Posted on May 11 2024
With the rainy weather and air temp hovering between 49 and 51, there was no need to leave the fishing camp early. At 3:00pm water temps in what is now, (for a week or two), the "Hendrickson zone", was well below the Hendrickson hatching threshold of 48 degrees. Drove from Stilesville down along the river to Hale Eddy without seeing a bug or a rise. There were quite a few boats, all with anglers sitting, hunched down in their wet weather gear, waiting for it to happen.
At the game lands around 3:30pm, there were bugs, lots of them. Paraleps (they just love cold water) and big, size 16, olives, (perhaps Cornutas?). There were also lots of wade fishermen and boats, (11 cars at the upper game lands lot). Saw one riser in my allotted space. It was a big fish gulping olives. Moved into casting range, threw long, threw short, and finally put one on the money and he ate. He took all but a couple of turns of fly line off the reel, then came back to about twenty feet from me, opened his mouth and gave me back my fly.
There two maxims on the Delaware. "Don't leave rising fish", and, "If you hit'em today, go somewhere else tomorrow". Maybe a third should be, "Don't leave hatching bugs". Left the game lands and drove all over the place without seeing any more bugs or rising fish. Landed one nice 18 inch rainbow and two, two year olds in about two hours of fishing.
Without the sun, there were no caddis. With the low water temps, there were no March Browns or Gray Foxes. The bugs if any, came late. Hope someone, somewhere was in the right place at the right time, I sure wasn't.
I fished the upperWB today and had the river to myself. I saw one guy on the river from the red barn up toward stillsville. There wasn’t a lot of bugs but the fish we’re eating Hendrickson emergers, large BWO and caddis. I netted 5 fish and had 6 refusals. 1 rainbow and 4 browns with 2 fish between 16-18 in. I even saw a few apple caddis.
Angler119- Wow sounds like you hooked into a tremendous fish at the gamelands.Are the olives cornutas?? Seems early for them but who knows. Sometimes you’re better off getting in the “Big Yellow Taxi” to try to find more eagerly rising fish. Who knows. Ed
Up for wknd fished lower west yesterday. It was a 3 hr hatch of big olives (cornutas)? From 2-5 with lots of fish eating. They were incredibly fussy even in the fast water. Managed a few and lost too many including a giant brown that eventually broke me off. I won’t give my size estimate as it would be laughed at by I’ll just say it was a beast! Rest of day and evening was dead on the surface back at it today….and it’s cold!