I had Al and Bill out for some smallmouth fishing on the Lower Delaware and the river did not disappoint. The fish were everywhere and would eat just about anything that resembled a small shad. Beautiful scenery, relative quiet, and consistent action all day combined for a nice time on the water. The biggest fish landed was 12″ but there are plenty of stories about the one that got away from this trip, we had some nice fish come loose to say the least. Water temp was 80 degrees, all of the smallmouth were in good shape and put up the usual good fight. There was a good mix of surface and subsurface strikes throughout the day. We have some more trips on the Delaware River in coming weeks and we expect more good PA Fly Fishing for smallmouth bass.

Brent, Tommy, and I hit the Upper D for a little fishing, funny all I got to do was row. We were greeted with Blue Quills and then Hendricksons later on with sporadic trout surface activity starting just a few yards from the Shehawken ramp. Brent managed a few nice trout on an Adams dry fly, and Tommy had some lookers that just wouldn’t cooperate. The water temp was 52˚ and with the recent drop in releases from Pepacton and Cannonsville the water has become clear and the fish are no longer chasing the big streamer patterns as much. Lehigh Unusuals in the proper flavor will produce for all of the mayfly hatches otherwise make sure to have plenty of Blue Winged Olive, Hendrickson, Blue Quill, and caddis patterns. Para Adams always seem to produce and subsurface Flashback Hare’s Ear and Pheasant Tail patterns and a good assortment of Stonefly patterns should get you some action.

We saw risers here and there all the way down to the Buckingham ramp. It was pretty windy and had the wind let up a little I’m sure that we would have seen a lot more surface activity from the fish.