Should River access be Closed via River Road in Stockport?

[Caddis]

Dennis,

You just dont get it.(respectfully)

Maybe not, please explain.

The next time your going to be up there let me know so we could of course fish,and than if he is home we could stop by and talk to him?

And ask him what, "Excuse me sir, would you mind changing your mind about River Road?" Thanks, but no thanks.

I think once you meet him and he explains the situation in FULL,you might just feel differently.

It sounds like you've already spoken to him. What did he say?

Dennis you obviously do not know all the deatails to this situation.

I think I know what I need to know, but it sounds like you've already got the answer to this one, please explain.

Greed?

I dont get it?

He is not benefiting in any way if the road is closed.

Then why is he trying to close the road if he doesn't benefit by it? Does he think it will keep the deer and bears and the rest of the wildlife off of his property?

This guy knows everyone up there and can fish anywhere he wants to.

Then why deprive all fishermen who come up for a day or a weekend to fish Stockport? Ohhhh... I get it, he actually is helping the economy... (You want to fish stockport, you'll have to float it). Not everyone can afford a $300.00 float though. Luckily for me, my pal has a Hyde Low-ryder! (Thanks Dennis!)

Since I've been fishing the stockport area, I don't believe I've seen much trash if any on River road, so I don't believe it's a trash problem. Placing trash cans along the road is also not the answer because that means people going in will think it's ok to bring in food. This will cause overflowing trash cans. It's better to leave them out and let the fishermen bring their trash back to their cars and dispose of it on their own. Shame on the people who bring trash in and leave it behind.

Welp... you know how the saying goes, "He who dies with the most toys wins."

 

[Eagle Claw]

Whether the owner is right or wrong he obviously feels that since its his property, why give priviledges and not get somthing in return. How about offering him an annual or semi annual stockport clean up day or property enhancement day by the people who use it in return for the priviledge of enjoying his property. I'm not saying he is right or wrong ,just deal with the mind set to our best advantage. If he feels that he is a winner then we are all winners.

 

[Andre]

Andre

How long has the Stockport access been there? Did he explore the situation enough before buying it? My understanding is there is an easement in the deed so he has no control over that piece that runs through his property. His attorney must have made that clear. To me plain and simple investigate what you are buying. I have seen a lot of people buy their "little slice of heaven" and then want to change tings that existed fir years: no more development, no more access and on and on. I personally have no symphathy for him and he may be a great guy but understand what you bought. Again, does anyone know how longStockport access has been there? Andre

 

[JOE.T]

Dennis
I am sorry maybe I did not explain myself properly in my previous posts.I have spoken to him and know him.

I simply meant that I would introduce you to him and let him explain IT to you in his words.

There are certain details that I feel should not come from me here on line.

I hope you could understand that.

ONE MORE TIME I AM NOT FOR THE ACCESS BEING CLOSED

I am simply trying to give both sides of the situation.

Anyone going to be up there tonight?

Andre there is an easment in the deed.Hhe also knew this when he bought it.



JOE.T

 

[cingras53]

We had an extensive thread on this a few years back. If he can shut the road down (legally) then who are we to protest? You can still access the Pennsylvania side at Stockport "near" his property without walking on his land.
Whenever I go there I always walk the length of River Road right to the river. I don't cut across his property because I don't think it's the right thing to do. If River Road was legally abolished then I could still fish Stockport legally without going on River Road. This continuing discussion seems more principled than practical. This is just my opinion.

 

[baccala]

I have to ask where are you talking about?

 

[dcabarle]

I have to ask where are you talking about?

Not for nothing but this thread started back in 2003! This was with regard to the River Road access on the Upper Delaware River on the PA side of the river somewhere between lake lenore and buck.

 

[baccala]

I thought this was a revisit. Or did something weird happen showing this as a new post.

 

[dcabarle]

There is a poll that is attached to this thread. The polls come up on the front page randomly. If someone votes on the poll it bumps it back to the top. It's a good thing because it might get some interest back into something that may have faded out years ago.

 

[Lonewolve]

Everybody wants their piece of pie, trouble is most folks don't like how its sliced

 

[Andy]

I've been fishing there since around 1971, long before the two houses were built. Years back we used to drive into the grove of trees to park. To the best of my knowledge it's a township road and is even marked by a street sign. If my memory serves me right the street sign has disappeared and would reappear in past years.

 

[WBDluver]

I think last year the sign was up. If it is a township road or easement, then the owner should respect that and live with it. If it is his property, then he can do as he pleases. But I cant stand when someone knows the property does not belong to them and they post it or try and lie to others and tell them they own it.

