Delaware River Smallie fishing

[lars]

Hit the Del in Bucks county this afternoon for a brief look around to check levels and such. Managed to get 8 decent bass on topwater
bugs. One real nice 16"er or so that totally just kicked my *** in the strong river current. I brought it to hand but it took everything
my 590rp and myself had as it just dug into the current making a couple bolts for cover. Big fun! I was planning on heading to the Poconos
tomorrow for some trout fishing while it lasted but even if i catch a huge trout it won't have nearly the strength and battle of a nice river
smallmouth so i might hit the Del again.

 

[poopdeck]

Nice. A 16 inches is a respectable Delaware river SMB. I did pretty well on a Delaware trib with a Pats rubber leg yesterday. I’ll be hitting the river on Friday for my first SMB river trip. That’s subject to change because of the 94 degree projected weather but if we get out early I think the morning will be manageable.

 

[Mike]

A good group of bigger fish is presently working its way through the population if I recall correctly.

 

[Oregon_OwlII]

16" is a nice smallie on the Delaware. I think the best I ever got was 14". Stripers are a different matter.

 

[poopdeck]

A good group of bigger fish is presently working its way through the population if I recall correctly.

the Delaware river SMB have been increasing in size over the last few years and it’s getting more common to catch 15 to 19” fish. Problem has been the numbers, there are just so few small fish any more. Catching 8 SMB in a morning is now considered a good day. Gone are the days of 40 plus fish outings.

My striper season was poor as was last year. Biggest fish was only 32” and the other 20 or so were sub 25” fish. The most I caught on any one day was 8. Now I only got out 4 times but others that I know had similar results, small fish in low numbers. Still beats trout fishing by a mile.

 

[DomR]

The coming heatwave will probably end my trout fishing until the fall, turning my attention to the big D smallies. I like the Columbia, NJ / Portland, PA area of the river as it's very wadable right there since I don't have a watercraft.

 

[wbranch]

Yesterday near Columbia. A friend invited me out in his boat. We did well. Oops I forgot this is a fly fishing site. We sinned and went to the Dark Side. I just noticed the OP is about Delaware smallmouth. These are Susquehanna fish.

 

[JeffK]

I grew up on the Delaware in Phillipsburg and have been fishing its smallies for a long time from roughly Bulls Island to Matamoras. It does seem that the numbers of fish in the lower river has gone down lately, fortunately with an increase in size. However, I have found the fishing from Dingmans Ferry up to have the same numbers as the good old days and days when you can't count the fish are the norm.

 

[lars]

Hit the river again today. Wind was really blowing, kinda not so great for good drifts and long casting but
it was just a real pretty day and the river height is getting pretty good. These hot days coming up should really warm it up and get the fishies more aggressive. I did a good amount of walking and only managed to get three 10"ers to smash my bug, but 10" river smallies still represent well for their size. i also managed a couple of really large natives, big fat fallfish that is. I catch big fallfish in the river from time to time and usually after the first two seconds of "this is a nice fish" it turns into a wet dishrag. These were fallfish in the 2 lb class and up until I brought them close enough to see, I thought they were smallmouth.

Hard fighting fallfish are new to me.

 

[bringthepain]

Interesting reports. I'm about 8 miles west of point pleasant but i've never fished the area. I've driven river road from point pleasant up to frenchtown often as well, especially the last couple years. I have a raft maybe i should float it....

 

[Oregon_OwlII]

The coming heatwave will probably end my trout fishing until the fall, turning my attention to the big D smallies. I like the Columbia, NJ / Portland, PA area of the river as it's very wadable right there since I don't have a watercraft.

I think the biggest Delaware smallies I have ever taken were from that same area.

 

[Javelin389t]

I used to catch decent smallies from upper black eddy and down about a mile or so. it’s been a while though. I was biking the canal path yesterday and there doing work on the canal and path. Very little water in canal just north of Washington crossing. Lots of dry stretch’s to. Saw quite a few pods of bluegills and bass huddled together. I also confirmed 1 big snakehead and possibly a second. Thought about going back to catch those but never got that far.

 

[td566]

My dad loved fishing the canal from Morrisville to Washington Crossing when he was in his teens and twenties. He loved fishing it with a popping bug. I enjoyed the stories and was always surprised how good the bass fishery was in there since I never knew or found anything close to that growing up in the 60s and 70s.
He thought the fishing was better there than in the Delaware during that time. After getting a small boat and motor, We fished the river together a lot during the 80s and 90s out of the Yardley boat ramp and did decent on smallies and walleye but rarely got one on a fly.
I’ve been thinking about him a lot today.