August 31, 2025 – I’ll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours? – Delaware River

Larry hooked up to a good one.

I made Larry hobble along with me down the riprap early this morning on a mission to find some good smallmouth bass at one of my hot spots.  It’s not an easy beat.  It is nearly impossible to wade, even in low water, and there is little to no room for a backcast.  I guess it’s really a spot I located while looking through a gear not a fly rod lens.  I have fished it effectively with a fly rod as recently as last summer, but I have also fished it with a spinning rod or a “sin stick” with the boy a few times.  It is definitely easier to fish deep, moving water with a spinning rod, especially when the fish won’t come off the bottom to eat.  As tough as it can be, and fishing overall was tough today with fish pretty much having lockjaw after 9 AM, Larry got a beautiful fish to eat topwater at sunrise.  I was there to document it all, which was nice.  Unlike when I was with Brian this spring at his spot and miffed on an early pair of good fish, Larry hooked, fought, and landed a good one minutes after we started fishing.  I managed a couple of decent fish and a small, a theme for the rest of the day, at this first spot, but the bite shut off quickly.  Larry texted me on the way up when he noticed a release from the Lehigh River was spiking the Delaware downstream.  As a result, the water was dirtier and rising below the junction, which added to the challenge.  We found cleaner water after fishing a couple of Larry’s spots above the Lehigh, but we were never fortunate enough to stumble into a period of active fish.  By noon, we had worked hard enough for some more dinkers, and the Labor Day weekend inner tube hatch had begun in full force, so we called it good.

Larry made the small window count.  More shots from spot one.

I got to fish with Larry and on a weekend, which was a win and probably the only way to fish together until my PTO resets (amazing what a college tour season will do to ones time off balances).  And I got to see a couple spots on the river that I have not visited since I shad fished as a young man.  To end the trip, we ended up fishing a fantastic looking stretch of river, one of Larry’s spots, so we gave each other a short tour this morning.  Larry knows I don’t love being a weekend warrior anymore than him, but one of us is not retired.  We did what we could do to avoid the rush by meeting at 6:30 AM.  Had we known the bite was going to die so early, we may have met even earlier.  Eventually, we both knew is was not likely to happen today, but it was just too nice to quit fishing.  Enough little fish cooperated to elevate this enterprise above casting practice.  I got fish on a bugger, the balanced leech, and even a couple on a friend of Larry’s custom Do Nothing pattern.  After Larry landed the best fish of the trip, he let me hold one of his ties, a foam gurgler that is more of a waker.  All the fish that ate it today, including Larry's 16+ incher at the first stop, ate it floating along looking tasty and doing nothing, as its name implies.

Low and clear above the Lehigh, but a gorgeous day to be out there wading and casting.

Tubing operations have expanded upstream of their historical reach.  And encampments for the unhoused have expanded as well.   Neither can detract from the natural beauty of the mighty Delaware, however.  As mediocre as fishing was this morning, there was no rush to leave it, and I took a lot of photos of big sky and big water, along with documenting the tubes and the fish and the angler.  It was chilly to start and breezy enough all morning to keep Larry and I in waders.  It reminded me how much I like wet wading and how I will miss it as the season turns, but it also felt trouty out there.  All we need is some rain in the forecast to get me chomping at the bit again.  Larry is at least 15 years my senior, but you wouldn’t know it.  I hope I can continue to fish as hard when I reach 70.  River fishing is hard work, so the rewards are somehow sweeter.  But even if the fish don’t fully cooperate, there are worse places to be than with good company on the river that hooked me on bass fishing many years ago.

Several dinks and prepping for the noon tube hatch.