The Difference Between A Striper And A Stripper Is More Than One P.

 Jean came down and we spent the better part of Saturday driving around taking in the damaged areas where the tornado touched down. I've seen videos of F-5's sweeping across flat grass land where there is nothing to break them up except towns and trailer parks. The ones we get here don't last long and don't get up a good head of steam because they run into mountain sides covered with trees. One came through my yard here in Lordville back in the 90's. Took down three trees one on each of three sides of the house, each fell in a different direction, none hit the house. The huge Norway Spruce that would have crushed the house like a match box, was on the fourth side in the fifteen foot wide space between the road and the house, it didn't lose a limb. Both the one in Lordville back in the 90's and last Saturday's were rated as F-1's. Each time they touch down they do incredible damage but quickly lose power. When they become airborne they regain power. It is for me, impossible to imagine what an F5 would do here. 

To be sure many people have major cleanup work to do, there were some houses and outbuildings that received damage but whoever was doing the steering had mercy on most of us. The tornado touched down on the Peas Eddy road just past the village line and then went, (for the most part), between the back of the Peas Eddy houses and the EB up to Cadosia, crossed the river and apparently lifted up.

If you are driving from Deposit to Hancock on route 17 you get a good view of the damage done when the tornado slammed into the mountain just upstream of Hale Eddy. Again the damage done to the trees was catastrophic. If you exit 17 at Hale Eddy, cross the bridge and turn right and drive to Deposit, (upstream), you will see most of the damage. The road was closed for several days, then opened one lane wide. In a downpour sometime last week I drove down from Deposit to check out a friends house. Came upon the NYSEG repair crews getting into their trucks, above them were two sections of a telephone pole that had been cut off one with the cable and one with the electric lines, wired to a come-along attached to a new pole. The come-along had been tightened enough to get the wires and pieces of pole up in the air and out of the way of motorists. When Jean and I went by Saturday, the two pieces of pole were still up in the air but secured to the new pole, both lanes of the road were open but much of the electric and cable lines was still buried under downed trees.

We had a very nice dinner last night at the Riverside in Horton. As old people do, we brought back enough steak, salmon, salad and vegetables for another dinner which Jean, (perhaps anxious to get home), tactfully suggested, "That we could eat early enough, for me to go out and fish the evening hatch". Which we did, and I did.

The fishing - Fished a downriver spot that likely saw action over the weekend. Was on the river by 7:00, with neither wet boot tracks or fishermen to be seen. First five fish that came to blind casts resulted in three lost fish and two refusals. The next four fish were hooked and landed, the last while it was under attack from a very large striper, (or was it a stripper), that made two aggressive passes at the fish, both times coming within three feet of me. Walked the trail up river 100 feet, (with the fish in the net), to a shallow riff, set the fish in the water and waited for him to swim off. When the fish began rising just before dark, I had no answer, (perhaps on midges??)