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April 8, 2002 |
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Opening Day
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Ahhhh, its finally here - the long awaited opening day of trout season! Like so many others I have been counting the days and watching the weather in anticipation of the big day (April 1st). With work busier than usual the past few months, I vowed to take some personal time to fish all day. I wasn't on the water at the crack of dawn, but I did get a pretty early start, fishing by 7:00am or so. I started off at the Ashokan Reservoir for a little open water fishing. There were at least 25 or 30 cars parked near the reservoir spillway in Shokan, but I wanted to avoid the crowds and drove around to one of my favorite spots on the shore of the upper (west) basin. There are not a lot of good things that can be said about being in a drought emergency, but at least it meant I could taking advantage of the low water levels and open space along the shore to do some fly casting. Four times while I was there fish jumped at the surface, but none were enticed by my flies, on the surface or below. I tried a woolly bugger, silver minnow, Mickey Finn, bead head olive nymph, and a couple of dries, but no luck. The view over the reservoir to Tonshi and Ticeteneyck Mountains was beautiful despite the heavy skies and only occasional break of sun. After giving up on the open water, I worked my way from pool to pool up a little tributary stream. There were spots that definitely looked 'fishy', but again no luck. I was definitely enjoying the scenery and solitude, with no other fishermen anywhere around.
After leaving the Ashokan, I went and spent the rest of the day on the Esopus. I went first to the long, deep run across the road from the Catskill Interpretive Center site. I had to wait out a passing shower before getting to the river. The NYCDEP has been moving a lot of water over the last month or more from the Schoharie Reservoir, down through the Shandaken Tunnel, and out of the Portal into the Esopus. Because of the lack of rain lately, this water has actually been a pretty decent and inviting 'blue', instead of the thick, turbid 'brown' that many of us have become accustomed to seeing. On opening day though, the water was rather high and off color because of a couple days of rain previously (now, a few days later, it is running clearer again). Because of the high flow from the Portal, added to naturally high runoff from the recent light rain, the river was full to the banks, and it was very difficult to find room among the trees to cast from shore. This is not the best spot to be using waders to get out in the stream because it is so deep here. I made some roll casts near the bank with my fly rod for a half hour or so, and then switched to my spinning rod to get a lure out further. I had visions of a big fat reservoir-run rainbow trout slamming into my flashy silver spoon in the dim water, but it didn't happen. The water temperature was 44 degrees.
I moved on to spend the second half of the day fishing the clear water upstream of the Portal. Spent the most time wading and fishing a nice stretch behind the Shandaken Town Hall. It was still quite a windy and gray day with only a few sporadic breaks of sun. There were some beautiful undercut banks, log jams, deep runs, and other 'structure' that I was sure held trout, but the water was a cold 42 degrees and my nymphs and streamers could not coax anything into action. On the near bank there was one section with a large amount of trash and junk that I hope to help clean up on May 11th for the Catskill Stream Clean-Up Day (to volunteer call The Catskill Center 586-2611 or Catskill Watershed Corporation 586-1400); this unsightly mess was made up for by the delightful sight of three or four Louisiana water thrushes flittering around on the far bank. In the afternoon I moved up to a stretch in Big Indian, and again had no luck despite making some beautiful casts into some beautiful runs. Too early in the season I guess, unless you're casting worms. Actually, the purists might cringe, but I did try casting a few live mealworms on my fly rod, but they didn't work any better than the artificial flies.
Before the end of the day I chatted with another fly-fisherman who'd also been at it most of the day. He started off in Roscoe for the ceremonial 'First Cast' at Junction Pool on the Beaverkill, and then tried the East Branch Delaware and then the Esopus. He hadn't been successful either. He was a nice guy and I was feeling generous, so I had him follow me further up the Esopus Valley and showed him one of my favorite brook trout spots, on State land above Oliverea. I hit one more pool during the last of the daylight on a small pool across the road from our house, and then called it a day. A very enjoyable day, despite not catching any fish.
- Chris and Aaron
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