The Times They Are A Changin'

 

Jean and I drove down to the Lordville Estate Saturday morning to take care of a "couple little tasks" that took four hands, and to take in the Catskill leaves, which are supposed to be at their peak on Columbus Day weekend. There might have also been a promise of a dinner out at the Riverside Restaurant at Horton but more on that later. 

We started by erecting a section of new fence where the deer were jumping over the old one. Jean held the posts while I tried to hit them with the maul. Hit the posts squarely about 50% of the time, never missed completely, (didn't hit Jean even once). We attached the fence to the posts, and called it a done deal. The window AC only required Jean to make sure it didn't fall out the window when I took out the jambs that held the window down on the AC, (five minutes total time). Jean then handed me up, (I was on the ladder), 32 metal poles that I stored on the trusses in the garage where the next owner of the estate will no doubt find them.

With the work out of the way we set out at 3:00pm on a two hour drive, taking in what was left of the fall leaves. Some hills were already silver gray, but we found many vistas of only slightly past peak color. Ended up in Roscoe and then traveled down the Beaverkill, that had a surprising number of fishermen, to Horton. We stopped several times to watch for rises, (saw none), and to watch the fishermen. Arrived at the Riverside at 4:50 fearful that they wouldn't be open yet. To our surprise the parking lot was full and we were lucky to get a table without a reservation. Finally realized that it was Columbus Day weekend which is usually the peak of the Catskill fall foliage season. People make plans and reservations in advance and the fact that the leaves didn't wait, didn't deter them one bit. Had a very good meal and left in time to sit out on the back porch for the last half hour of daylight and watch the Lordville deer herd parade by.

Have a doctors appointment on Monday and plan on driving back down Tuesday morning to continue the closedown and hopefully take in some fall fishing. The WB release was dropped to about 360cfs for about eight hours in anticipation of the nor'easter adding water to the system, but was quickly bumped backup over 1,000cfs later today when the storm drifted further east. If we get some rain, I'll fish, if not, I'll work on the camp closure. A couple of decent bucks have shown up on the trail cams and if we don't get rain, sitting in a tree will beat what the current conditions on the Delaware have to offer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fishing A Cold Blow From Out Of The North.

  Jean came down and we spent the weekend watching wildlife in the backyard, driving around the area and enjoying two "nights out", one with David and Maryann, (the apprentice Troutfitter Inn cleaning lady). A shout out of thanks to her for spending four hours on the road to have dinner with us. Not sure the company or the meal was worth the drive. We drove up to Stilesville to witness the hordes of anglers, and then along the reservoir all the way up to Walton, where we usually stop and go in some of the shops. It was threatening to rain so we elected to keep going. It was raining on top of the mountains but we took route 206?? to Downsville anyway. We hit the rain part way up the mountain and then drove down the other side to Downsville in a torrential down pour. Came out of the rain at Downsville and drove down route 30 with the intention of checking  out the trout in some of the BK's thermal refuges, saw the muddy water at "Jaws" and drove back to the Lordvi...
Read more

Don't let that that rain come down.

 My South Holston river friend, (one of only two people who will fish with me), (the other is currently on injured reserve), is up for a visit (he brought his boat) and today we floated. There might have been some question about where we chose to float (no one else launched where we did), but we enjoyed the fact that we never saw another fisherman, let alone another boat, on the river all day. The weatherman might well have gilded the lily a bit when he predicted a chance of showers and a high temp of sixty degrees. It rained all day, and the temperature peaked at fifty three degrees. When I read the forecast for the rest of Mark's stay (rain for the next four days) I was thankful that we got in the day that we did today.  How was our day? We sucked it up, paid an extra $5.00 to launch (didn't have the proper change), parked in the wrong place (got a note from the owner where we put in), never made it to the predetermined takeout place, and had a delightful day counting bugs (...
Read more

The closure.

 Picked one of the most beautiful November days imaginable to drive down to Lordville and shut down the estate. Bright sun, early morning fog, with flocks of geese on their way out to cut cornfields to feed. Temps varied from 45 to 35 depending on the fog density. The trees are bare, save for a few oaks  and larch with color but the hills are basically gray.  I've been busy in Lafayette. Spend an hour or two each morning and evening up in a tree hoping for a buck to come by. So far the only buck I've seen in real life has been what is now a unicorn. A week ago when he walked around not 20 yards in front of me he sported two slightly curved six inch spikes. Last night when he walked right under my other stand he was missing one of his horns.  In addition to the hunting we had loggers come and fell almost 100 dead and dying ash trees that had fallen victim to the Emerald ash borer. While they were at it they also took down a dying maple that leaned over the house and a...
Read more