Pools

In fly fishing, a pool is not an ordinary section of river. A pool is not an eddy or a pocket, although it may have those within it.

In fly fishing, calling a particular stretch of flowing water a "pool" deems it worthwhile. We name our pools after people who found them, like Barnhart's or Cairn's, or we give them nicknames, like "The Bathtub." We talk about their great trout, that may have once taken us into the backing, or brag that you got to fish the so and so pool, while everybody nods in dumb nostalgia. Pools can become famous legends, names we instantly recognize for their pure fishability.

There are certain stretches of river known as "pools."

And pools can be crowded. In May and June even parking a car near some of the most well known pools is difficult. You pull up and there's already six anglers who've claimed every decent lie and three others on the bank, just watching.

Pools. There's a reason for the fame, of course, and I'm convinced it's because these pools hold lots and lots of hungry trout. The depth is just right and the temperature is just right, and the water has just the right amount of oxygen and the rocks in the riverbed are constantly churned up by anglers, causing the abundant local caddis pupae to jettison into the flow so the bigger fish can lie on the bottom with their mouths open, constantly inhaling food. Drift a larger than necessary weighted nymph over one of these beasts and you can easily entertain nine other anglers who will watch you land it, then immediately ask what you're using. Catching an immense fish in a crowded pool is always a conversation starter.

I have taken, lately, to avoiding these pools. In fact, I have sort of endeavored to find my own pools, which are a little bit off of the road, a little less frequented. Once in a while I'll find another angler wading around in a pool that I consider "mine," and often he is standing right on top of the spot where the trout usually lie, fishing into a hopeless midcurrent. Kind of feel sorry for the dope, but it's too late to give him advice so I just wave and move on to find another "pool."

I have to admit, so far, so good. I've found many. And all I had to do was wander off a bit, away from the same crowds casting to the same fish in the same famous pools, just into the woods a bit, over there, away from the road.

And I have my own nicknames for them; Just Above The Bridge Pool, Corner Pool, Construction Vehicle Parking Lot Pool, Beat 21, Horseshoe Beach, and The Grassy Knoll. Maybe someday I'll tell you where they are.

Amawalk River, August 2008

The reason I fish the Amawalk is not entirely for the fishing opportunities it allows, it's the memories. I grew up there. I spent my teenage summer evenings there, when I should have been drinking cold beer with other high school aged kids. I knew every inch of this stream by the time I reached the ripe age of fifteen. I knew where the fish would go when it was hot out, and I pretty much knew that the Cahills would start hatching on - well, June, in the evening- air warm, water cold. And letting off a foggy steam for dramatic effect. 

I knew back then what I know now, that wading slowly and carefully up the heel of the first bend pool you can find a sixteen inch wild brown, if you toss a grasshopper under the long grass at the bend's elbow, at about seven fifteen in the evening.

Or a nine inch wild brown. Either way, if you're carrying a very small fly rod with a 3 weight line (no more), you can get a real nice fight out of any Amawalk trout, if you're lucky enough to fool one in the first place.

I have a special rod that I use for this stream only. It's a home made job, six feet in length, weights about two ounces, and it casts a whopping 12 feet, max. All you'll ever need for the Amawalk. Especially if your leader is fifteen feet long. When I spool up and change locations I have to wrap the leader all over the reel just to keep it away from hanging up in branches. I like to sneak around in the woods up there.

There are trees everywhere, and weeds grow shoulder high. Especially in August. Care must be taken with each cast, and with each motion you make, or trees, twigs and various unknown gravitational forces will grab hold of your line, your leader and/or your fly and not let go under any circumstances. The quarters are tight.

I've fished the Amawalk in the rain, the snow (one time it snowed two feet on opening day), the hot July afternoons, mornings, evenings, dusk and absolute dark. I've even fished the Amawalk in the middle of winter when parts of it are frozen over. Even though trout season on the Amawalk ends on September 30th.

The biggest fish of the day took a 50/50 nymph, fished just along the far bank above the Wood Street Bridge. And don't think I'm giving away any secrets here, the Amawalk protects itself from amateurs with it's overhanging branches and finicky, reclusive trout. Go ahead, fish the Amawalk, I dare ya. Watch out for the deer ticks.

