The Catskills · Delaware County

Hancock

Where the East and West Branches of the Delaware meet — the wadable-water capital of New York fly fishing.

Hancock sits at the confluence of the East and West Branches of the Delaware River, which puts it at the geographic heart of the wild-trout fishery New York anglers travel for. The mainstem Delaware below town runs as a tailwater out of the Cannonsville Dam, holding wild brown trout into the upper teens of inches. The town itself is small — a single Main Street, a couple of fly shops, the Knotweed Farm CSA on the eastern side — but the river economy keeps the place alive year-round and pulls a serious fly-fishing crowd from Hatch through October.