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Having difficulties copying my pictures from Photobucket to place in my posts so I decided to take this easier route to post some pictures of Delaware rainbows.

The main stem Delaware is a big river by any standards. In many places it is over 300' wide and the mean flow is 2840 cfs. Late April to mid October the mean flow is about 1350 cfs.

Nice, Matt! What year were these taken?

We have a local fly shop owner here that once told me that the West Branch was the best dry-fly stream east of the Mississippi. Now he was trying to sell me on a guided trip there he was offering. :)

Spence

The first picture is quite recent I can tell from seeing my Brodin Ghost net. Maybe 3-4 years ago. The other two are pretty ancient!! I'd say circa 1968 - 1970. I just posted up a couple of journal entries from 1968 on another forum depicting how good the upper Delaware was then compared to now. But also to dispel the urban legend of how many really large rainbows are in the system. Far fewer than you would imagine after hearing all the hyperbole dripping out of the mouths of many guides and anglers.

I'll do a cut and paste and put it up here. At one time the entire Delaware system, East Branch, West Branch, and main stem were the best dry fly rivers east of the Mississippi. However I do not know if that is still the case. All three rivers have are experiencing siltation from three major floods in 2006, 2010, and 2011. Also rock snot is a major issue on the upper EB and upper EB and it is only a matter of time before it invades the entire watershed.

Spence,

Here is the post I was referring to that I put on another forum;

This post if off the initial thread but it does much to compare fishing on the upper Delaware of today to that of forty years ago. The following are a few no bullshit journal entries from September of 1973. Back then I taped every fish but was catching so many that it wasn't crucial to me so I rounded up, or down, in 1/2" increments. If it measured 17 3/8" it was logged at 17", if it measured 17 5/8" it was logged at 18". Notice just one brown trout.

September 09, 1973

1 - 15" rainbow
1 - 16" rainbow
2 - 17" rainbow
1 - 17.5" rainbow
2 - 19" rainbow

September 18, 1973

This was a good day!

3 - 10" rainbow
1 - 13" rainbow
1 - 15" rainbow
1 - 16" rainbow
1 - 16" brown
2 - 17" rainbow
1 - 17.5" rainbow

I have records for eight non consecutive trips in September. I put fifty-eight (58) trout from 10" - 19" into the net. Note this was forty-two (42) years ago when hardly anyone was fishing where I fished and I didn't land a single 20" trout of either species. But back then rainbows were king and as I mentioned the ratio was 5:1 or even 6:1. For this period it is skewed even more in favor of the rainbows. Only 13.7% of the trout landed were browns. I didn't do well in math but isn't that like an 8:1 ratio?

Hey Matt,

Great thread! I was born and raised in NE PA and fished the D River quite often back in the 70's as a teen. I can attest to all you posted above. Mostly rainbows and big rainbows with very few anglers fishing for them.

Back in the day there was no internet to check flows and temps from the unpredictable dam releases (Cannonsville is a coldwater bottom release dam). Our SOP was to drive to the River in the morning....stick our hands in the water...if it felt cold, we'd rig for trout....if it felt warm, we'd go downstream and fish for smallies. Those were the days!

Today there are many more brown trout, especially in the west branch nearer to the dam and there are MANY more anglers! I would have to say there are probably many more fish today overall, with some really big fish mixed in, especially big browns. But the catching is a lot tougher with competition from all the drift boats and angler traffic. Still, it's a great place to fish and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Thanks again for the thread, Matt!....good fishin'

My best day with bows on the Delaware came last season during Hendricksons. The water was low and clear, and the fishing tough. Some of the fish were caught on nymphs, but one of the big bows took a CDC Hendrickson comparadun. Here are the stats:

4 12-13”
3 16”
2 20”

That is a very good day on the Delaware. A nine fish day is a very good day indeed.

My best dry fly day was also during Hendricksons and the numbers were also very good.

Awesome fish Matt.