The Amawalk is a tailwater. The entire flow is made up of the cold, clear water from the bottom of a reservoir, released gently through the wooded hollows that are a small part of the Croton Watershed, and this, without accident, makes up a healthy, thriving habitat of aquatic insects, deer, squirrels, and foxes, mice, owls, hawks, and trout- then supplies drinking water to New York City.

The Amawalk is true fly fishing stream. If you do visit, please practice catch and release.

Ah, the Esopus

Ah, the Esopus. A roller coaster ride of a river from beginning to end. Spring creek, water supply for New York City, temperamental at times- since you are deep in some spots and shallow in others.

Your trout are small and difficult to seek out. You are hard to wade. You are a big river, Esopus, almost in a Western sense, yet no lunker rainbows ever seem to find your rocky strides. What happened?

Coincidentally it rains every time I visit you. It is my calling, it seems, to bring a fresh dousing to the region every time I visit. Thunderstorms and sideways bolts of lightning are not uncommon. Often I've had to flee your banks in dreadful fear of being stuck dead while fishing. And I can think of many fates less glorious!

So like a fool I go back to your mysterious swirling eddies, to try out memories of you against the real thing, and maybe, just maybe catch a nine inch stocked rainbow out of your deeper pools while the sky erupts in a circus above our heads.

Ah, the Esopus.

Smallmouth!

If pork is the other white meat, then Smallmouth Bass are the other trout.

They live in streams, eat aquatic insects, baitfish, bees and crayfish. In other words, they readily take flies and smallmouth bass can be just as much fun to fish for with a fly rod as a trout. And they are powerful swimmers, so they turn out to be ferocious fighters. Even the small ones.

The Wallkill River in Ulster County, NY is full of Smallmouth Bass. The region also suffers from incessant thunderstorms, especially in August. So on this particular outing I had the misfortune to take part in a nature competition, and I was in a distant third place.

The Wallkill is a long, muddy river that sleepily flows throught upstate towns like Walden, Wallkill, Gardiner, and New Paltz. Lots of easy access near old steel bridges that cross as the river zigzags north through a valley cut by a glacier a million years ago, and not a lot of angler competition if you don't mind hiking in a bit. The vegetation along its banks is thick and lush. I have seen river otters, egrets, and great blue herons amongst the Wallkill's overhanging branches and protruding boulders.

And since it was August and I was in upstate New York, there was a bit of rain to contend with. Every time I suited up to go fishing, the sky would fill up with dark clouds, the wind would howl and blow the leaves on trees straight up in the air, lightning would scream sideways throughout the sky and the rain would mercilessly drench anything and everything that was uncovered. Like me. I had no raincoat or hat and I was standing in the middle of a 150 yard wide river waving a stick. Not a good place to be when lightning bolts are present.

In the end I lost out, taking only a few small fish. Like trout fishing, small-mouth fishing is an exercise in patience, and one needs time to seek out the bigger fish. I have a feeling they didn't like the look of the dark clouds either, and we both went running for cover. There is, however, a Native American legend that says once you set eyes on the Wallkill River you will always return to its banks. Even if it rains. I know it's true, too, because I return to Wallkill as often as I can.

Saltwater!

I have now widened my scope, in terms of fly fishing venues, to include the ocean.

I have outfitted myself with an 8 weight rod and reel, a sink tip line, and flies that immitate squid and "bunker." I have read up on all types of salty fishing hot spots in the New York City area, which, as it turns out, outnumber the troutstream fly fishing options innumerably. When it comes to the Atlantic Ocean, the fish catching possibilities seem endless. Unless you don't own a boat, or know anybody who does, which are both true in my case. And as a rule, since I will probably never own a boat,  I fish from shore. Just like in a trout stream.

So I fish from shore, or wade in, up to my waist, and let the waves toss me around. Fighting wind, sand and an ever changing current, I cast into the air and the surf, after Striped Bass, Bluefish, Snapper, or maybe an Albacore or Bonito, all of which apparently inhabit the seas in the New York metro area.

I do not know of these particular fish-facts from personal experience, though, since so far I have not caught any fish out of the damn ocean on a fly. But, being an ocean, it has a tendency to move around a lot, way more than any trout stream. It also attracts a far bigger crowd of humans, so I have caught some things.

