West Branch Report

The gauge at Walton was down to 300CFS so the water was looking pretty decent tonight. It was still a little cloudy, but any clearer probably would just make the approaches harder at this point. As the weather has been a bit cooler as well, I was hoping the conditions would be ideal for a good night on the water.

JBP and I didn't get out to the river until after 6pm so we missed the afternoon hatches and surface activity was pretty much non-existent until dusk. I puttered around with a nymphing rig (light cahill dry above a gold-ribbed hare's ear) for a bit, but only managed a couple of chubs on that. Once dusk came on, things started picking up as there was a solid hatch of light cahills in about a size #14 coming off of the riffles.

I managed to land a couple of small browns, one on a mahogany dun and another on a light cahill, in the fast water and had at least one nice fish throw my fly. The prize of the night came at dark when a 17" brown gently slurped my cahill from a current seam leading into a large, slow eddy. At first it swam right towards me and I thought it was a smallish chub, but once it got a look at me, the fight was on. Thanks to JBP for manning the net and helping me land it. You shall have your reward, grilled with Lawry season and bacon!

Catskill Creek

JBP and I played hooky from work and went adventuring in Schoharie County. Without much to go on other than DEC maps, we picked up the Catskill Creek near Preston Hollow and fished it up through Oak Hill. Near Preston Hollow, the creek was tiny and the fishing was mostly pocket water but by Oak Hill it had grown quite a bit and there were more deep runs to explore. The photo above doesn't do justice to a beautiful waterfall that gently cascaded into a long clear run. It was easy to imagine Art Flick pulling brookies from the crystal clear water.

While the water was beautiful and certainly looked "fishy" to me, we didn't have a whole lot of luck on the day. I'm going to blame mid-day sun and my lack of pocket-water experience. I only managed one small mouth on a bucktail streamer on the day. Beautiful country. I'm sure those in the know have lots of luck in their secret holes.

For reference, USGS reported the flow rate down at Catskill, NY at ~285 CFS and the weather was sunny and in the low 80s.

Quill Gordon

Hook: dry fly #12-14

Thread: black 70 denier

Tail: natural dun hackle fibers

Body: stripped peacock herl

Wing: wood duck or mallard flank

Hackle: natural dun

A famous Catskills dry fly pattern straight from Art Flick's Streamside Guide. The first mayfly to show up in the East is the Iron fraudator and is due out on my local streams in a week or so, once the water temps rise a few more degrees. Per Art, look for these guys mid April at around 1:30pm in the warmest part of the day.