Fly Fishing Report for the Upper Delaware and Catskill Rivers

Heavy Rainfall and rising Rivers

Yesterday heavy rainfall moved through the area and dumped a lot of water in our region. Our rivers are on the rise again. Today options are slim for wade anglers. Drift Boat anglers will have full run of the system. I expect to see good streamer fishing over the next few days, especially while the water has turbidity.

This morning the Main Delaware has tripled in flow. The hot dry fly action we have been having on the Main Stem will be on temporary hold for a few days.

below is another fish from the weekend. We had non stop action on dry flies

The Beaverkill and Willowemoc are high and off color. It should take 2 to 3 days to get them back to good fishing conditions.

The West Branch should continue to run high for a while. The current conditions are best fished by boat. Our guides have been on this river a lot and doing well with Streamers and Dry Flies.

The Upper East has had the least degree of change. This is normal for this section. Currently this section will fish well from boat and offer limited wade access. This river has been fishing well with both streamers and dry flies.

Currently Olives, Sulfurs, Isonychia and Cahills are about in enough numbers to keep the fish interested. In some area there are sporadic flurries of huge insects. These are possibly Hex or some other burrower type insect that looks giant among the smaller insects of summer. It is also flying ant season and some areas have already seen swarms of these terrestrial insects cover the water.

During the periods of surface feeding #16 and #18 Olive and Sulfur Dry flies have been working well for me. Thorax Style, Traditional and Cripples have been equally effective. Recentlly in the gin clear water we had trouble fooling some fish. Our CDC Knock Down Duns and CDC Slow Water Cripples are the solution to these fussy fish.