Like green stuff. There is a hell of a lot of green stuff floating around in the salt water. Sea weeds. Great big globs of sea weeds that resemble the very crinkly and translucent green cellophane paper that sometimes Christmas gifts are wrapped in. But it's wet, and it's slimy, and it gets caught on everything. Especially the fly that I'm trying to fool the fish with. I don't know of any fish that would go after a smaller fish that was trailing three feet of seaweed behind it. Better yet, sometimes the seaweed even feels like a real fish, but only if it gets caught up in the waves when you hook into a big pile of it. And oh boy, do I feel rather stupid after hooking and carefully playing it like it's a huge Striper (would be my first, want to be careful), only to bring four pounds of slimy ocean vegetation to hand. You can set a world record seaweed catch on almost every cast into the ocean!. Not only that, but it gets wrapped around your leg, too, and if the water's cloudy (which most always is in the NY metro area) you don't know what the hell is swimming around down there. Yikes.

Could be a Jellyfish. Don't want to be on the wrong end of one of these things. Or any end. A throbbing mass of wet, salty, rubber goo with a million stingers. I have not yet hooked directly into one, but it's hard to concentrate on the more sportsmanlike and actual fishes when you have one of these floating by. Every three minutes. They pulsate gently in a hypnotic swim right towards you. The sting is usually a delayed response though, on the ankle or calf. When the pain takes hold, the sneaky bastard is long gone. Never trust a jellyfish.

And finally, there's the people. They're everywhere. Especially if the sun is out, and it's July. Especially if it's a Saturday, and very especially if there's water nearby. And most especially, if it's reachable in under two hours from New York City.

For example, after hiking through dunes and brush to get away from the immense crowds last weekend, I found a beach on Sandy Hook, New Jersey that was nearly deserted. There were two guys fishing with bait off a point formed by some old Air Force structures (Sandy Hook used to be the first line of defense against an air attack on NYC, and consequently there are old radar towers and barracks all over the place- in addition to signs warning of "unexploded ordinance," and what to do if you find some- if you still have your head attached after trying to pick it up), and that was it. No other signs of people, other than some boating and/or personal water-craft activity far away on the horizon. I had my fly rod and I was going to use it. The bait casters had the best spot, but there was plenty of deep water off the rocks. They looked over at my wild cast once in a while, but it didn't seem to matter. They  were catching nothing, too.

I made my way down to a big half moon beach, which was buttressed up against a man made wall of old concrete former road sections, something the military once made, then discarded. The wind was nicely blocked by a small hill. It felt like a set from Apocalypse Now.

Plenty of room on the beach behind me, but I waded out about twelve feet and peeled some line off the reel. Not much green stuff and no jellyfish. I was casting as far as I could, which seemed to be a reasonable distance- I imagined, at least, that there were fish holding just under where my big pink squid fly was landing. I varied my retrieve. It was one of those fly fishing moments where I am certain that a fish will slam into the fly, but maybe on the next cast. I pulled up about twenty feet of line, backcast and let another twenty feet out. Backcast again- then the whole thing STOPPED- midway- as if forty feet behind me I snagged a branch sticking out of the beach. But as I turned around to see what stopped my nearly perfect cast, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something was anxiously moving around...

And then I heard, "oooohaaaaaa!"

She was there with her boyfriend. They must have popped out from behind a bush. The line was pulled tight, directly from her to me, and she was saying, "oh my god, I have a hook in my arm, oh my god."

I dared not move. The boyfriend would have to get wet. He said, "don't pull!" I said, "ok, I'll just stand  here." Lucky for them I did not spend a fortune on good salt water flies. The hook barely made a dent and she pulled it right out. It certainly didn't go past the barb, phew, and she almost seemed to enjoy the experience. The boyfriend even said, "hey, you caught a big one," as they walked off down the beach.

Trout Flies

A modest selection of the better fly patterns that I use to fish for trout.

