Fishing Log

River is up to 7.5 ft and will stay there until Tuesday......Lots of water coming from up River......River temp 56.....With nights in the upper 30s river temp will drop which could hurt the bite.......need lots of sun and no more rain......

Had a gentleman, Ben Kulp from Morgantown PA out on Tuesday afternoon for a 6 hr trip that paid for a trip through DRSFA ..caught 40 fish...very happy with the outcome ..wants to come back next year

Only have one weekend to fish for shad. Was planning on fishing the Water Gap area this weekend. I'll be making the 3 hour drive to visit family anyway but am I SOL for fishing? Thanks

I don't fish the Delaware normally but I will be near it tomorrow for work. Easton area where the Lehigh dumps in. Will conditions be ok to fish tomorrow or is it not worth my time?

That was me who put the "BEWARE" message below. I had forgotten to sign-in. ShadHarris is correct; the high water from upstate NY can come down like a big wave, but takes time to reach all areas. Years ago, when I lived in Morris County I used to drive 45 miles to the river only to find it running high/muddy with debris. Thank goodness now for the internet and USGS. I like the fishing when the water is tea-colored, not clear or muddy, and I can see the conditions I will encounter from my phone or home pc at any given time. Fishing will probably be futile until the water comes down to between 2 or 3 feet above normal flow in your chosen area.

A lot of folks don't fully understand the impact of Northern rains (and rains in general) on the Delaware. I will do my best to interpret based on current information. I live directly East of the Water Gap, and it absolutely poured last night, at as of 9:45 PM, the gauge has not moved. However, it's forecasted to surge nearly 3' by 2pm tomorrow. It's at 6.5' now, it has not really moved much in past few days. It will crest at 9.3... Lets go way North to Callicoon NY.  It was at 4' yesterday at noon, and just crested at 7' and is already dropping. As you work further south down the river, everything else is still rising which only makes sense as all the feeder streams are still dumping in. It generally crests earlier, North to South but local rainfall can impact that a bit but this is a general rule of thumb. In Barryville, it was 4.3' yesterday and currently at 7' and rising. In Port Jervis, it was at 3.6' yesterday around noon and currently at 7.1' and rising. In Montague yesterday at noon it was at 6.6' yesterday at noon, and currently at 9.6' and rising. The Water Gap gauge was at 6.5' yesterday and IS STILL at 6.5. This is only 30 miles south of the Montague gauge. It is forecasted to crest at 9.3 feet by 2pm tomorrow. Belvedere gauge is at 5.5' and trending downward, but the surge is coming. It will crest 8.9' tomorrow at 8pm.  Are you seeing the trend here? Let's end with Phillipsbugh gauge. It was 3.25' yesterday at noon, currently at 3.6' and is forecasted to crest  at 8.9' tomorrow by 8pm. That more than a 5' surge!    You can track all this information yourself, at https://waterdata.us...rent/?type=flow .   I will never waste a trip to the river again, I study this religiously and have really started paying attention to these gauges over the past several years.   Let me be clear. "don't fish tomorrow". It will be high, murky, and full of debris.  Find something else to do.

The river in Narrowsburg is up 3 feet from yesterday with a lot of debris . The water is stained and visibility poor. Fished 2 hours this morning without a touch. The river was rising when I left, not sure how big the rains were in NY last night but it definitely affected the river.

Fished Monday from 3-7 pm: caught 2 bucks lost 1.

I was looking to get some information on the Smithfield beach area. I'm from Lancaster county and plan on making the trek up Smithfield tomorrow. Just wondering how the fishing is and if the boat launch ramp at Smithfield is open during the week? If anyone has any knowledge of this I greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

This was definitely my longest shad of the year, and would have done some damage in the Bi-State a week ago!

