And the winners are…

The “Leaky Waders” award for the month of June goes to guide Walter Ackerman for the following reason. The river temperatures on the Delaware below Long Eddy on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 14, 15 and 16, were running at 80 degrees. Such extremely high temperatures put trout under severe stress. Unless they can lie quietly in a cold water refuge such temperatures can be lethal to trout. If a trout is hooked while lying in a cold water refuge, it is likely to panic and dash out into the warmer river water. Even if the fish is eventually released, apparently O.K., it will often die within three to four hours due to the tremendous stress it undergoes while fighting to escape in the warmer water. Never the less, Mr. Ackerman parked his blue raft off of the Basket Brook cold water refuge on Friday and Saturday and allowed his clients to hammer the trout that were lying in that tiny area of cooler water. If this were done by a fisherman who was completely unaware that high water temperatures, lethal to trout, can occur in the Delaware, this would have been simply a regrettable incident. Delaware River guides are not unaware when these temperatures occur. Mr. Ackerman is making money off of the trout that reside in the Delaware. The last thing a licensed guide should be doing is to allow his clients to fish in a manner that could harm the Delaware fishery. His actions have earned Mr. Ackerman the “Leaky Waders” award. Hopefully, he will go and sin no more.

The callous attitude taken by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) was the reason why the temperatures in the river climbed so high those three days. Barb, Jim, Ed Graham and I had walked up to fish at the Old Abuttment Pool, just below Long Eddy, on Wednesday evening, June 13, at 8:00 p.m. We found the river temperature to be 76 degrees. We never fish if the river temps go above 72 degrees. We watched the water for awhile and then walked home.

Clearly, with hot weather forecast for Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the Main Stem was heading for a train wreck. The next day, Thursday, the river temps climbed to 80 degrees. Where were the extra cold water releases that are supposed to keep the river temps at the Kellams Bridge gauge at 75 degrees or less? On Friday morning at 8:00 a.m. the river was already at 74 degrees, with another hot day forecast. By noon the water temp had reached 80 degrees. In desperation, I called the DEC offices of Dr. Muraldahar, who is in charge of extra cold water releases for the Delaware. I was told by Mr. Warren Lavery, of that office, that the DEC would not call for more than a 525 cubic foot per second release from Cannonsville Reservoir because it wished to conserve the water in the temperature stress relief bank for releases later in the year. He stated that no matter how high the temps in the Main Stem went, there would be no additional releases called for from Cannonsville Reservoir.

The DEC is supposed to use the water in the stress relief bank to keep the river temps at the Kellams Bridge gauge at 75 degrees or less. They simply refused to do their job. What sense does it make to conserve water in the stress relief bank for later in the year when the trout in the Main Stem were already facing lethal temps on June 14, 15 and 16? Despite my pleas, Mr. Lavery said that this was DEC policy, period. Thus, the “Bonehead Award of the Month” is won by those people in the DEC who formulated this policy.

Apparently, the Main Stem of the Delaware has no friends at the upper echelons of the DEC. All I hear from the DEC and Ms. Carol Collier of the Delaware River Basin Commission, is that they, “are aware of the problem.” The river does not need any more bureaucrats or politicians who are, “aware of the problem.” The river needs someone to stand up for it and solve the problem, once and for all. Does such a person exist?