June 16, 2024 – Some Small Smallmouths with My Son on Father’s Day – The Delaware River

A good day for wet wading.

The boy humored me this morning, as he has for probably 14 of his 16 years, and joined me on a mediocre fishing trip.  It was a lovely morning, and the Delaware was low and clear, so easy wading—easier for me in my wading boots and neoprene socks than the boy in old sneakers, of course.  I let him sleep a bit, but we left at 7 and were fishing by 8:15 AM.  God knows how late he was up now that school is out, but he was a trooper until all the scrambling on riprap in old running sneaks eventually wore him out.  I had a couple spots in mind this morning, so we stopped at one a bit down river first and took a peek.  It was low, and besides the bar at the mouth of a tributary, any possibly productive spots were going to be a bit of a hike or wade.  We decided to press on to spot two.  I just grabbed a few spinning rods rigged up with soft plastics and Rapalas, plus a big, skirted jig that did account for 2 fish.  Once we got away from the access point, we started seeing fish, but we were out there in full sun with Jersey to the east of us.  I got one to take a Rapala on a stop and go retrieve near the easy access point, but it was clear that we would have to cover some rocky ground.

A lot of bucks met their post-spawning run demise.  Vultures are well-fed.

It’s been a while since I fished the river this close to post-spawn, but trout season is heading towards a quick end this year with little rain for the last two weeks and little in the future forecast.  The hot days mid-week aren’t going to help, which sucks because I am off on Wednesday.  I had forgotten that many dead shad would still be in the water in June, too.  With low water, many were technically rotting out of the water, so it smelled awesome at times.  The scavengers were happy, at least.  We also watched an osprey hunting as well as 20 mergansers crossing the river.  I have seen them scoot on the top of the water on smaller creeks and rivers, but it was cool to see them avoid the main river current drag by basically walking (on water) their way over to our bank.  If the bass had been more cooperative, it would have been an even nicer morning out there with my son.  We made the most of it and caught some small bass in the 10-to-11-inch, maybe an encounter with one in the 13-inch range.  One better fish popped a topwater and amazingly did not get hooked.  Otherwise, I had to resort to soft plastics deep to catch a couple more dinks.

Dinks for Dads.

By 11 AM, it was getting warm out there in full sun, so the boy was sitting under a lone tree on a flat rock just taking in the day.  I figured there was no need to push on, as we had already hobbled down a half-mile stretch of river to a couple honey holes that did produce but not the way I had hoped.  I used to work really hard and work him hard when fish weren’t cooperating, but I have learned over time that the point is just to get outside with my son.  I have also learned to pay a captain to put us on some fish once in a while, and we are doing a couple trips this summer, at least 😊  A promised lunch was his motivation to scramble back, and I put him in charge of finding an easier way out, which he did.  By the time we got to the canal path again, we were pretty dry, dry enough to sit at a table in a restaurant and have some tacos like a couple of civilized men.  They were pretty decent tacos too!  We were home by 1 PM and both able to take naps, so that is a decadent-enough Father’s Day for me!

Mighty (fish-eating) ducks walking on water.