rford
Less Than Beeko
Fear, Loathing and Trout – 10 Days Fly Fishing in New York State
Part 1
Two weeks ago on Friday the 13th, I set out from New Jersey on a vision quest to fish 3 rivers systems in New York State in pursuit of my spirit guide “Salmo Trutta”. My itinerary had been set by book ended trips, beginning with 3 days at the Ausable River on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and ending with 4 days, Thursday – Sunday on the Upper Delaware system with the 3 days in the middle left to the fish gods.
Friday morning at 8 am I arrived in Warrensburg NY to pick up my cousin Tim (aka Green Butted Skunk). Warrensburg is northwest of Lake George village, and the kind of town where PETA bumper stickers can land you in the jail over night with Otis, and you’re lucky to get off with a warning with a TU sticker. We had breakfast at Potters Diner, where everyone knows your name, and if they don’t, well just back out slowly. The walls of diner are adorned with more mounts of 18 inch and up brook trout than I think are allocated to all New Jersey. There is one mount that has 6 brookies on a stringer; needless to say, the Taxidermist is also the mayor. After a great breakfast my cousin Tim wished his family well and we continued north.
The hard part of a trip like this is trying to stick to the plan. We were on a mission, to scout out the water on Ausable River before Saturdays “Two Man, Two Fly “competition. Yes, we were on our way to start carving out a name for ourselves as viable, competent fly fisherman, and we had decided to start our careers by entering this competition, with the grueling qualifications it would be tough, but we both managed to cough up fifty bucks as an entry fee and voila, we had qualified.
The two hour drive from Warrensburg was brutal, we drove by the Schroon River, and we made it by the turn off for the Indian River and the Hudson Gorge. We had a moment of weakness on one of the many back roads that was tandem with a beautiful stream and tried our hand briefly at some brookies with no luck, but we persevered and continued on.
The East Branch of the Ausable was almost too much to bear, but we made it, and by 12 pm found ourselves in the parking lot of the Hungry Trout on the banks of the West Branch of the Ausable.
We were greeted at the front desk by Jerry Bottcher the owner. Jerry is a great guy, this was my first stay at the Hungry Trout, and Tim’s second. He made us feel like we had been his guests a hundred times before and spoke in a manner that instantly ingratiated us as old friends. As we unloaded our gear into the room, I heard a voice calling me over to a car parked outside our room with two gentleman in it. One of the men made a request, to take a picture of my hat (a cheapy felt stetsonesque, with barley a spot not covered with flies.) The gentleman introduced himself, Jay “Fishy” Fullam. He was to be the key note speaker at the banquet and put on a fly tying demonstration at Steinhoffs Sportsman Inn, just downstream a couple of miles from the Hungry Trout, and the HQ for the tournaments activities. He was accompanied by a gentleman whose name escapes me, but was a guide with the Hungry Trout, and served as the master of ceremonies for the event. One of the other guides was red headed women whose name also escapes me, but we all have seen her picture in several of the trade magazines (not the Hardy Girl). We were amongst fame and infamy, the stars were aligned, it was time to go survey the river, forge a plan and perhaps do a little fishing.
It was about 2 pm now; we were geared up and headed out. We drove down to the Dam at Wilmington, and made our way all the way back up stream to the intersection of the river and Rt 86 just above Kraus flats (this was the stretch that the contest was restricted to, about 10 miles) We fished intermittently, to no avail, and did not see a rise anywhere, and upon questioning some locals did not hear anything that was that promising as to current hatches or even that much info as to what was happening below the surface. The contest was to be restricted to fishing from 7am to 5 pm the next day, and it was now 5pm Friday and we had learned nothing. While heading back downstream towards the lodge we stopped at Basset Flats, a spot we saw some fishing rising the year before ( and Tim had taken a nice 18 inch rainbow) on a less pressured trip. We waded in, positioned ourselves just as we had last year, and within 10 minutes, both had rising fish around us, and scattered Hendrickson’s flying about. Being amply supplied with comparaduns on my hat from last week’s trip to the Delaware, I promptly put on a size 14 emerger. On my first cast to working riser off a boulder on the bank I was rewarded with much more than I expected. After 10 minutes and deep concern that my 6x tippet would give, my partner netted and measured a beautiful 21 inch male brown. As I positioned my self for a picture with my beast, I pulled a spastic maneuver and of course you know the rest of the story, I have a great picture of myself empty handed. Shortly there after, Tim landed an 18 inch rainbow on a coachman dry.
