After church on Sunday, I made a motivated drive to the West Branch of the Delaware River. I was motivated to fish because I liked the conditions. Over the past week, the cubic feet per second (cfs) discharge from Cannonsville Reservoir dropped below 1,000. Just three days ago, the cfs was in the 600 range. As I type this on Wednesday, it is now in the 360 range. Water flows under 900 cfs make for a wadable river. Combine 4o degree plus water temperatures with moderate flows and warm air, and you will likely enjoy fine dry fly fishing.
I stopped in to visit my friends at West Branch Angler Resort to catch up on news. Larry, Sam, Matt, and Ben are friendly when I call or make a visit. After saying hello and supporting a quality local fly shop, I decided to head downriver to seek slightly warmer water temperatures. The weekend cold front cooled off the fishing and lessened surface action. The first Game Lands Lot was packed with cars, so I kept driving. The lower Gamelands Lot was vacant and I quickly geared up. To my chagrin, there were two guide boats parked on the water, along with three spin fisherman. The wind was also howling. I didn’t see any bugs nor rising fish, so I threw a white zonker. I’m still perplexed that I consistently catch fish nymphing, swinging wet flies and on dries, but struggle to pick up WBD fish on streamers. After flogging a riffle stretch to no avail, I decided to hike downstream and scout for bank feeders. At this point, the drift boats were gone and the spin fisherman back at their car. Perhaps the gusting wind chased them away.
Around 2:30 pm, I noticed the first splashy rises. Between wind gusts, there were also several bank feeders rising. Flotillas of quill gordons, blue quills and the odd hendrickson ensued. It’s such a rite of Spring to savor the first solid mayfly hatches of the season! I removed my t-14 sink tip, placed a new 5x leader on and tied on a #16 quill gordon emerger pattern (dark trailing shuck/natural goose biot abdomen/gray dubbing/snowshoe rabbit wing). Unable to ignore the splashy, celebratory rise of a trout 15′ away, I cast to it. The 12″ brown happily gulped my fly on the first good drift. Between aggravating wind gusts, the next two hours were part dry fly bliss, part dry fly torture . Wind gusts shut down all surface action, then it would stop and fish would resume feeding for 1-2 minutes.. When the wind diminished and I saw a rise, a good drift resulted in a fish. I likely landed 8 trout within a 40 yard stretch of the West Branch. I lost one pig fish in shallow water, but didn’t see as many larger snouts in this stretch. Even the close, shallow water bank feeders were fish under 14″. For those who don’t know the WBD, wind can play a significant factor. Look for fish feeding out of the wind line, especially closer to the shore. Protected lanes without wind chop that are close to the shore, often have an insect buffet that the fish are still able to comfortably feed in. Even with a steady 15 mph wind and gusts up to 27 mph, I was able to time a few casts and capitalize on the window of opportunity. Eventually, the wind took over, fish stopped feeding and I scouted three other stretches of river. Talking to other anglers and drift boats, not as many big fish were observed feeding today. That’s a bit of a surprise, because this river gives up numerous 20″ plus fish to the dry fly. That said, I couldn’t complain with my nice mix of fiesty rainbows and browns. My quill gordon emerger caught seven fish, before the turkey biot body broke. I can’t wait to fish the WBD again and hope that you are enjoying some fine Spring Angling.