Chris - I am pretty much anti-spoon, but that puts me in the minority. I uses 1/32 and 1/16 ounce exclusively in two colors. Hot pink and white, and chartreuse and bright green. I run them behind in line sinkers, 1/4 to 3/8 ounce generally. I can see the fish on my finder, and they bit non-stop last night and most other trips this season so far.

can anybody tell me why I am not catching any fish? I am fishing in the channel with downriggers and am running my spoons 1 to2 feet off the bottom but am catching nothing. My depth finder is showing most of the fish coming through 7 to 10 feet down so I tried fishing those depths and still catching nothing. yesterday my brother outfished me 6 to 1 on flatlines. Any suggestions?

Thanks rusty ill give them a shot

Question for wader fishers: If you're in a known good spot and are catching shad on a regular basis, and suddenly the action drops dead for 45 minutes or so, do you get in your car and go to another known good spot or wait for another school to possibly come through your area?

Fished Reigelsville yesterday and today...slow pick of fish but they are there.....real fighters in fast water...Anyone know where the hovercraft airboat like vessel came from....they were very considerate of fishermen....

Thanks Phil, I'll give it a try. You guys are the best

Komar: First link is for fishing above Neversink River entry to Delaware. Normal low flow is 2.5 ft. at this station. Second link is at Milford Bridge in Montague where normal low flow at this station is 5.5 ft.. Third link will give temperature which increases very slightly as you move downstream. https://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/pa/nwis/uv?cb_00065=on&cb_00060=on&format=gif_stats&period=&begin_date=&end_date=&site_no=01434000 https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?cb_00060=on&cb_00065=on&format=gif_stats&site_no=01438500&period=7&begin_date=&end_date= https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nj/nwis/uv/?site_no=01432805

Snizzy...The rods I use for downriggers are ugly stik model big water downrigger rods model # usbwdro62oc832...8'3 light...6-20 lb line...nice rods...I got 8 of them there great for faster water...Rusty...if u need I can send u a pic..

Went 8 for 10 in a couple hours today river is still high what action rods are you guys using out there on diwnriggers seems like my light action rods are a little to weak for this high water

launched yesterday 9:30 am at Lambertville Bridge spots Were full. anchored up below bridge next to a buddy He was bailing shad ,I got no hits& every other boat was catching moved up to a spot by Bridge started catching some roe ,mostly Buck l boated 10 another DRFA club member boated 46 & the buddy below me boated at least 60. overcast & spotty rain left at 2pm water temp 56-57

Fished 5pm to 7:30 tonight. Was hot-shotting it from the shoreline (no waders) with 4lb. line. below Tom's Creek on the PA side. Landed 10 of 17, Not a good ratio, but I was off-balance on the slippery shoreline at times and lost fish when they jumped because of it. One big roe got off at my feet and must have been in the 6lb. range. I thought the old hen was going to burn up my freakin' drag. Still getting mostly cock-fish though. Good outing.

a big thank you to the man operating the weigh station you turned a bad day into a good day . thanks for all your help

Final day of the Bi-state. We returned to a super-secret spot N of Bushkill, where we got them real good Friday before the big river surge, and scratched out 30 to the net out of 35 hookups and several more LDRs. Too many cookie-cutter 4-4.5 roes to get us into the upper echelon of the tournament money, but we feel blessed to have held onto 5th overall. We made a wise decision to sleep in late, but then started trolling around 12:45 pm to explore what was going on in these horrid conditions, and got 2 out of 3... I thought it was best to then anchor in a spot that normally produces but get in tight to the PA shore and it paid off. Once the sun went behind he mountain the steady stream died off and we motored upriver to another spot to get back in the sun on the NJ side (water very stained, needed the shad to see the darts) for the last hour and banged several more. River dropped a lot today, and historically I would not fish in these conditions let it wait one more day, but I can say I caught fish in higher and more stained water in this location than I ever had in 40 years. Thanks again to the tournament director for running a great tournament. I am not sure how many were running an hour south to weight in fish... Probably just us maniacs..