Delaware w/e report 4/26 & 4/27...

[acirig]

All,
Went up to the Delaware last w/e to fish with my father on our annual w/e fly fishing trip. We arrived Friday afternoon and were staying in Whitehouse @ WBA. We normally fish the WB Friday afternoon but the temps were too cold on WB due to recent releases (~42) so we had to turn around and decided to fish Beaverkill at Sunoco pool.

The Beaverkill was around 50-52 degrees and running good for wading. We had a storm of Caddis hatches all afternoon and at some points you thought it was snowing Caddis. There were some Henrdricksons mixed in. However, the fish just were not rising steady. My father and I both managed to pick up a nice brown (12-15") on elk hair caddis but only saw two other rising fish from 3-7pm. We probably could have taken a few more fish subsurface as I think more fish were definitely taking emergers based on a few rise types I saw. I did try a sparkle pupa earlier with no luck.

We ended up floating a lower section of the Main Stem on Saturday and Sunday with Joe D. Saturday was rough with temp drops and nasty wind throughout the day which seemed to keep fish down. The Caddis continued to hatch prolificly all w/e. I was lucky enough to take a really nice brown ~21.5" and a good bow ~19" on Caddis nymph on Saturday. I was using a size 12 BHPT with a size 16-18 BH Caddis larvae nymph.

Sunday was a much better day for dry flies. The Caddis continued but we saw more Hendricksons and a number of smaller BWO as well. My father was high stick on Sunday taking a real trophy brown almost 23" with some heavy girth on a Hendrickson. He also pulled a rare Brookie ~15" out of the Main Stem. I managed another nice Bow on Sunday. We saw a ton of rising fish Sunday and overall a great day for fishing vs. Saturday. I was extremely impressed with not just the number of fish we saw in total but the average size of most of the fish we fished to or caught seemed to be 18"+ range!!

The flow was down and temps were coming up nicely on WB so the river seemed to be opening up again on Sunday. It appeared that most of the fishermen out Sunday were picking the WB or upper Main Stem.