2025—and for that matter, 2024—have not been good years for trout fishing in Catskill rivers, especially the tailwaters. So far this year, I’ve been to our camp on the East Branch of the Delaware exactly once. That was on April 30, when flows were still fishable and stable. On that date, two of us went forth to check on our camper, hook up the electrical connection, and clean up fallen limbs along with other debris. 

Since it was Hendrickson time in the Catskills, around 3 p.m., we decided to string up our rods and head to the Home Pool. The Home Pool is the pool immediately behind our camper—so, not very far away. 

When we arrived, a brisk upstream wind was blowing, no flies were hatching, and of course, no trout were rising. Nevertheless, we decided to stick around and watch the water, hoping that as the afternoon progressed, the wind would actually die down. We stayed until 6 p.m.; the wind never died. So there was no fishing on that day.

Then the rains came. Sometime in early May, several rain events hit the eastern United States, including the Catskills. As a result, all the New York City DEP and Catskill reservoirs filled and began to spill. At one point, the flow in the upper East Branch of the Delaware, according to the Downsville gauge, was 4,000 cubic feet per second (CFS), because of all the precipitation and resulting spill. 

The high flows continued for weeks, and when the spill finally stopped, the DEP began to release water to create voids in the Pepacton, Cannonsville and Neversink reservoirs. To help accomplish this goal, the DEP increased its release from the Pepacton Reservoir from the normal summer flow of 145 CFS to over 300 CFS, which is not fishable in the upper river. Sometime in early July, the DEP  cut the release back to 155 CFS, which is a very decent summer flow.

When the rains finally stopped and the flow was stabilized, the days got very hot, with temperatures sometimes reaching well into the high 90s. And as much as I like to fish, there’s no way I’m putting on a pair of waders when air temperatures get to those levels. 

Now that we are in the early days of August, the temperatures have cooled considerably. Hopefully that trend will continue, and those of us who have not fished or fished very little will have some late-season angling.

As it stands, 2024 was at least as bad, or perhaps worse than 2025. Once again, we started out with a lot of early-season rain, with reservoirs spilling resulting in very high flows. A check of my diary revealed that our first trip was on May 4, the next on May 22, because of the high water. After that, we could not fish again until June 5, and then not until July 27. After July 27, we didn’t fish again until August 22. 

To complicate the issue, in early September, the DEP increased the release from Pepacton Reservoir from 145 CFS to 600 CFS in order to create a void. The DEP took that action because the West Delaware Tunnel between Pepacton and Cannonsville reservoirs and Rondout Reservoir was shut down. That was done so repairs could be made in the tunnel between Rondout Reservoir and West Branch Reservoir in Putnam County. That increase in flow ended fishing in the East Branch for 2024. 

I compared diary notes about the number of fishing trips made over the last three years, and this is what I found:

2023: 15 trips 

2024: 5 trips

2025: 1 trip

Review of the flow data for those three years revealed that the main reason fishing was curtailed in 2024 and 2025 was due to the high water caused by continuous heavy rain and the high releases by the DEP.

Now that the flows have stabilized in the East Branch and temperatures have moderated, a friend and I decided to go fishing on August 8. While no rain was in the forecast, we ran into heavy showers around Phoenicia and again on Route 30. When we arrived in Downsville, the road was wet and there were large puddles. At camp, there was a wisp of fog over the river. On the positive side, there were a few sulphurs and a lot of very small olive mayflies on the water. And downstream, six or eight good trout were rising steadily. Unfortunately, Japanese knotweed had blocked the path to that part of the river, so those trout were inaccessible. I waded into the upper part of the pool, only to find that my right boot was leaking! Nevertheless, I moved downstream toward the rising trout, with the hope that some would move upriver as the night progressed. None did.

At 7:15 p.m., the fog rolled in, the flies stopped hatching, and the trout stopped rising, so I called it a night. I waded to shore with a wet, cold right foot, with no trout caught, wondering if, given the high flows, heat, rain, fog and knotweed, the river gods were giving me the horns?