Posted on April 18 2021
It's been ten days since I opened up the camp. First trip was just to get things up and running. Second trip was made with the hope of finding rising fish - I found him. When the weatherman predicted low 40's with rain/snow, I headed home. Found Paraleps and Hendricksons hatching with rising fish in Butternut Creek, some of which found their way into our trout pond, where either they will be eaten by "The Heron" or fished to by the grandkids.
It wasn't until I got a call from my gray haired old fishing friend who wanted me to know that he saw rising fish below the Hale Eddy bridge on Wednesday afternoon that I began to question my decision to go home last Thursday morning. Read the other blogs this morning extolling the blanket hatches of paraleps and olives on the WB yesterday and knew I gone and done it again. If a regular reader cancelled a trip this weekend because I went home, shame on you, you should know better by now. If you have just joined us, lesson learned. It's the Delaware - if you don't go, you'll never know.
Realizing my mistake, I got up early, crossed off a couple items on the to do list and headed for Lordville at 10:00am. Stopped at the Troutfitter in Deposit to sign books for some of the faithful followers and was told by everyone that "You missed it." There was a huge hatch of both paraleps and olives Saturday and every fish in the river was up feeding on them. When I arrived at the shop there were boat trailers going by one after another and the parking lot was so full of cars, I had to rent a room just so I could get a place to park my car.
Left the shop at 12:10 and headed for Lordville where I unloaded, ate a quick lunch and headed where???- east of course. No way was I going to compete with the formidable Delaware River Armada. Was a little apprehensive as I drove up 17 and only saw one boat on the BE. UEB, with the water at current levels had no boats and the only boats floating the BK in recent years are the eastern Europeans. There were a few wade fishermen scattered along the Eastern half of the river system, but there were plenty of places to fish in solitude. I did.
The fishing- No doubt tomorrow morning you will be able to read about how the WB was on fire, with pictures of big browns instead of water flow charts on the DRC blog. Me? I saw but one other angler on my three stops, no boats went by me and I had, quite simply, the best day of April trout fishing I have had anywhere, ever. Not a word of a lie.
Saturday was a pleasant surprise on the WB. Went east in the morning and nothing was happening on the Beaverkill and Willow, but still had a good time. After lunch, we headed west. First stop was Hale Eddy, where I picked up a nice brown nymphing. We then headed to the catch and release section in Deposit, and that is where I was able to coax two 12-13" browns to take my dry. It was nice to catchy first to on a dry for 2021. As for crowds, it was no where near as bad as later in the season, was actually pretty nice.
Excellent. I’m glad to hear this. Many people have told me that I miss out a lot on the WB, and that’s fine with me. I will say that the biggest disturbance I have ever encountered was while wade fishing on the WB. A wade angler walking up from below me through the tailout. Might as well have been driving a DC10 through the water. Had fish up and working, then they were gone. Why he didn’t walk up the back side of the island, I’ll never know. Courtesy needs a univeral comeback.
See you soon, my friend. Will bring the new pup Archie to say Hi.