I began fishing the main stem Delaware River while still in high school. That was in the late 1950s. I learned about the rainbow trout fishery the river had to offer when my friend Ted Boeglin called after a trip he took to the river, inviting me to his home to see the rainbow trout he caught. When I arrived, I was astounded by the size of the fish laid out on the kitchen counter—three rainbows in the 20-inch range, their red strips still prevalent after hours out of the water. I had never seen trout of this size, not to mention three in one place. 

Ted told me had caught these trout using worms, fishing the third rift above Kellams Bridge. It didn’t take long for me to pass this information on to my friend Tony and soon we were on our way to the Delaware. 

Since I don’t recall the exact dates, I’m guessing we began fishing the Delaware in May of 1957. Of course in those days, it was spinning rods, hip boots, creels and worm cans. That was 20 years before the implementation of the water releases legislation in 1976. So in the ‘50s, the Delaware River was the victim of erratic flows and high water temperatures, depending on the releases from New York City reservoirs. Nevertheless, the rainbow and brown trout somehow survived.

Fishing the Delaware River was never easy, even with bait. Tony always caught trout; me, not so much. 

As the years passed and I began work at the Department of Environmental Conservation and fly fishing almost exclusively, I met Ed Van Put. Ed had moved to the Catskills from New Jersey and was fishing the Delaware a great deal. We started fishing together, mostly around the mouth of Bouchoux Brook. Wading was difficult in this area, even with chest waders, because the stream bottom dropped off quickly, making it hard to reach rising trout. 

Unless it was early in the season or a gray day, we always fished in the evening. Depending on the month, fly hatches varied from Hendricksons in late April to March browns and green and brown  drakes around Memorial Day. As the season progressed there were others. 

Getting to the Delaware River was a hike for me. I lived in Gardner, NY at the time, just outside New Paltz, so it was at least an hour and a half drive to Lordville, then another 15 minutes to the parking area next to Bouchoux Brook. Sometimes I picked up Ed at his home near Roscoe. We usually arrived at the river around 6:30 p.m. or so. At that time, the road from Lordville ended right where Bouchoux Brook entered the Delaware. We parked there. That is no longer the case. Some time ago, the DEC built a fishermen’s parking area quite a way from the mouth of Bouchoux Brook. It’s a long walk; not something I would look forward to at 9 p.m., after a night on the river.

Sometimes there was surface activity when we arrived, but on most days, hatches didn’t begin until later. Later meant around 8 p.m. By then, there would be some trout rising but not always a lot. Ed told me that he learned after the first few trips he made to the river that most of the heavy feeding occurred later, around 8:30 p.m. That’s when the rainbows would really begin to rise. Those trout would feed in pods made up of several fish; would begin to take flies at the tail of the pool; would feed all the way up to the head of the pool, then turn around, swim downstream and start the process all over again.

In order to rise a trout, it was necessary to lead the feeding fish by several feet, because as they fed, they swam upstream very quickly. It was like shooting skeet with a fly rod. 

The later it got, the more the trout fed. But rising trout during these feeding sprees was tough. The fish were always on the move, and always fed about halfway across the river in what we called the feed lane. The feed lane was where the currents converged, concentrating the flies. It was a spectacle watching all of these fish rising at once, much like a school of blue fish in the surf, chasing baitfish! We called it the Last Half Hour, because that is when the most activity occurred.

If one could get a fly in front of these trout, they were easy to rise. But getting a fly to those rainbows was a very real challenge. It required deep wading to get as close as possible—which was not that close. Once in position, it was necessary to make a 40-to-50-foot cast to moving trout. Casting that far on a lawn is pretty easy. But wading deep results in a low back cast, especially with a eight-foot bamboo fly rod, making it very difficult to reach the trout. So while I did a lot of casting, I didn’t do a lot of catching. I think if I hooked and landed half a dozen trout during the years I fished with Ed, that would have been a lot. Yet, that never prevented me from going back to cast my flies toward these, feisty, hungry rainbows.