 

[Rusty Spinner]

Wasn't this issue resolved years ago with anglers being allowed continued access? Just don't walk through the guy's yard and everything is cool. Many were lazy and walked through the corn field back in the day. Not sure if there is still corn planted there now or just a grass yard, but stick to the road until you get to the river and you'll be fine. Correct? I haven't been down there in at least 2 years myself.

 

[Kilgour Farms]

River road is twp road for the fire dept to access water from the river. The land around the road and the buildings were sold a couple of years ago, the road it is a public access and only the road.

 

[dcabarle]

River road is twp road for the fire dept to access water from the river. The land around the road and the buildings were sold a couple of years ago, the road it is a public access and only the road.

Does anyone still live in the house? I know it went under water a few times. Just wondering if they ever fixed it up.

 

[Joe D]

The original owner of the house sold it a few years ago. It's a vacation home and as such is occupied from time to time. When parking along PA SR 191 make sure you don't block the mailbox so as to leave access for delivery and pick up. If you use the access for watercraft drive slow. Minimize dust, noise and pounding potholes into the road, not to mention the safety factor. Use four wheel drive to get up the river bank. Wheel spinning increases erosion and the utility of the access.

 

[Wbranch]

I have been fishing the upper Delaware since 1967. Long before there was a house at the Stockport Road access. Way back then I used to see people pitching tents in the grove of trees closest to the road. I don't know if it was really an organized campground where people paid a fee to camp there or it was just known by campers that they could camp there and the property owner was okay with it.

I didn't even bother to fish Stockport then because there were so many other places along the river that had much better, and bigger, fish. Also the places where I fished back in the late 1960's to late 1970's were virtually un-fished and I could go an entire season and see less than half a dozen guys on the river.

Later when I did start to fish the River Road/Stockport access I used to just make a beeline right down to the river and would come out just upriver of where that little brook enters. But as soon as the house was built I no longer would cut through the property as it was now posted. I own property on the PA side of the WB and don't like fishermen walking across my property to get in, or out, of the river either. Ditto for where they park. I've had people park in my yard ignoring posted signs.

Back when I started to fish the upper Delaware the ratio of rainbows to browns was about 5:1. There were just tons of rainbows and the average size rainbow was around 16". There were many 17" - 19" rainbows. They were very gullible back then and truth be told I rarely ever used any other fly than a #14 Adams or a #14 tan caddis with a mottled turkey wing and brown palmered hackle. I never went lighter then 4X because even in the summer there were still enough larger bugs that it wasn't required to go lighter.

One particular day a friend and I borrowed an aluminum canoe. I can't even remember where we put in but I guess we took out at Buckingham. We caught plenty of fish all along the float but when we got to what we all now call "The Wall" it was really sick! We landed over a dozen rainbows, not a single brown, in about two hours. All the fish were hot and 16" - 19". I don't believe we saw another angler all day.

A couple of scanned prints from a long time ago. Back in the late 1960's neither I nor my friend nor did probably a thousand other guys knew that pinching the gill area of a trout to unhook it was not the smartest thing to do. C&R was in it's infancy and I will admit to killing a few trout back them. This trout was released and was very healthy. As we rolled into the 1970's C&R became more popular and we all started to either kill less or kill none. I've not purposely killed a trout since the mid 1970's.

Now the river is just a vestige of what it was in the mid 1960's. In my opinion the quality of the fishing has gone down significantly just since I retired in 2005. I rarely even bother to fish there anymore and instead choose to wade fish less popular sections of the main and it's branches.

Does anyone care to guess where the first picture was taken?

 

[comparadun]

DE, before floods changed it.

always the facts......................CDun.

 

[Wbranch]

CDun,

Do you believe the floods of 2006, 2010, and 2011 changed the river topography of the main stem or did the floods change the biodiversity of the river?

Prior to the flood of June 2006 the pool where my cabin is situated on the WB fished pretty good. There was good insect life but I wouldn't of considered the pool to have held many bigger fish. There were plenty of 11" - 15" and a few 16" - 18" fish but very few and far between that were larger. The bottom of that pool was pretty much just small to medium sized cobble with a few larger rocks. During the flood many large boulders wound up getting dislodged from areas up river and as the flow receded many of them cam to rest in that pool. In the spring of 2007 there was an immediate uptick in not only the size of the browns but also in the numbers of bigger brown trout. That lasted until September of 2011 when the WB reached 22,500 cfs at Hale Eddy. I didn't get wet that time but the water did encroach to within 6" of grade.

