Fishing report July 13

Streamside art, pt. 17. I don't wish to be disrespectful of our spinning and bait-casting brothers, but I can't help noticing that they tend to leave shit on the stream bank. Esopus, above Portal.

Crazy brookie, Woodland Valley. Chased a hopper, changed his mind, and just as impulsively decided to nail the tung head Prince I had on a dropper.

The Serpent... Another in my series of herpetological false alarms. Esopus Creek.

...and the Rainbow. This view tends to produce good photos. Woodland Valley.

Just when you thought you'd seen it all, the fishing selfie.

Streamside art, pt. 18. A radiator sits in silent rebuke. 

Lots of water in Woodland Valley for July.

Brookies, carp, slow days

Finally started getting the hang of the stocked brook trout in Woodland Valley.

Got this bad boy to take an isonychia nymph, which I had on a five foot dropper. I have never used a dropper that long.

As I was catching this fish, I noticed this other, larger fish hanging around and watching. Very untrout-like behavior.

Found out later that's because it wasn't a trout. It had died, somehow, and was belly up in the same pool that evening. When I fished it out, I saw this big yellow nasty-looking thing. Carp? Sucker? Klingon salmon? Beats me. I chucked it in the woods for the critters, who probably won't touch it either.

Meanwhile, back in Connecticut on the Blackberry, a cool, overcast day did not result in joyful trout leaping at anything. I had to work at it.

 In this case, a soaked Royal Wulff dry fly, bounced off this glowing green rock, coaxed this fat brown into action.

Esopus not dead

As I was stowing away the tweed jackets in the former second bedroom in the cabin (now my off-season closet), I noticed a yellowing copy of the Phoenicia Times from around Memorial Day weekend of 2009.

Headline — "The Esopus is Dying"

It was about the discovery of didymo, more commonly known as "rock snot," in the river. (My editor loves "rock snot.")

It was there, all right. It was serious enough to jolt Sen. Charles Schumer out of his lair in Washington, D.C. to come to Boiceville to make a speech, something he is very good at. Nothing useful ever happens as a result, but boy, when you wind Chuck up, you get some speech.

In the normal course of events, the senator couldn't find the Esopus with both hands and a flashlight.

Anyhoo, the Portal discharges have been negligible this spring, and surprise, surprise — the river's in the best shape we've seen in ages.

Considerable work was done on Stony Clove Creek as well, which has to make a difference. Maybe Woodland Valley's next?

So on Thursday, May 29, I got tired catching robust but small browns, and the occasional silver bullet rainbow in the riffles, and headed upstream about a quarter of a mile from where the Woodland brook empties into the Esopus, at Herdman Road.

There were more goofy browns snapping at pretty much anything on the surface, but I clambered up to the big rocks that mark some deep runs and pockets and dunked a big nymph in — sort of a Prince, with some Mylar in the wing.

I don't know what the pattern is called, but I call it "The Fly of Death."

This is highly enjoyable fishing, when you cast over a boulder and then stand on tippy-toe to see what the hell is happening on the other side. Memo to indicator fishermen — they don't work very well when you can't see them.

I was rewarded with a nice fat brown in the 16 inch department that tore around, dove, and otherwise resisted my perfectly reasonable efforts to bring him in, get him in a net, photograph him, and then return him to the depths.

Sorry, that's terribly sexist. He or she to the depths.

I got another one of similar tonnage before it got too dark to see. Plus this spot is about where I broke my wrist 10 years ago, which required surgery. Every trip there brings back painful memories.

It got better the next morning. I arose at the crack of dawn, only to dive immediately back under the covers faster than a brown trout who has just been fooled by the Fly of Death. The temperature had fallen to 45 degrees overnight, and while I am a dedicated angler, there are limits to the dedication.

At the civilized hour of 9:30 a.m., therefore, adequately caffeinated and waffled (and baconed), I returned to the Herdman boulders, and this time the Fly of Death produced an honest-to-God big jumping leaping dancing rainbow trout of the sort that is supposed to be mostly gone from the Esopus.

Now, my arm measures 17 inches from the tip of the outstretched middle (or business) finger to the crook of the elbow, and this fish extended at least three inches beyond that. It was not easy to get a bead on him (or her), because he (or she) was very wriggly, and because there was no place to stand, and because I was trying to remove the FOD and return the magnificent fish to the water.

And between the giant landing net and the wide-angle lens, even the most monstrous fish looks, in my photos, like some lackluster hatchery specimen of medium size, the sort of trout that would just as soon eat garlic cheese or Del Monte brand canned corn on a treble hook as a cunningly presented Fly of Death.

