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Another season is about to begin on the Upper Delaware with this Sunday, April 1st as the official start. Technically, the season never closes on much of the system. But on the official New York trout season opener of April 1, all stretches of the East, West and Main Delaware become legal.
This year we've been seeing some of the earliest hatches ever starting with early stone flies and moving into olives, Quill Gordons, blue quills, caddis and Hendricksons. Yes, Hendricksons were seen hatching in March on the Upper Main Stem and on some days the numbers of insects were much more than just a scattering. The stone fly hatch was/is impressive this year and in mid March with much warmer water temps than usual the fish were very active and keyed in to them well providing some excellent dry fly action.
As April opens up you can expect some unusually low water conditions for this time of year. Cooler nights have brought the water temps back down to the 40's which will slow the insect hatching and fish activity from what it was. Who know, maybe even bring things back or nearly back on track.
This is a time of year that typically has rising water and ice cold water temps from the influence of snow pack melt. We don't have any snow pack and what we are seeing is something very close to the opposite. Rain hasn't helped. We're currently in a deficit of of about 4 inches for the year which is near half of normal and it's only March. But no need to for panic, yet. April and May, our wettest month, are still ahead and a good dumping of rain could see us complain the rivers are blown out for a couple of days. At least I hope so.
To see how low the water is right now look at the mean flow for the date and compare it to the current flow. The USGS gauges important to the Upper Delaware can be found here: Delaware River Water Flow Data As an example, the mean flow at Hale Eddy on the West Branch for this date is 2,070 CFS. The current flow is just 264 CFS. Throughout the system water levels are 15% to 25% of what they normally are. What's important now is that the cool early Spring temperatures are keeping the fish safe. Or are they really safe?
Low water will concentrate the fish. Simply, there is less river for them to spread out in. This concentration makes them easy pickings for the kill 'em and grill 'em crowd. You know, those people who have no respect for wild fish and who will rape the resource for the ill founded thrill of fulfilling some bizarre and perverse urge to destroy rather than build up and support. It's hard to believe in this day and age there are so many ignorant fisherman out there and even harder to believe that the state agencies in charge allow such mayhem to go on.
In a perfect world there would be enough clean water to produce an abundance of fish to feed anyone who wished to take them. In the real world that's not the case. We need to stop pretending that killing the brood stock of wild fish is good for the fishery. It's not. Any state fisheries biologist who says that a pressured wild trout fishery can support a harvest should be fired. He's not doing the fish any good.
Anyway, I'm off of that rant... for now.
Now, as far as the rest of the season is concerned, will we be looking at very low water conditions? I can only say it would be best to consult a crystal ball or local psychic for that answer. Too many times over the past decade we've seen extremes in weather cause complete flip flops in conditions. Sometime these reversals are for the worse, sometimes for the better. Let's hope for the better.