That high water event had an entirely different outcome to the pool and instead of bringing in rubble it brought in thousands of tons of silt. Now once I wade out more than 25' from the bank I start to sink into gooey mud and it is very hard to walk and get out of the mud. The invasion of the mud must of brought aquatic grass with it as there are now huge patches of aquatic vegetation throughout the middle of the pool and pretty much the entire width of the tail-out. The fishing pretty much has gone down from one of high quality with good numbers of bigger fish to one of very low numbers of bigger fish, far fewer rising fish, but no less guys wading the river.

 

[flyman23]

Like the VW van.

 

[comparadun]

Past flooding has changed drastically only one stretch of MS river as far down as Cochecton/Damascus.
Minor to no changes in all other stretches.
What has changed over those episodes is increased siltation of river bottom. Our once clean, pristine river rocks are gone.
Insect populations have decreased over the years and so has fish populations.
Pools where I once had 30+ fish feeding in an eve now may have a bit over a dozen if lucky.

All the above plus spin fisherman continue to kill many fish each year, 30+ lazy ass driftboats/stinktoons daily beating up fish leaving NO sanctuaries for fish, increased fisherman every year due to fly shops, fly fishing shows, internet, etc. Come on up and for $475 + a tip you can fish the best in the East, the World Class Trout Fishery of the Upper Delaware. I hardly think so. Sad. A joke.......and the circus continues.

The Facts.....................CDun.

 

[tomfly]

Past flooding has changed drastically only one stretch of MS river as far down as Cochecton/Damascus.
Minor to no changes in all other stretches.
What has changed over those episodes is increased siltation of river bottom. Our once clean, pristine river rocks are gone.
Insect populations have decreased over the years and so has fish populations.
Pools where I once had 30+ fish feeding in an eve now may have a bit over a dozen if lucky.

All the above plus spin fisherman continue to kill many fish each year, 30+ lazy ass driftboats/stinktoons daily beating up fish leaving NO sanctuaries for fish, increased fisherman every year due to fly shops, fly fishing shows, internet, etc. Come on up and for $475 + a tip you can fish the best in the East, the World Class Trout Fishery of the Upper Delaware. I hardly think so. Sad. A joke.......and the circus continues.

The Facts.....................CDun.

Cdun great post .
We all can agree with you. The pressure is increasing probably the percentages people fishing if you account for population growth probably have not changed. More people more people fishing Insect populations are also in decline. I think it is more of an environmental thing (road salt) then a silt thing. If it was an over silting condition borrowing insects would have a better environment. They would be in better numbers then rock crawlers. Not the case. As far as the added pressure to the fishery there are thing to consider that refrain from a selfish view point. The increase in pressure does in fact have a positive aspect. It brings focus on the fishery and the environmental concerns that are associated with it. It also brings money into a region that would be way worse off then without it. I understand your point that the fishery is invaded every year and the fish have no refuge. The fish aren’t a fragile as you think. Their only instinct in life is survival and they are very adapted to do that. Most of us can agree that there should be a focus on C&R. This is where the guides and shops the cater to fishermen can do their best to educate that net to the creel guy.

 

[comparadun]

I have to disagree with your road salt theory. There is not much more today than was dumped on the roads in the past. It's not a thriving metropolis here.

Siltation and I'll even throw rock snot in there(upper WB and EB) is a far greater factor. Just look at the releases from Cannonsville today vs many years ago. Before you know it every season.......silt in the release starts coming down the WB.

The increase in pressure does bring focus on this fishery. Has this actually helped improve the fishery to date............no.

Certainly the increased money helps the local economy in this region.

These fish are survivors indeed and not as fragile as one my think, but, catch and release over and over again by the hordes of fisherman can weaken fish, increasing mortality;even after spawning or even their ability to survive Winters. I've seen many lazy ass drifters in the past hold a HUGE 17" -18" fish out of the water way too long for a hero shot and wonder why it takes so long to revive the thing to swim away. It may swim away, but, did it survive? Guides and shops contribute more and more to this behavior to make their $$. Do they really care about this fishery? It makes you wonder. The Upper Delaware used to be a World Class Fishery as WBranch will attest to.....nowadays, the Upper Delaware is an abused fishery as most have become across the USA.

The Facts...............CDun

 

[Wbranch]

I lived in that van June, July, and August from 1968 - 1972 when I used to quit my job and drive out to Montana. I've attached a bunch of scanned prints from back in those days. BTW this was all pre graphite fly fishing. You can see from the pictures a Leonard Baby Catskill 7' #4 and anOrvis 7 1/2' Midge #5. I also had an Orvis Flea 6 1/2' #4, an Orvis 7 1/2' Madison, and a couple of 8 1/2' - 9' Fenwick glass rods for the Madison, Yellowstone, and Beaverhead. The guy in the background might even be a NEFF member. He lives in NJ and is a rep for all kinds of fly fishing tackle.