What was now certain, we had jinxed ourselves for the contest. That night we met many a fine angler in the pub at the Hungry Trout. Our confidence was fading, there was a team of Orvis guides, Mark the Canadian who drove 6 hours from Toronto and was fishing for a charity in support of Krone’s disease, a couple of 10 year old boys who tied there own fly’s…how for the love of god could two schmucks like us have a chance, those kids looked mean, fierce I say!
The next morning at registration we were given score cards. No fish under 12 inch’s would count. And the contest had two categories (total inches and largest fish) and 4 divisions, Pro, Amateur, Kids and Women’s. Any fly broken off would be counted as a lost fly regardless if you could still retrieve it from a tree, rock or fish. We choose our flies with complete and udder panic. After catching two beautiful fish yesterday on dry flies, I choose a size 4 black conehead zuddler minnow and a size 8 conehead marabou muddler. Tim choose a nymph off my hat that looked like it had been stuck to the bottom of my wading boots for a year and was derivative of nothing and a light cahillish dry fly. The years of abuse we had both put on our grey matter was clearly catching up to us.
The trumpets were sounded at 7 am and the brigade of 50 teams took off. We arrived at a spot we named the beach by 7:15, a huge crevice between rock ledges with a sandy area that looks like a beach when the water is low and a very deep plunge pool.
At 7: 45 am I landed my first brown trout, 11 ¾ inches. Drats! For the next hour I had 20 short strikes and Tim’s dumpster nymph was tapped a couple of times.
By 10:00 am we arrived at our next spot. I had paired back to my smaller muddler at this point and landed a 12 ¼ inch brown, we were in the game.
At 10:45 the dumpster nymph found its demise in a tree over Tim’s head.
It was now 12:00 pm we had hiked downstream of the bridge at the entrance to Whiteface mountain. We found a great pool at the end of a long elevation drop in the river. Shortly after arriving I was rewarded with another 11 inch trout on my 4 inch Zuddler that I had put back on. The next cast I found my self reeling in a line with no Zuddler on it. No snag, no giant fish just gone. (Note to self…re tie after each fish).
By this point Tim had modified his bizarre dry fly to nymph status. After several high sticks through the same hole, finally a hook up, He is on. He is broken off! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Its is now 1 pm. We have one fly left, my marabou muddler. We head up to Monument Falls and decide to run my streamer through the slow pool above it. After several attempts of basically chucking and hoping in a pool that had me on my toes and water up to my wader’s label, I decided to reel in and give up this hole as too difficult and move on. Of course as I am reeling in, SLAM a huge brown rolls my streamer, but eludes the hook. I decided this was it, due or die. After casting , stripping , mending, walking the dog for an another half hour the Gods decided to spare me, finally I hooked an un movable rock. Unreachable by wading, un snagable by finesse. I put everything I had on her and in an instant the misery was over in this beautiful snapping sound. We were free again. Free to unleash all our fly’s and fish, just fish for fun.
Neither of us caught another fish that day.
Mark from Canada came in second, over 100 inches of fish, on an emerger fished in the seams. The two kids came in first and second in the kids division, as did the two women in the women’s division. The Orvis guys got skunked.
The next day Mark from Canada, showed us where he caught most of the fish, and we each caught a couple on dries (blue quills and snowshoe emergers).
By noon Sunday we had to hit the road. Tim needed to get back to Warrensburg to get ready to fly out for a business trip; I needed to continue on my trip. I dropped Tim off at about 2:30 pm, and headed west on RT 28. My next stop would be a meeting with Steve (aka Serotonin) a fella I met on the Fly fishing blog I frequent.
