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Delaware River Video

The Delaware River, and its tributaries, is one of those special places that pulls me back year after year. It has a lot of wild, selective, large trout and they get the bulk of our best fly tyer's flies to look at. The Delaware River, more than any other river I have fished, has shaped my tying and fly presentation skills. I like to say, “The D is the game.” All my other trout fly fishing is practice. Caddis, olives and a smattering of march browns were present and the olive x2 caddis had taken some fish earlier. The way to effectively fish the Big D is to target individual rising fish and work them. "Flock shooting" is not the best approach and though it will take a sporadic riser, it isn't a productive way to do it. The trap of this system is that there are fish you get hung up on and fish that tease you into spending an hour working them. Fish that may have nothing special about them except the fact that they ignore your flies. It's like trying to get the most popular girl in high school to notice you. Except you play second trumpet in the marching band so she ignores you, and it drives you wild until the 5 year reunion, where she still ignores you. There are better looking girls that talk to you, just like there may be bigger fish rising within site but this one drives you mad. You must have this fish. The approach, the cast, the drift and the fly has to be perfect or you won't get a look. Today, the water was low and clear, and the trout had taken residence in 8-12 inches of water between two rocks which created a tricky drift. This was

the fish we had to have. So, that is how it goes, you miss one, you find another, and there's almost always another. Maybe he'll take the fly with more confidence, maybe he'll take the first drift by, maybe you'll snap the 6x tippet on the hook-set, maybe you'll land one.