mid-April and crappy conditions.  I only happened to get one pic of Tom on the way out before he left....

West Branch of the Delaware River - Day 1

This was the first fishing trip without Spence by my side.  She held down the fort this weekend with the six month old twins while I took a fishing trip with a couple buddies....I know, I'm a lucky dude.

Needless to say we were pretty amped up.  Dave and I left early in the morning...say round 4 am to get to the Delaware in time for the afternoon hatch.  We picked up Tom in Bellefonte around lunch and rolled on. While we were driving, we happened to notice an entire hillside of ramps (aka wild leeks.)  We used some mountain stone to work enough out of the ground for our burgers over the next few days....But I would be back for more...
















We got to the Delaware River Club and were greeted with  20+ MPH brutal winds forcing us to at times to have to paddle crew style backwards just to go downstream from Balls Eddy down to Shehawken.  The wind forced most of the fishing to be streamers, which would have been fine if the streamer bite would have been on, but it certainly wasn't.

We did manage to get into about 10 fish into the boat on various nymphs, but none very big.  Not a banner day but a decent start. 




First fish to the boat.  A nice strong Delaware River rainbow.



Back at the DRC camp. Figuring out the next day's float over an IPA.



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...