WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE BUT......

It seemed like a simple plan..Take advantage of the recent heavy rains and spend the weekend on the Beaverkill, Willow and East Branch..The Beaverkill hit 16,000 cfs this past Wed but as always, it dropped like a rock and was running 1200 cfs when I arrived Sat afternoon..The only problem was it looked like chocolate milk..There was alot of damage and erosion on the upper Beaverkill...Rt 206 was closed due to the flooding...The East Branch wasnt much better, so my options were the West Branch or the Willowemoc..The Willow was running high and slightly off color but very fishable...I stopped by a friends house and convinced him to go fishing...We hit the the Willow around 6:30. There was very little bug activity but the fish were hungry and hitting big dries...We both landed a few nice fish and lost quite a few in the heavy water..
The next morning the Beaverkill was still running brown, so I hit the no-kill section on the Willow...Again the fish were cooperative in the heavy water..I was fishing a high floating size 12 attractor with a beadhead Pheasant tail dropper...I missed a few fish in the fast water, and landed a few nice owns before lunch..It was equal between the dry and the nymph but I landed more that were hooked with the nymph...Black Clouds and Lightning chased me off the river, so I took refuge in the Catskill Flyfishing Museum and it was a good choice because I was stuck there for at least a 45 minutes as the skies just opened up...


We were wishing for rain, but this is just too much!


The Museum

Afterwards the Lower Willowemoc was unfishable, all the tribs were dumping liquid mud into the river..I drove upstream in hopes of finding some clear water and once I got above Debruce I found some fishable water...Like the morning, The fish seemed eager to feed and I landed another handful of fish, all small browns, on the tandem dry/nymph rig. At this point the sky was blue and the sun was out but I could still hear thunder in the distance...All of a sudden I noticed the water getting darker and faster. It was like I was fishing a tailwater and someone opened up all the gates..A few minutes later I was standing in thigh deep brown water and wished I had a wading staff...I bailed out and hiked back to the truck....


BEFORE


AFTER


A Trib about 2 hours after the rain

The tribs on the Beaverkill and Willow really took a beaten in last weeks flood, there are piles of stone and debris, some which are 3 feet higher than the main river, at their creek mouths...Be careful when wading, I noticed alot of changes to flows and pools!!


A Willowemoc Brown from the No-KIll


An Upper Willow Brown

The Adirondack's Ausable River

A couple weeks ago I led a trip to the Ausable River in New York's Adirondack Mountains, which is arguably the most scenic river in the East...It is also one of the most diverse with slow, deep pools, riffles, Large waterfalls, fast chutes and heavy treacherous pocket water...Low water and High sun made the conditions challenging. There were no bugs on the water, but we found some fish that were cooperative...Most of the fish were stacked in the deeper pools in the fast pocket water. There were some tricos on the water, and we caught some fish that were sipping early in the morning and at dusk in the slower water...The largest fish landed was a 17inch rainbow and a handful of other bows in the 14-16in range were released, but most of our catch consisted of 9-12in Browns...Only one brook trout was caught...Of course the big one did get away, I was 3 feet from netting a 18-19in brown when he made one last run into some fast water and came off..We lost alot of fish in the faster water and had a few breakoffs and more misses than hook ups (but that can be expected when fishing pocket water)...Besides the fishing, we enjoyed some Lake Placid restaurants and attractions...As always, a great time on an exciting river in a beautiful setting...

Summer has Arrived, So has Opportunity..

I have never bee a "summer" type of guy..I would like to think it is because I am an Eastern trout fisherman and the two don't always mix well...I Love Spring and Fall and enjoy the solitude of Winter. While I do look forward to wearing shorts and backyard BBQs, the trout fisherman must become an opportunist once the rivers drop and the water temps rise...So that is exactly what I have become over the last month, an "opportunist"..When the water temps were too warm for trout fishing I was hitting up some of my local ponds and I wasn't disappointed...The bass and bluegill fishing has been red hot in the evenings. I have been fishing mostly with large simulators, sometimes just adding a twitch and other times stripping in, either way the fish have been all over the flies...As for trout fishing,I took advantage any cool nights and rainy days and would hit the water with fair results.. I have had a few guide trips and while the fishing was slow, we did catch a few nice trout along with a mix of redbreasts, rock bass and smallmouth. But most of the fishing has been early morning or late evening...The morning fishing is my favorite with fish lazily sipping spinners in the deep pools. The fishing hasn't been easy but I have fool a nice one now and then...

Last night a friend and I hit up a private stretch of water on one of the more popular rivers in the state...Typically the trout fishing would have been poor, but what is special about this stretch is that there is a large dam which has created a small Tailwater fishery for a couple hundred yards below the dam. With hot and humid weather all day, there was zero bug activity, but that didnt stop the fish from hitting our flies..We caught and released about dozen wild browns from 6 to 11 inches all on dry flies and didnt even get to the deep pool below the dam...Walking out of the water both of us knew we were lucky to have such good trout fishing on such an evening.. Sometimes it pays to be an opportunist...