4 days on Upper Delaware
- This topic has 5 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated May 23, 2008 at 1:43 pm by
.
-
Posts
-
Is there such a thing as a fishing report with no fish? If so…then this is one of them.
Spent the last 4 days on the Upper Delaware River system in search of the acclaimed browns and rainbows that frequent this waterway. We thought for sure we were going to time it well. If we miss the Hendrickson’s, then we would surely get the March Browns and Sulphers. Well, we got 4 days of almost solid rain. No Hendricksons, sighted about a half dozen MB’s and maybe a dozen or two sulphers. The weather, the bugs and the fishing were simply aweful. We landed a whopping 4 trout between the 2 of us in 4 days. The UD is a notoriously difficult river…but not this difficult.
Thursday we floated the middle section of the West Branch. Check out this rig!
Rain with some sun…no bugs and we only found a few fish rising throughout the evening. Great dinner at Lydia ’s sort of redeemed our first day.
Friday we woke up to a downpour. Had a cup of coffee across from Coz’s shop and finally. Doesnt he look happy. (closest thing to a IA food shot I got)
After procrastinating as long as we could we launched around 10am and floated the Main Stem to Buckingham. Rain, Rain Rain…did I mention Rain. I landed the only fish of the day around 11am nymphing a big run below the Junction Pool. The Main Stem rainbows are really amazing fish. But alas…no photo…left the camera in the car due to the wonderful weather.
Saturday met up with a buddy and launched the pontoons about mid way up the East Branch. The East is an absolutely amazingly beautiful river. It doesn’t get the acclaim that the others do but it holds some very large trout.
We saw only 2 other anglers over 6 miles of river. This is unheardof for this time of year in this area. The sun actually showed up as a participant for ¾ of the day and made for an enjoyable day on the water. However, we saw almost no bug activity and didn’t see one trout rise in 8 hours on the water. I did manage to land a pretty large American Shad (accidentally) on a sulpher emerger of all things…go figure. The “Poor Man’s Tarpon” is a great fish to catch…but when you are after Trucha…it is poor substitute for a downtrodden spirit.
Sunday we headed back to the West Branch and fished downstream of Al Caucci’s place. Some very sporadic rises in the Jesus Pool in front of the Old Mission…
but the only fish of the day came to my buddy…one brown… nymphing. Rain again showed up mid morning. As it turns out, Sunday was the day to be on the Main Stem. The sulphers were thick and the fish turned on to them. Reports of aggressively feeding 20”+ rainbows readily taking emergers. Some guys have all the luck.
Well, that trip is in the books and who knows when the next one will be. Overall a pretty disappointing 4 days. However, hardly a day goes by on the UD when you don’t learn something and I can take away from that trip some valuable things.
We have all been there, trip planning, high expectations and then the weather wreaks havoc on the trip. I know anytime I get to use my Toon, it is a good trip anyway. The pictures of the UD are beautiful and what a way to spend a day though. I know catching fish is why we all flyfish, but for me anymore the trip is not defined by how many fish you catch. Anytime out is good.
JB
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.