Beaverkill Nov.4-5

[scotton]

To finish off a great year of fly fishing, I had the chance to go back to the Catskills last week to do a couple of jobs and chase some fish around.

Tuesday morning I hit Owego Creek (East and West branches), but the flow and water levels were too low. I headed up north to Chittenango Creek just east of Syracuse. This is a great little stream, very fast with lots of little runs and rapids. I had some success here in July but nothing was biting on this trip. By the time I got in the water I only had about an hour to fish before it got too dark to see the line.

Wednesday I made it to the Beaverkill just before noon. First stop was my ultra secret spot just east of East Branch where old Highway 17 goes underneath the Interstate. Don't let the presence of big "public fishing" signs fool you, this is rarefied air. And it's where the fly shop guy told me to go in July, so it must be good. This is also the place where I took a bath in July, prompting me to put cleats in my boots. The water was a good deal lower than it was in July, so wading was much easier. I was working my way downstream to the good spot until a pretty good breeze kicked up in my face, making me decide to try my luck upstream instead. Had a couple of taps but no real bites. Weather was great, but the water was cold enough to make me think I had a leak. I didn't.

Moved east to the next spot, which is next to a Sunoco gas station. There was a car in the parking lot, so I looked forward to making some new friends. Sure enough, there was a guy in the water right at the trail end and another guy upstream a little ways. This area has a long set of riffles that end in a big eddy pool. I asked the guy in the water which way he was headed so I wouldn't hijack his run. I had to repeat myself about 6 times. Apparently they don't teach Texan as a second language in New York. He said they were just working the pool back and forth, so I headed up to the riffles. I got into a great position at the downstream side of the run, prepared to fish my way about 250 yards to the top, when I received a visitor. Some old gal walked up into my back cast and stood there talking on her phone for a few minutes. I figured she must be extremely important to behave this way, so I moved down stream a couple of steps so I wouldn't hook her. Once she finished her conversation, she jumped in about 10 yards upstream from me and proceeded to steal my run. I got a little bent at this but decided that the river was big enough for everyone, even people with horrible manners.

So I headed up to the next spot which is within site of the top of the run I just left. There is an area here were a stream enters the river. For a month in the late summer they don't allow fishing in this area because the stream cools the water down and gives the fish a little break. I fished this area pretty hard but didn't find any love. As I was leaving, I talked to a couple of older guys that were gearing up. They laughed when I told them about getting my claim jumped by a lady and said "Welcome to the Catskills". They offered me some great spots to fish and we had a good meeting of the minds, even if it was one sided.

I was getting a little peckish at this point, so I decided to head into Roscoe for some Veal Parm at Raimondos. Both fly shops were closed, so after lunch/dinner I decided to check into the hotel. I stayed at the Roscoe Motel. I was the only guest, and after peeking at the desk calendar I think I was the only guest in November. The room was clean, the TV was clear and the WIFI was non-existent. But, the river was about 5 steps from the door of my room, and the famous Junction pool was about 50 yards downstream. I decided to fish the little stretch behind the hotel without bothering with waders. Still no fish to interrupt my trip. It was getting dark so I decided to do a little scouting for the morning and call it a night.

Thursday I woke up at the crack of 5. By 6:15 it was light enough to fish (kind of), so I hit the spot behind the hotel again, then wandered down to Junction Pool where I saw some guys fishing earlier. I couldn't quite figure out the pool, there wasn't really any current and I was a little baffled so I decided to check out and head on down the road. My plan was to head west and hit any public parking spot that looked fishy. I hit Cairn's Pool, Painter's Bend and a couple of other spots. Still no success until I wound up back at the run from the day before where the lady hurt my fish feelings. I fished that stretch for about 3 hours and it was fantastic. Only thing that could have made it better would have been a fish, and maybe a little sunshine. At a certain point, the only thing that kept me going was knowing how jealous the people that could see me from the highway must be.

About 1pm it was time to head to the airport, and after a few misadventures I made it back to Dallas.