To be continued…
Part 1
Two weeks ago on Friday the 13th, I set out from New Jersey on a vision quest to fish 3 rivers systems in New York State in pursuit of my spirit guide “Salmo Trutta”. My itinerary had been set by book ended trips, beginning with 3 days at the Ausable River on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and ending with 4 days, Thursday – Sunday on the Upper Delaware system with the 3 days in the middle left to the fish gods.
Friday morning at 8 am I arrived in Warrensburg NY to pick up my cousin Tim (aka Green Butted Skunk). Warrensburg is northwest of Lake George village, and the kind of town where PETA bumper stickers can land you in the jail over night with Otis, and you’re lucky to get off with a warning with a TU sticker. We had breakfast at Potters Diner, where everyone knows your name, and if they don’t, well just back out slowly. The walls of diner are adorned with more mounts of 18 inch and up brook trout than I think are allocated to all New Jersey. There is one mount that has 6 brookies on a stringer; needless to say, the Taxidermist is also the mayor. After a great breakfast my cousin Tim wished his family well and we continued north.
The hard part of a trip like this is trying to stick to the plan. We were on a mission, to scout out the water on Ausable River before Saturdays “Two Man, Two Fly “competition. Yes, we were on our way to start carving out a name for ourselves as viable, competent fly fisherman, and we had decided to start our careers by entering this competition, with the grueling qualifications it would be tough, but we both managed to cough up fifty bucks as an entry fee and voila, we had qualified.
The two hour drive from Warrensburg was brutal, we drove by the Schroon River, and we made it by the turn off for the Indian River and the Hudson Gorge. We had a moment of weakness on one of the many back roads that was tandem with a beautiful stream and tried our hand briefly at some brookies with no luck, but we persevered and continued on.
The East Branch of the Ausable was almost too much to bear, but we made it, and by 12 pm found ourselves in the parking lot of the Hungry Trout on the banks of the West Branch of the Ausable.
We were greeted at the front desk by Jerry Bottcher the owner. Jerry is a great guy, this was my first stay at the Hungry Trout, and Tim’s second. He made us feel like we had been his guests a hundred times before and spoke in a manner that instantly ingratiated us as old friends. As we unloaded our gear into the room, I heard a voice calling me over to a car parked outside our room with two gentleman in it. One of the men made a request, to take a picture of my hat (a cheapy felt stetsonesque, with barley a spot not covered with flies.) The gentleman introduced himself, Jay “Fishy” Fullam. He was to be the key note speaker at the banquet and put on a fly tying demonstration at Steinhoffs Sportsman Inn, just downstream a couple of miles from the Hungry Trout, and the HQ for the tournaments activities. He was accompanied by a gentleman whose name escapes me, but was a guide with the Hungry Trout, and served as the master of ceremonies for the event. One of the other guides was red headed women whose name also escapes me, but we all have seen her picture in several of the trade magazines (not the Hardy Girl). We were amongst fame and infamy, the stars were aligned, it was time to go survey the river, forge a plan and perhaps do a little fishing.
It was about 2 pm now; we were geared up and headed out. We drove down to the Dam at Wilmington, and made our way all the way back up stream to the intersection of the river and Rt 86 just above Kraus flats (this was the stretch that the contest was restricted to, about 10 miles) We fished intermittently, to no avail, and did not see a rise anywhere, and upon questioning some locals did not hear anything that was that promising as to current hatches or even that much info as to what was happening below the surface. The contest was to be restricted to fishing from 7am to 5 pm the next day, and it was now 5pm Friday and we had learned nothing. While heading back downstream towards the lodge we stopped at Basset Flats, a spot we saw some fishing rising the year before ( and Tim had taken a nice 18 inch rainbow) on a less pressured trip. We waded in, positioned ourselves just as we had last year, and within 10 minutes, both had rising fish around us, and scattered Hendrickson’s flying about. Being amply supplied with comparaduns on my hat from last week’s trip to the Delaware, I promptly put on a size 14 emerger. On my first cast to working riser off a boulder on the bank I was rewarded with much more than I expected. After 10 minutes and deep concern that my 6x tippet would give, my partner netted and measured a beautiful 21 inch male brown. As I positioned my self for a picture with my beast, I pulled a spastic maneuver and of course you know the rest of the story, I have a great picture of myself empty handed. Shortly there after, Tim landed an 18 inch rainbow on a coachman dry.
