The Ausable River

I ran a group trip to the Adirondacks a few weeks ago...I teamed up with Rich Garfield ( http://www.flyfishtheadirondacks.com ), and we split the group...We fished the West Branch of the Ausable and while the hatches were sparse the fishing was good...There was sporadic hatches of Golden Stones, ISOs and caddis...We caught lots of fish but most were in the 9-12 inch range...No big boys netted in the 3 days but we managed to land some nice ones up to 17inches...Mostly browns with the occasional rainbow and brookie...If we had one hot fly it was either a yellow stone fly nymph or the Ausable Ugly but we caught them on Stimulators, wulffs, Beadheads, Caddis and the Motherbiter...Basically anything we threw at them that was presented well....

While I believe the Delaware system is by far the best fishery in the East, I dont know if there is a more scenic river than the Ausable....Some pics from the trip....( My horrible pictures can never really show the beauty of this river, it must be experienced)

On a sad note...we stopped by Fran Betters shop...All I can say is that it is very sad to see Fran in this condition...I would rather remember him 25 years ago when I stopped in his shop and he handed me my first Ausable Wulff and full of advice for a young fly fisherman...