This is one of my favorite places to fish, although this late in the year it wasn't the greatest. All of the leaves were off of the trees (and in the river), so the scenery wasn't the greatest. I never did see a fish. I tried Tenkara, regular Western and a Spey casting. I tried nymphs, buggers, glo bugs, worms, midges, scuds and more. I went big. I went small. I went tiny. I went small and tiny. I went big and tiny. I tried everything in 3 fly boxes. I used an indicator. I didn't use an indicator. I fished the bottom. I fished subsurface. Bottom line is, I put in maximum effort and had a good time. But it will be nice to head back to the LMF to catch some fish again.

One of the old guys I talked to said "I've been fishing here for 30 years and I still haven't figured it out. These are the most educated fish in the world". That made me feel better, or at least it made me feel like coming back for more abuse.

If interested, here is a youtube video of a guy fishing the run where the lady sent me packing: www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Aq-FaPeLI I am not him and he is not me, I just happened to come across this while trying to figure out what the hell I did wrong.

See you on the river,
Scott

[dainw]

Thanks for the report Scott. I think the Beaverkill is one of those legendary trout streams and Roscoe is one of those legendary trout towns that always shows up on the list of best trout towns in the country. I would even venture so far as to call this area "hallowed ground." I have family that lives in upstate New York, so Roscoe has been on the bucket list for a while now, and all of the famous trout streams in the vicinity, the Delaware, Neversink, Beaverkill etc. I think it's awesome that you got to visit this area, let alone wet a line.

It also sounds like this is some of the more technical fishing there is to be had in the country. I would say there's no shame in getting skunked on one of these rivers, as it appears this is a pretty regular occurrence, even for the locals that know the stream intimately.

One question for you though. When I think of east coast fly fishing, especially in New York/Pennsylvania, I always think of the culture there trending toward a more purist approach, you know dry flies only or swinging a soft hackle if you absolutely have to. The impression I get from reading about east coast fishing is that they'd never dream of doing some of the things that we do on in the western half of the country, you know tie on a big thingamabobber, pinch on lots of weight, or throw big articulated streamers. Is that the same impression you got from actually being out there? Or do they more or less rely on the techniques that we do?

[scotton]

I didn't find any fly snobbery at all. Just about all of the local guys I talked to had indicators on their lines and were talking about running Copper Droppers or other weighted nymphs. The impression I got was that dry fly fishing is preferred, but if there isn't a hatch on, you've got to fish to the conditions. If that means weighted flies with indicators or stripping big streamers through pools, then that is what we are going to do. I used a Tenkara rod about 75% of the time and no one batted an eye, and a couple of guys asked to try it.

Also, both fly shops in Roscoe are staffed by very friendly people. Feel free to give them a call before heading up to see what the fish are biting and where they are holding. I usually go to Beaverkill Angler, but the people at Catskill Flies are just as nice, they just don't carry any Tenkara gear.

A lot of guys have told me that the East Branch of the Delaware is more consistent generally, so I may try that next summer.

[Fenwick]

