Weekend on the Upper Delaware

[Lard Almighty]

On Friday my dad and I drove up for our annual spring float on the Upper Delaware. After checking in at the hotel, we stopped at the West Branch at the Route 191 bridge on the other side of town. Water was low, and still dropping; we didn't even bother with waders. Walking the bank I got a rainbow, a brown, and a surprise walleye, all on a gold spinner. Dad got a couple of follows but no hook-ups. A fly fisherman showed up and started banging them one right after the other right across the river from us.

On Saturday we met up with Mike for our float. We put in at Buckingham and floated down to Long Eddy. Dad and I totaled about 20 trout landed, and almost twice as many dropped. Almost all fish were in fast, shallow, water. And when I say shallow, I mean we couldn't find water that was too shallow; eight inch riffles held trout, and big ones! We couldn't buy a strike in water deeper than 5 feet, even with the bright sun for most of the day. Silver or gold spinners produced the most fish, but Dad and I each got an 18" brown on Rapalas. The river was loaded with shad and big suckers cruising the shallows. Shad were not interested. We wrapped up the day with beers and dinner at Lydia's, where I was introduced to chili cheese tater tots.

On Sunday Dad wanted to sleep in, so I went back to the 191 bridge for a couple of hours. The river was even lower than Friday, to my surprise. NYC is not too keen on sharing their water with anyone, apparently. I only managed one small brown on a Kastmaster. A pair of fly fishermen from Jersey showed up, and one of them dropped a nice rainbow on a nymph. After Dad and I got breakfast, we stopped in Calicoon on the way home. I managed one stocker-size rainbow under the bridge, but we didn't stay long as our spinners were picking up green slime on almost every cast.

Some photos are below, and the video is on its way!