First up is the Quill Gordon. Tied for the first time a little over a hundred years ago by Theodore Gordon, and often called the "first" dry fly. Proving it's longetivity, I caught some large, native brown trout just last month with this favorite and original Catskills pattern. Caught them out of the Willowemoc, probably in the same pool Mr. Gordon fished with his "Quill" fly in 1898. Tied very sparsely, the Quill Gordon is a rather attractive pattern. Especially to the Brown Trout. It seems to trigger something in them, and they take it aggressively whenever it appears. They always take this fly readily- even though smaller insects, or perhaps different species are hatching. The Quill Gordon. Made of stripped peacock herl for the body, rust to brown hen for the tail and hackles, and mallard duck quill for the wings. The classic way to tie it pitches the wings forward slightly and leaves a bit of hook shank just behind the eye. The hackles can be long, but they must be stiff so the fly will sit just right on the water's surface. Tie it big and you can see it when it's drifting on a far away riffle, after a long cast, just before it disappears, yet again, in the swirl of a trout rise. The fact that the Quill Gordon still works after all these years means to me that the Quill Gordon will work forever, so I always carry bunches of them in my box.

The Henryville Special.

Really just a complex caddis pattern, but like it's buddy in the next flybox compartment, the Quill Gordon, The Henryville Special attracts brown trout during certain weeks of the season like no other fly. This is a little fly that you toss under an overhanging branch- and immediately get the snarling, splashy rise of a real lunker brown. Always small with a duck tent wing, barred and palmered hackle over lime green floss. Looks like a bug, floats like a cork, and brings the big lazy browns out of their deep holding lies in the middle of summer.

Midge Whisps!

This is a new and untested pattern. I got the idea after getting tired of seeing fish rise steadily, especially in the summer, to feed on flies that seemed too small to bother imitating. Midges. Cousin to the mosquito. A swarming, buzzing little insect. Not as handsome as the mayfly, nor as agile as the caddis. But they hatch year round, come in very nuetral shades and trout feed on them all the time. Especially in streams with a lot of, well, angler traffic. This tiny bug is a safe bet. Hard to get a hook this small. The Midge Whisp is tied with only Cul d' Canard (duck rump feathers) and thread. Dub the CDC for the body and splay two clumps of it for the wings. The Midge Whisp will hang in the surface film and blend in with the other swarm of hatching naturals. I think I'll try it tomorrow.

Red Quill

This is also an old Catskills dry fly pattern, probably also invented by Theodore Gordon, but the Red Quill is not quite the same as the Quill Gordon. First of all it must be small. In fact I think that it's traditionally called "The Little Red Quill." Or maybe that's "The Little Blue Quill." Either way, I tie this fly because I usually have lots of reddish, rusty brown and orange colored feathers around, and almost nothing in blue. Besides, the reddish, rusty and yellow ochre shades seem far more natural to me. And this fly works! My favorite Sulfur immitation, when they're hatching small. The body is stripped hen hackle feather, color should be red, rust, ochre, slightly yellowish but never bright or at all khaki or cream. For hackle, use the same hen neck. Also the same for the tail, too. Wings are usually mallard flank, but here I used a dark partridge, which somehow makes it more, well, English.

Speaking of the English,

Here's a book I recommend; "The International Guide to Trout Flies," by Bob Church. This is an old edition, but I think it's still in print. Lots of shaggy wets and loosely tied dries by very English tyers, methods explained and stories told. Great color pictures of all types of flies tied, all in the British dressing style. Elegant, historic and purposeful. An excellent read if you have tying trout flies on the brain and need some inspiration.

Tough day in the Catskills

This is it.

This is where it all began for our great nation of fly fishers, and this is where it began for me. The Beaverkill River weighs heavily on my heart, and every turn of it reminds me of my youth. Fondest memories begin at the cabins way out past Horton, where once upon a time on a family vacation I first witnessed an angler fishing with a fly rod and reel. 

He was waist deep in a rapid, casting across and down toward a wall of rocks on the far bank. His line looked like thick day-glo orange yarn and it didn't seem to be attached to anything. Not anything that resembled my clumsy spinning reel. There was no obvious machinery to what he was doing. No clear indication that his actions, or his  intentions, had just a simple hook attached. It was a whispy back and forth motion followed by total concentration. And he was pulling rainbows out, one after another after another. And then tossing them to the near bank, which was sand and smooth rocks, for his wife to collect and toss into their creel. It was the year 

nineteen hundred and eighty five and I was thirteen years old.

Now I visit this very special place as often as I can, in part for the legend that it seems to uphold, trout season after trout season, and in equal part for my own reasons. And also it holds some of the most wary, hungry and famously beautiful, perfectly adorned, and strong trout that I have ever seen.

