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Home › Waters › New Jersey › Delaware River
River · Delaware Valley · New Jersey

Delaware River Fishing Guides

The longest undammed river east of the Mississippi, a two-state smallmouth and striper float from the Water Gap down through Lambertville to the falls at Trenton.

A mountain stream running over mossy rock through eastern hardwoods
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Delaware River

Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.

About the Delaware River

The Delaware runs three hundred and thirty miles without a single main-stem dam, and the New Jersey and Pennsylvania stretch below the Delaware Water Gap is one of the great overlooked fisheries of the Northeast. It is big, clean, wadeable in places and floatable everywhere, with ledges, islands and long riffles that hold smallmouth bass in numbers that surprise anglers who assume a river between two of the country’s densest states must be ruined.

Smallmouth are the everyday fish, and the good ones live in the current seams around the ledges. Striped bass run up in spring and again in fall as far as Trenton, where the falls stop them, and the shad run in April and May is a genuine tradition with its own festival in Lambertville. Walleye and musky fill in the deeper water, and the tidal river below Trenton is a different fishery again. Guides run jet boats and drift boats, and the National Recreation Area above the Gap offers the wildest scenery.

The Trenton gauge reads the whole non-tidal river and it is a big number by eastern standards. Typical fishable summer flows run a few thousand cfs; readings in the tens of thousands after a regional rain event mean high, off-color and dangerous water. The river drops fairly quickly, and clarity usually returns within a few days. Wading anywhere on this river requires respect for the current.

Lambertville, Frenchtown, Milford and Stockton line the New Jersey bank, and the towpath along the Delaware and Raritan Canal gives miles of bank access. Philadelphia and New York are both about an hour away.

This water needs a real photo

The photo at the top of this page is not Delaware River.

It is a regional stand-in, honestly captioned but generic — we will not put a name to a river we cannot prove. Send us a photograph you took here and it replaces the stand-in, with your credit on it.

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  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Fished this water? Add a photo

Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Delaware River.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Delaware River cfs

Now: 5,610 cfs, read 1:15 am CDT, Mon Oct 19, 2026 (USGS 01463500, Delaware River at Trenton NJ).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area: upper river access, camping and long floats.
Belvidere and Phillipsburg: upper-middle boat launches.
Milford and Frenchtown: popular float segments with ramps and towns at both ends.
Bulls Island Recreation Area: state park access and campground.
Lambertville and Stockton: mid-river ramps and the shad fishery.
Washington Crossing State Park: lower non-tidal access.
Trenton: the falls near the gauge, the head of tide and the striped bass limit.

Seasons

April and May: shad and spring striped bass, high water and cool temperatures.
June through August: prime smallmouth season, topwater at dawn, heavy recreational traffic.
September and October: the best smallmouth and fall striper weeks of the year.
November through March: walleye and musky for the dedicated; most outfitters stand down.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Delaware River?

As of Oct 19, 1:15 am, the USGS gauge Delaware River at Trenton NJ reads 5,610 cfs, the 61st percentile for this date, with water temperature 57 F. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Delaware River?

Anglers target American Shad, Channel Catfish, Muskellunge, Smallmouth Bass, Striped Bass, Walleye on the Delaware River in New Jersey.

Are there fishing guides on the Delaware River?

GuidedFloats lists 1 guide and outfitters on the Delaware River. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Delaware River?

Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area: upper river access, camping and long floats. Belvidere and Phillipsburg: upper-middle boat launches. Milford and Frenchtown: popular float segments with ramps and towns at both ends. Bulls Island Recreation Area: state park access and campground. Lambertville and Stockton: mid-river ramps and the shad fishery. Washington Crossing State Park: lower non-tidal access. Trenton: the falls near the gauge, the head of tide and the striped bass limit.

When is the best time to fish the Delaware River?

April and May: shad and spring striped bass, high water and cool temperatures. June through August: prime smallmouth season, topwater at dawn, heavy recreational traffic. September and October: the best smallmouth and fall striper weeks of the year. November through March: walleye and musky for the dedicated; most outfitters stand down.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Delaware River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the New Jersey agency site: https://dep.nj.gov/njfw/fishing/freshwater/regulations-and-permits/