So the Esopus is not dead. But the Phoenicia Times is.

The rail line to nowhere. You'd almost think it was a federal project, perhaps championed by Sen. Charles Schumer. But no. This is flood damage.

My big rainbow. I already explained about the wide-angle lens and the giant net.

One of my favorite sights — trout hang around waiting to see what will float down from those rivulets. Kind of like the Automat for fish.

The Fly of Death

The Giant Net

Furnace Brook Clears Quickly

May 22 — Woke up to grey skies and rain in the official Daily Wild Guess from the National Weather Service.

The Housatonic was still a little high for my wading tastes, so I went to Furnace Brook along Route 4 in Cornwall. This is a small stream, sometimes squirrelly, sometimes fairly open. It's lovely water and holds a surprising number of trout.

It has one big disadvantage — it is right along Route 4. There is nothing like casting to a trout with the roar of traffic in your ear.

Naturally, no sooner did I arrive than the skies opened and it rained hard for about 20 minutes. I watched as the stream rose and became discolored.

"OK," sez I. "Let us put on something big and hairy and continue in the muddy water."

Which I did.

But what was interesting to me was that the stream cleared out almost as quickly as it became discolored. An hour later, you wouldn't know it rained from the water.

I finally got someone to take a Copper John in this deepish run at the second of two pulloffs with picnic tables along Route 4.

Then the LSD kicked in.

Woodland Valley pre-stocking report 2014 (part one)

I made a flying visit May 7-8 and fished the brook from Botchford/Gillespie pool to Nakamotos. Flow per USGS was 57 cfs, which is a nice level. Didn't see a lot of fish, but took on nice holdover brown on a Prince from the run immediately above the BG pool (second photo).

First photo BG pool. 2 — Immediately above BG pool. 3 and 4 — Riffles and pockets between BG and Nakamoto. 4. Pool as you approach Nakamoto. 5. Nakamoto home in distance; stream stubbornly making its way back to the road.

I hope to finish the assessment next week.

Vacation fishing report Sept. 2013

I was off the last week of September, and beat it to the cozy confines of Pantherkill Road, Phoenicia, N.Y.

An extended dry spell continued through the week. Many smaller streams, including the Woodland Valley creek, were so low it wasn't worth the trouble.

On the plus side, Shandaken Tunnel releases into the Esopus, while still cruddy, weren't as bad, and the flow was low.

This meant that around Boiceville the river was about as clear as it gets in these lax, post-modern times.

So I concentrated on the Cold Spring Road section of the Esopus, with side trips to the Rondout and Neversink, and Chichester Creek.

The latter was fun. I rediscovered an unusual formation, where the stream runs through a narrow cleft in the rock before emptying out into a pool that has a launching pad on the left bank for anglers — bare flat rock several feet above the stream.

Access to the Roundout is via some very well-developed New York state campsites, and on one evening there was a whole herd of people with New Jersey license plates at one spot, presumably indulging in devilries that require privacy.

The creek was low but fishable, and has a good population of native brook trout.

I also fished Trout Creek, which runs right into the Roundout Reservoir and is one of those mossy dark cool streams with surprisingly deep holes carved into the rock where big reservoir fish should be spawning.

But all I got there were a couple of smallmouth bass.

The Neversink was also low, but this is private water that includes the actual Junction Pool of the two branches, which I have permission to fish. And it was a beautiful day. So there.

One night I saw a fellow just starting as dusk approached. He was carrying a fly rod and a small spnning rod, and a giant contraption, about 12 feet tall, made of PVC tubing with a net sticking out the top.

This was Ernie the Night Fisherman. He is allergic to photographs.

He starts fishing when others are packing it in. He throws big streamers and nymphs out, catches big fish, uses his homemade wading staff/net (he calls it "The Lifesaver") and avoids bears.

"How late do you stay out?" I asked.

"Oh, when it's cold like this, I go back early, say one o'clock."

This was at 7 p.m., already dark and getting downright chilly.

What about the bears? he was asked.

"I had one tracking me one night," he said. "I just got out in the river. He went away eventually."

Junction Pool, Neversink. Doesn't look like much at this low flow.

Esopus Creek at Boiceville. Look, green water! Not brown!

Trout Creek, where I caught bass.

Stonefly shuck, Esopus. Stoneflies, isonychia, caddis and itty-bitty olives were the winning flies this trip.