So on a recent and rather warm spring day I set out on the two-hours-and-ten-minutes drive from New York City to Roscoe, just to see if anything was happening. To my satisfaction nothing was. Even the fish were laying low, probably just as afraid of the warmish water temperature as I was of the gas prices in Liberty. Despite this a steady hatch of Stoneflies was on, thought it did not

do a thing for the trout's spirits. I did get a tug on a large and weighted hairball of a nymph right away, but I couldn't possibly call it an official take because the line was just hanging loosely in the water as I pondered the the meager contents of the Stonefly box. It was a long day. I started fishing just after the top side of eleven in the morning and at four 

in the afternoon I reeked of desperation. I was driving from pool to pool with my waders and vest still on, looking like a very weird man frantically seeking an inch of my own water. The downside to the Beaverkill is that it sometimes draws a crowd. And I didn't want to have an audience that particular day. I drove downstream, passing on the Horton Bridge pool (very big audience) and finally settled way downstream, where the water opens up nice. Long flat sections followed by skinny sections of fast water that hold the strong swimmers.

I plugged away for a while with absolutely no luck at all. I experimented with hoppers, streamers, wets, dries, big and small (some real big, thinking I would just aggravate a trout so much it might strike) but despite

the clarity of the water there was not a trout to be seen. I consoled myself by insisting that this outing was for practice and that next time I would have it down pat.

But you know, I couldn't give up. I got in the car with waders and vest still on, and headed south to the Willowemoc. Which under the circumstances felt very much like

approaching a supermodel in a SoHo bar. Very dangerous to the humility. The Willowemoc can crush your spirits after a good day on the Beaverkill. After a bad day it can send you into

to a downward spiral of obsessive fly tying. But I knew a good spot and I felt like it was about time I landed a Catskill trout. I knew they were in there, somewhere. So I pulled into the little streamside lot, squeezed my car in between two others and said hi to a traveller who had just pulled off the highway for a nap. All the way from Ohio he drove, and damned if he wasn't tired. He knew nothing about fly 

fishing and he didn't care where he was. But he was polite enough to ask how the fishing was going, and just as polite when I complained for ten minutes straight about the lack of any visible insect activity and just what size nymph might work at which depth. He rolled up his window and I got to the river. And, as planned, someone was standing knee deep in the pool I was aiming for. And he was fighting a trout. It was around five thirty and I figured if I got back in the car and did seventy three miles an hour on route 17 I could be back by nine o'clock. 

Maybe the Yankees  would be on the radio.

I stopped at the dirt lot just

south of the Catskill Fly Fishing Center to see what was going on. There were four anglers just under the little suspension bridge that leads to the Center's grounds. The water was running narrow but it was breathing in perfect rhythm. This was textbook trout water. Then all at once there was a fish at the surface, and then another. I zipped instantly back to the car and fiddled for the vest and the rod. Good thing it was lazily disassembled! Then, for the first time that day, I had a section of water to myself. And suddenly there were clouds of Sulfurs in the air- the big ones! They were everywhere and the trout were feeding madly in every nook and cranny. Sadly, I had nothing resembling a big Sulfur in the dry fly boxes. In fact I had nothing but tiny gnats, olives, caddis, little size 22 things that always catch trout closer to home, nymphs (boring), and I tried every wet, dry, midge, suspender emerger spider, giant streamers (sometimes works on rainbows and steelhead), attractor, badly tied parachutes and you name it until the sun was nearly gone.

It was almost dark and goddamit and I hadn't landed a trout all day. And gas is $4.45 a gallon.

And then I remembered where I was standing. Fifty yards from the Catskill Fly Fishing Center, right in the backyard of Theodore Gordon, Lee and Joan Wulff, where the dry fly was once invented, then perfected. The place where everything I have ever held dearly on Earth was baptized, born and raised. I decided it was time to suffer my penance, and after a few minutes searching through boxes of flies in the vest, I found a few Quill Gordons from a few seasons ago. I chose the most elegant of the bunch, tied it on and set it down gently on a tailing riffle. As it disappeared within the upwards splash of a perfect rise I managed to say, "thanks," and landed an eighteen inch Brown Trout under the bluish light that seems to only exist beneath the shadows of a Catskill mountain at dusk.