What was now certain, we had jinxed ourselves for the contest. That night we met many a fine angler in the pub at the Hungry Trout. Our confidence was fading, there was a team of Orvis guides, Mark the Canadian who drove 6 hours from Toronto and was fishing for a charity in support of Krone’s disease, a couple of 10 year old boys who tied there own fly’s…how for the love of god could two schmucks like us have a chance, those kids looked mean, fierce I say!
The next morning at registration we were given score cards. No fish under 12 inch’s would count. And the contest had two categories (total inches and largest fish) and 4 divisions, Pro, Amateur, Kids and Women’s. Any fly broken off would be counted as a lost fly regardless if you could still retrieve it from a tree, rock or fish. We choose our flies with complete and udder panic. After catching two beautiful fish yesterday on dry flies, I choose a size 4 black conehead zuddler minnow and a size 8 conehead marabou muddler. Tim choose a nymph off my hat that looked like it had been stuck to the bottom of my wading boots for a year and was derivative of nothing and a light cahillish dry fly. The years of abuse we had both put on our grey matter was clearly catching up to us.
The trumpets were sounded at 7 am and the brigade of 50 teams took off. We arrived at a spot we named the beach by 7:15, a huge crevice between rock ledges with a sandy area that looks like a beach when the water is low and a very deep plunge pool.
At 7: 45 am I landed my first brown trout, 11 ¾ inches. Drats! For the next hour I had 20 short strikes and Tim’s dumpster nymph was tapped a couple of times.
By 10:00 am we arrived at our next spot. I had paired back to my smaller muddler at this point and landed a 12 ¼ inch brown, we were in the game.
At 10:45 the dumpster nymph found its demise in a tree over Tim’s head.
It was now 12:00 pm we had hiked downstream of the bridge at the entrance to Whiteface mountain. We found a great pool at the end of a long elevation drop in the river. Shortly after arriving I was rewarded with another 11 inch trout on my 4 inch Zuddler that I had put back on. The next cast I found my self reeling in a line with no Zuddler on it. No snag, no giant fish just gone. (Note to self…re tie after each fish).
By this point Tim had modified his bizarre dry fly to nymph status. After several high sticks through the same hole, finally a hook up, He is on. He is broken off! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Its is now 1 pm. We have one fly left, my marabou muddler. We head up to Monument Falls and decide to run my streamer through the slow pool above it. After several attempts of basically chucking and hoping in a pool that had me on my toes and water up to my wader’s label, I decided to reel in and give up this hole as too difficult and move on. Of course as I am reeling in, SLAM a huge brown rolls my streamer, but eludes the hook. I decided this was it, due or die. After casting , stripping , mending, walking the dog for an another half hour the Gods decided to spare me, finally I hooked an un movable rock. Unreachable by wading, un snagable by finesse. I put everything I had on her and in an instant the misery was over in this beautiful snapping sound. We were free again. Free to unleash all our fly’s and fish, just fish for fun.
Neither of us caught another fish that day.
Mark from Canada came in second, over 100 inches of fish, on an emerger fished in the seams. The two kids came in first and second in the kids division, as did the two women in the women’s division. The Orvis guys got skunked.
The next day Mark from Canada, showed us where he caught most of the fish, and we each caught a couple on dries (blue quills and snowshoe emergers).
By noon Sunday we had to hit the road. Tim needed to get back to Warrensburg to get ready to fly out for a business trip; I needed to continue on my trip. I dropped Tim off at about 2:30 pm, and headed west on RT 28. My next stop would be a meeting with Steve (aka Serotonin) a fella I met on the Fly fishing blog I frequent.
To be continued…