Shot from the Launching Pad, Chichester Creek

This chute is about three feet deep, maybe more, and if you drop a big heavy fly in there you will be rewarded.

A man throwing some nymphs around upstream of Five Arches Bridge, Esopus Creek, Boiceville.

Typical Esopus wild rainbow, aka "silver bullet." There are zillions of them in the river and they fight like fish four times their size. Well, three times. 

My friends the deer. Every morning I shook the branches of the apple trees so they could chow down.

Roundout brookie

Yrs. truly,  Roundout Creek

A bigger Roundout brookie

It was nice to have water not the color of Yoo-Hoo in the Esopus.

Trout Creek

Trout Creek where it enters Roundout Reservoir.

Last night of vacation, Esopus Creek, four fish in the bag after a week of catch-and-release.

Bash Bish and Housatonic Sept. 2013

Fished the brook above Bash Bish Falls in Massachusetts the other day. I was expecting feisty little brookies; I found feisty little browns. I fished downstream with a nine foot rod; it's pretty open but next time I will use a shorter rod. The trout came to soft hackle wets on the swing, isonychia nymphs, and Royal Wulffs used as a top fly. In fact, I don't think it mattered much; the key was keeping low as the water is gin clear.

I worked down to the top of the falls — the water disappears into a nice-looking gorge which I am certain holds some good fish. However, short of rappelling or a helicopter (or a James Bond jet pack) I don't see any way of getting down there. I didn't even want to get close enough for a good photo — it's a long drop.

This evening on the Housatonic I worked a stretch of pocket water that's to the side of an extended riffle. The water's about three or four feet deep, maybe a little more, at a medium flow of about 540 cfs.

Big browns took Light Cahills, isonychia duns and spinners, Stimulators and Light Cahill wet flies. And they all got away, except for one.

The gorge at Bash Bish. It's hard to tell from this angle but I'd guess that water down there is a good hundred-foot drop. I wasn't willing to get any closer.

A run just upstream of the start of the gorge

This Housy brown took an iso spinner

Smallmouth City, or Where Did the Trout Go?

The largemouth bass fishing on Mt. Riga hasn't been very good this year, in part because the lake was drained down in May to allow work on the dam.

So my usual summer m.o. of floating around the lake with the transistor radio, listening to baseball and hauling in lunkers, has not been as much fun.

The Housatonic River, one of the weirdest waterways in my experience, is a premiere smallmouth bass fishery in the dog days of summer, when water temperatures get up in the 70s and the trout go on what must be the worst vacation ever.

Forced to choose between breathing and eating, they opt for the former, and hunker down during the daylight hours. I suppose you might get somewhere trout fishing in the Housatonic at 3 a.m., but somehow that prospect doesn't appeal to me.

So this year I have been targeting smallmouth bass on the big river, and after a few false starts I have been moderately successful.

Dead-drifting a streamer the same way you would a nymph is a winning tactic, as is a more traditional chuck-it-and-chance-it approach with streamers, poppers and big nymphs.

The smallmouth have a definite attitude, and are not nearly as gullible as their largemouth cousins.

Now that the evenings are cooler, and the water temperatures have dropped, toward evening some trout are back in the mix.

Tonight I fished at The Elms, which sounds like a Borscht Belt resort but in fact refers to a section of the river, accessible from both sides, where there are — get this — elm trees.

The first couple of hours, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. or so, were marginal. A handful of small smallies came to the net, lured by the isonychia nymph.

Trout like it too. As it began to get dark a rainbow took the nymph. I could tell it was still tired from vacation, because it made only desultory attempts to escape and, when netted, gave me a "death where is thy sting?" sort of look.

But about 7 p.m. all hell broke loose, when a dark mayfly began hatching in prolific numbers. I saw this the previous evening, and didn't have anything like it in the fly box except for a bedraggled Adams, which worked after a fashion.

Tonight, however, I was prepared with blue wing olives.

I got one chub (annoying), two more rainbows of respectable size, and probably 15 smallmouth or increasing size until it got too dark to see and the rain that had been threatening all day finally erupted.

A good night by any measure.

Smallmouth taken Sunday at the Garbage Hole, on a Little Rainbow Trout streamer 

Rainbow taken Monday night at The Elms, which does not take reservations

Man taking a phone call Sunday at The Elms. He kept casting. "Yes, dear. What, dear? Certainly, dear." Wrong on many levels.

These tubers at the Garbage Hole Sunday were traditionalists. They had a tube dedicated to the beer cooler.

The view upstream Sunday from the Garbage Hole to the covered bridge in West Cornwall