Esopus Creek, Memorial Day weekend

Some nice fishing over the weekend, only slightly marred by a large number of nitwits. But they are easily outwalked.

This stretch features flood control rip-rap on the near bank, and a deep channel that holds a lot of nice fish.

And the streambed has changed somewhat, creating this excellent rocky spit and a long, ankle-high shallow. The trout like to hang around the periphery of where the water comes down through the shallow riffle and enters the channel — lots of food gets churned up and the broken water provides some cover from predators.

Here are a couple of guys making classic mistakes — standing next to each other, for starters, and concentrating on the long slow pool instead of the trickier riffles and runs. The slow pool is fun but it's not really where the action is, plus a DEC guy told me the state had poured a truckload of silly little brown trout in that exact spot Friday morning.

I caught a dozen respectable trout, including a rainbow that clocked in at about 16 inches. On the famous soft-hackle wet fly, no less.

Another hazard of fishing the Esopus in fine weather is the Rubber Hatch. I am in favor of anything that brings employment to this hardscrabble region, but it's a little annoying when a group of tubists flounder right over a rising fish.