 

[Wbranch]

What has changed over those episodes is increased siltation of river bottom. Our once clean, pristine river rocks are gone.

I agree 100%! I can remember when the bottom structure was perfectly clean and entirely free of any siltation. Now not only has the bottom of the WB where I most often fish become covered with silt and in many places mud but I noticed, for the first time in late summer of 2015, a very large section of that same water covered with large patches of rock snot. So much in fact that there was no actual rock visible just that ugly crap. The pool where I've seen the rock snot build up is pretty much devoid of insect life and the fishing has fallen off 75%.

 

[Wbranch]

a HUGE 17" -18" fish

So funny, LOL.

So often I hear guys screaming at the top of their lungs about the monster 24" rainbow they caught and then go through the absurdity of both getting hero shots and dicking around with the poor fish for ten minutes. I've seen some of these "monsters" most would be a stretch to say it was a legitimate 18" trout. I've told quite a few guys over the years to quit dicking around and get it back in the water.

 

[Wbranch]

This post if off the initial thread but it does much to compare fishing on the upper Delaware of today to that of forty years ago. The following are a few no bullshit journal entries from September of 1973. Back then I taped every fish but was catching so many that it wasn't crucial to me so I rounded up, or down, in 1/2" increments. If it measured 17 3/8" it was logged at 17", if it measured 17 5/8" it was logged at 18". Notice not one brown trout.

September 09, 1973

1 - 15" rainbow
1 - 16" rainbow
2 - 17" rainbow
1 - 17.5" rainbow
2 - 19" rainbow

September 18, 1973

This was a good day!

3 - 10" rainbow
1 - 13" rainbow
1 - 15" rainbow
1 - 16" rainbow
1 - 16" brown
2 - 17" rainbow
1 - 17.5" rainbow

I have records for eight non consecutive trips in September. I put fifty-eight (58) trout from 10" - 19" into the net. Note this was forty-two (42) years ago when hardly anyone was fishing where I fished and I didn't land a single 20" trout of either species. But back then rainbows were king and as I mentioned the ratio was 5:1 or even 6:1. For this period it is skewed even more in favor of the rainbows. Only 13.7% of the trout landed were browns. I didn't do well in math but isn't that like an 8:1 ratio?

 

[comparadun]

It was very rare to catch a decent brown many years ago in MS below the junction and all of the rainbows were in tip top shape, great colors and not a mark on them. A good portion of the rainbows today seem to be stressed some during the prime season with marks on their mouth hinges or even a missing hinge. Coloration on them too is not as pristine, further showing stress. Years back, as WBranch will confirm, almost every rainbow used to zip into your backing regardless of size. I just don't see that anymore.

In my opinion, brown trout have greatly increased in numbers in the MS due to the more siltation and decreased water quality. They can take those deteriorating conditions better than the rainbows.

CDun

 

[Wbranch]

Years back, as WBranch will confirm, almost every rainbow used to zip into your backing regardless of size. I just don't see that anymore.

In my opinion, brown trout have greatly increased in numbers in the MS

Wholeheartedly agree. Much of the excitement back in the early days was knowing that it was likely that even 15" rainbow would put you into the backing when using the click and pawl fly reels we all used back then. My reel of choice then was, depending on rod length, was a Hardy LRH or the Hardy Princess. I still use one of my LRH's often as I just love the sound of hearing the pawl engaging the gear as a fish runs down river.

My buddy and I used to get excited when we would catch a brown as they were quite rare. I do remember the browns being on the average large than the rainbows and once when my Dad went up by himself he hooked and landed a huge brown, both length and weight, on top. Luckily for him as he was fighting it a recreational canoe came down with two guys in it and they watched the fight and took his picture, got his address, and later sent him a slide. I'd say it was 22" - 23" and close to 5#.

 

[Trout Nazi]

I'm a Delaware noob compared to you old farts (compared to anyone) and I've got to say that I catch mainly bows on the MS (not that I have a problem with that). And yes, most of them still take me into the backing, even some of the 16" dinks. I could catch these fish all day long and be happy. You should be happy that most of the tools traveling up there are after big Browns, so fish higher up on the river. I had a couple of wade days last year (spring and fall) where I went double digits with the bows. This river will always be packed, the genie is out of the bottle on that, just be happy that most waders are lazy shits so they'll be packed around the ramps. You should also be happy that most of them don't know how to fish either, so they won't be ripping too many lips.