Kit who is an infrequent poster but frequent LMF fly fisher had the grievous misfortune of being born and raised in the immediate Roscoe environs and suffered the grueling tedium of Catskills fly fishing throughout his youth on all the famed waters as if doing so was as ordinary as taking out the trash. Can you imagine how horrible that must've been? I would guess he is this boards greatest resource on all things Catskills but he prefers to remain in the background.
Take into consideration that the Catskills was the birthplace of American fly fishing. There is an purist-elitist aura about it but it has more to do with history than with money. I experienced an elitist-purist-snob approach myself when my pals took me up there in the mid 70's and to Pennsylvania in the early 80's. I was at their mercy. Back then if you fished the Catskills or south central Pennsylvania limestone streams enough you'd run into the book writing / outdoor magazine column writing fly fishing legends themselves streamside and could name drop in the same similar way you eventually meet we guys streamside at the LMF and my pals loved to rub that in. We were in our teens and 20's then and my pals were armed with multiple 7 ft. 3 and 4 weight bamboo rods and English reels, tied their own flies in match the hatch fashion and bragged often when it was a 12 fish day. High stick nymphing was often done because you could often wade up on top of fish seen unless you spooked them and if you did you had to quit that location right then and there because once spooked they vacated that spot for the day. If dry fly fishing and you launched a lousy cast you'd spook them, no tolerance for sloppiness and you'd have to quit that spot as well and you've ruined it for the day for the next guy. I had my lowly 7 ft. Fenwick Feralite and Pfluger 1494DA (still do!) and got nagged because "glass is crass". We usually nymphed single flies rather than tandem rigs, the usual set up of a nymph 15 or so inches below your split shot, (no Provo bounce rigs) bead head nymphs didn't exist then, no strike indicators at all but others used yarn at times, size 14 flies were normal, muddler minnows were the only streamer flies we carried. In the Catskills a ten inch trout was kinda big, a 12 incher a monster. The Delaware holds the really big rainbows. Not all the rivers are 80 feet wide. The upper reaches of the Neversink are so small you can take three steps across it. I found the Letort in Pennsylvania to be the most merciless technical river of all. You must high stick from the overgrown sticker bush lined banks and carefully weave your tippet through narrow twelve inch wide, twelve inch deep channels of crystal clear water flowing through thick mats of watercress over white limestone where 15 plus inch browns patrol for cress bugs / scuds and terrestrials. The currents and eddies mess with your drift and it is frustrating to see browns you can't get a nymph past correctly. Kinda like Lost Creek was but more difficult. Today the Eldred Preserve is not a trout destination any longer, the Antrim Lodge is closed and the limestone waters in south central Pa. are suffering from farm and industrial runoff. Keep the legendary waters of the Catskills on your bucket list but keep in mind you are not going there for behemoth sized trout.

[dainw]

Fenwick what are your thoughts on the Neversink? I have an aunt that lives in Albany and I think next time we go to visit her I'm bringing my gear and heading down to Roscoe. The Neversink is the one that looks the most intriguing to me, but apparently there are lots of options in that area. Coincidentally, my aunt's ex husband's father was a commercial fly tyer for Orvis and I've heard many stories of family vacations they used to take to the Battenkill.

[Fenwick]

Indeed there are way too many options. I thought the Neversink was the coldest water I ever stepped into, so cold it actually hurt my leg bones and reaching into the water was torture. How much driving do you want to do? If you stick around Roscoe you have multiple choices in close proximity. You might find yourself hitting waters between Roscoe and Phoenicia. Plan your trip for fishing in Sullivan and Ulster counties. The Battenkill, not to be confused with the Beaverkill is a bit northeast from Roscoe and some might say the choicest part of the Battenkill is in Vermont though it flows into NY. Your ventures around Roscoe might find you moving west into the Adirondacks too rather than going northeast but that's up to you. Base yourself around Roscoe and fish the legendary waters. Keep in mind the usual size of the trout there means you won't have to use two hands to hold them up to the camera like you would out west. A 9 ft. 5 wt. is considered overkill and a 7 or 8 ft. 3 or 4 wt. will suffice. Your myriad choices can be limited by rainy weather which turns the rivers there mud brown which pretty much ruins the day, certain stretches are closed depending on the season, other stretches are strictly private and/or strictly regulated. There's so much public water often several minutes drive apart that you'll have to do your homework to plan your trip hopping from one to the next, two hours fishing here and then on to the next over there, or better yet just ring up a fly shop there and get a guide. I've seen online photos and YouTubes of those areas nowadays where placards are in place describing the famous holes and stretches. We didn't have any such thing back then. You just had to know where to go. The only signage you saw back then was tacked on a tree and it said "Posted / Private Property / Keep Out". We'd eat at the mom and pop diners, sometimes we stayed in mom and pop motels, sometimes at the end of the day we just turned off a rural main drag, drove down an anonymous lane into the woods a bit and parked, laid out a ground cloth and slept in our sleeping bags under the stars, no campfire, and were up at the crack of dawn before any property owner took notice. If discovered our excuse would've been that we couldn't see any Keep Out postings in the dark. Roscoe. Bucket List. Yeah. Imagine if we had so many choices in southeastern Oklahoma.

Ya know, you asked about the Neversink but now that I think about it I can't really say one river there is better than another in Sullivan, Ulster or Green county as they are all legendary and all great places to fly fish. Sorta like trying to decide which places in Colorado to go when you have too many to choose.