Delaware River Report / Conditions May 4, 2012

It is official – I officially have lost any and all confidence with weather men/services. Predicted weather yesterday consisted of cloud cover and spotty showers all day. That’s what we had, along with TONS of bugs and fish early in the day. Around 2PM, the sun came out. Accuweather, weather.com, they all said, at that second, we were getting rain. Nope. Bright sun, high temps, and sunburn central. The bugs pretty much stopped until the shade crept in, and they started back up sporadically. The evening got very interesting, with some amazing thunderstorms rolling through the area throughout the night. The rain has brought the West Branch up signficiantly (as you can see from the graph below), but fortunately we are not TOO off-colored in the river, and it is likely to drop sharply throughout the day. We are expecting warm temps today, which if the cloud cover holds (as they predict, I again doubt), will see the bugs start earlier in the day, and continue throughout. Passing thunderstorms may affect the hatching as well. Regardless, we are set up for a GREAT weekend with terrific water levels!

Larry Clark with a PORKY Main Stem Brown. Shaky Cell-Phone Photo by: Bart Larmouth

Hatches:

Ephemerella subvaria – Hendricksons – #16

Stenonema vicarium – March Browns – #10-2xl (sporadic, just getting started)

Light Brachycentrus Caddis – Apple Green – #16 & #18

Dark Brachycentrus Caddis – Charcoal – #16 & #18

Baetis species – #18 & #20