DELAWARE RIVER

[Striperjim]

Fished the upper Delaware for an hour on saturday morning. North of the Dingmans ferry Bridge. 15 minutes from my front door. Not another soul out there fishin. Beautiful scenery. Took some pics. Pretty windy with a very swift current. I had some trouble holdin bottom, so I just floated an eel on with a bobber for a while with no luck. Threw some different plugs also. Went out again Sunday 50 miles further, just south of Easton. Bought some gigantic shiners and eels, and a guy gave me his left over trout. Found a spot on the Jersey side where there is a creek mouth emptying into the river. Damn ski jets all over the river. When there was some respite I caught my first Delaware striper at 1:30 PM on a live jumbo shiner. 22 inches. First action of any kind. A tiger musky bit a hole in the trout but then left it alone. I floated out a bobber on an eel. Too much traffic. Anyway left for dinner break and when I came back there was 16 people in the spot. Loud, obnoxious and drunk, with 4 lanterns, a boom box, grill and picnic benches. They caught a gigantic sucker and a cat fish, but they certainly (nor I ) were catching any more stripers. Time to leave. Never bothered to fish the Delaware for stripers before, always went to the East coast shore.

The area is beautiful from Stroudsberg on down to trenton. Shore line access is extremely limited. what little there is has an enormous amount of pressure on it. Some of the locals know the way into their spots. Your best bet is to launch a drift boat or v hull and fish the mouths of these feeder creeks, that are stocked with trout. There are several of them along this 30 mile stretch. Both you and the stripers will be there.
You can fish either side with a Pennsylvania and N.J. license.

Use a depth finder and locate the sand bars and fish the drop off sides. This is a good place to float eels.

All in all, the trip was worth it.

[Striperjim]

Rumors out of local tackle shops is 40 plus pulled from upper river New York side. Unconfirmed.

[Striperjim]

This year, as biologists monitored the American shad run on the Delaware, large numbers of stripers were surveyed running upriver. Mark Boriek, a biologist with the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, on March 10 reported netting, tagging and releasing 300 in three days.

On March 29, Boriek reports that a commercial netter in the Delaware Bay had his nets "ripped up by striped bass, but he did catch 100 of them that he released."

Be prepared

Stripers are cagy in the Delaware you just dont come out and catch them. Shad imitations and trout are the primary food source.
Use Lures like rainbow trout Smithwicks or Storm Thundersticks, as well as Rat-L-Traps and Storm Rattlin' ThinFins, which are good shad imitations.

Live bait and eels

[Striperjim]

A couple of spring run delaware river stripers caught in april and may of 2004 by Glen Bintliff

36 inch striper

40 inch striper

[CaptainMorgan!]

The Coast Guard said oil appears to have affected 70 miles of shoreline in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, from the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge to Pea Patch Island.

Hunting has been banned in two areas in Delaware, but duck hunters in New Jersey are merely being asked to refrain from hunting anywhere near the river, not just because hunters may take a bird who has consumed contaminated material, but because scattered, uninjured birds may flee and wind up in a contaminated area, according to the N.J. Division of Fish and Wildlife.

It is striped bass season, but Elaine Makatura of the state Department of Environmental Protection said the spill has had no immediate impact on fishing.

"It's too early to predict what impact it will have on fishing," she said. "It depends on where, the amount of oil, how far it sunk, if it did sink, how heavy it is. There are too many variables at this point."

[Striperjim]

The river looks less angry on the northern end. Clearing up after the monsoon rains and snow runnoff. I suppose we're still a few weeks away from any real action here. Keep in mind it is illegal to fish for stripers in the Delaware river until June 1st in the tidal estuaries. To date, New York , Delaware , New Jersey and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have attempted to maintain consistent regulations for Delaware River stripers. http://sites.state.pa.us/Fish/fishpu.../delaware.html
From Trenton Falls upstream - Open year-round

[Striperjim]

To get a picture of how much water came down the Delaware. The river came up to one foot below the floor boards on the Old wooden Dingmans Ferry Bridge. Thats gotta be 50 feet or more. The water is still brown and fast. Route 209 is still closed.

[zimno1]

i wanna tube that beeotch!