The plan was to get my truck all ready to go for the Cape May shakedown trip this morning. Mmmmm. River dropping. Super high water. Full moon. Dropping tide. At 7 pm I told Theresa I was "going fishing for a little bit". This morning she asked, "Did you get home at 0130?". So we're behind the 8-ball. But things looked and got good. I experienced my best short window 'I'm on the bass" outing since I started fishing the Delaware 5 years ago. I fished for an hour without any love and then made a move it was game on. But things weren't perfect. You see I emptied my truck of just about everything. I had a few shitty herring flies and nothing for topwater. The topwater stuff, especially that Slider I tied the other day, would have been perfect.
The Delaware, I guess Upper and lower, fish the same way when it's big water. The fish are hiding behind structure or hugging the bank. That goes for predator fish as well as forage fish, like herring. I was pretty much pinned to the bank and with all the growth we've had the backcast was a problem. I let my first cast go and a fish blew up on the fly, then in the same cast, another blew up on it, and then as I was bringing it upriver, another. That lasted for 45 minutes. It was so good that I had to make a call and invite by bud down. And you know how that goes. You either look like the GOAT or a goat.
What made the short window so special was all of the takes were seen. It wasn't a topwater thing as much as it was a skittering upper water column thing. And when I positioned myself ahead of the rocks and casted down, oh boy. If I had more than one hook, like a stinger hook, on these flies I would have landed more than I did. They blew up and swirled and tail slapped but hooking them wasn't easy. But it was fun because it was a show.
So my bud gets there and like what he sees. "Perfect", he said before throwing both a spinning and fly rod. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. I figured it was tide dependent so we waited about 90 minutes for the tub to fill in. It just never happened. It was literally like a bass blitz that was over.
The plan was to leave very early but.....I just had to see if it was on the drop when things got good. So I begged and went back down. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Same perfect conditions but just no one home. I must have just timed it perfectly last night. I was surprised when an American shad ate my fly as I worked behind the rocks going from north to south. I can see why these guys love this fish on light tackle or the fly rod. I'll just keep them as a cool by-catch. It's nice to see some life still in the river and after the deluge of rain we had this past week. You just never know what the river is going to do next.
