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This Will Be The Last Time, It May Be The Last Time, I Don't Know.

 Should you ever wonder, Norway Maples are not my favorite tree. They grow very large and have a dense dark canopy. The leaves do not turn orange or red during the fall and the GD leaves stay on the tree until mid November. Why anyone would plant them in their yard is beyond me. Arrived about noon and got rid of the leaves that had fallen, by 5:00 another batch covered the ground and it doesn't look like the tree has lost a leaf. With the lawn cleaned up, I left camp at 2:30 for a ride-around. A breeze of about 10 mph kept a ripple on the BR and I saw no rises there. Stopped at Shehawken and waited ten or fifteen minutes for a boat I saw up river pull in. Didn't see a bug on the water but did see two rises. The fisherman in the bow of the boat was throwing a red bobber and said they to had also seen two rises on their journey from Balls Eddy. With the browns spawning, (hopefully we get rain soon so that they can get up the tribs), I decided to try for rainbows in the BK. Stoppe...
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All My Life's A Circle - - -

 Sitting in the recliner after several hours of work tearing down our 40 year old shed and transferring it's contents to the new one. Thought a review of the season, as well as a preview of what may lie ahead might make interesting reading. For this review consider the WB, UEB, and the BR down to Stockport as tailwaters, and the BK, Willow, and the BR below Stockport as the freestones. The water levels for most of the season were good for both wading and floating. As a wade fisherman I could almost always find water both low enough and clear enough to fish. In October there have been times when the water was too low to float.  The bugs - The "Big Bug Season" is roughly the six week period that features an orderly progression of mayflies starting with Quill Gordons and progresses through Hendricksons, March Browns, Gray Foxes, Invaria,  Green Drakes, Brown Drakes and Isonychia. The big bugs are usually over by the 10th of June with the Invaria sometimes lasting into July a...
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Who Knows Where The Time Goes.

 Spent until 3:00 in the afternoon working on the camp closedown. I perhaps do things differently than most. My closedown includes a thorough  cleaning of the entire camp. When I come back in the spring everything is ready to go, with the place shut up and snow on the ground there isn't even any dust.  The fly tying room takes the longest as seemingly nothing gets put away until the very end. Today putting away the fly-tying equipment filled me with a melancholy feeling that was hard to shake. Above the tying bench are pictures of two long departed fly-tyers and friends. This year I stopped to see a river friend, whose camp is on the UEB, just to say hello, only to learn that he had suffered a serious stroke almost a year ago. I had no clue, found the camp deserted and unused. Looked in the window and saw his fly-tying bench with the usual disarray of necks, feathers, dubbing, bobbins, and hooks. You just never know when your last fly has been tied.  With the wind ra...
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Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.

 It's been a week since Jean and I took in what we both felt were the best colors we have seen in the Catskills. The hills covered with maples were a blaze with red and orange. On the drive down today from Lafayette to Binghamton the leaves were well past peak. As I headed east into the Catskill foothills things got better. Yes, the hills that were bright orange and red last week are now mostly gray, but the hills covered with oaks are just coming into their peak colors. They are bright yellow, dark red and a rusty orange with the green of pine and hemlock sprinkled in. If we hadn't had such a beautiful trip last week, I'd call Jean and ask her to come down again, (maybe she could even help close up the camp). Spent an hour and a half cutting/raking the lawn, and before I knew it, it was time to check out the fishing. Drove up the PA side starting at 2:30, made my usual stops and never saw a bug on the water or a fish rise, (did see what I was sure were three trout off the ...
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Not A Bad Way To Spend A Day.

 After watching fish rising in placid slow water pools on Tuesday I decided to try it for an hour or two on Wednesday afternoon. With Jeans help we made short work of putting up the storm windows in the morning and left for my 11:30 appointment at Vicky's hail salon in Deposit. On the way up route 17 we were surprised to see the wind turbines sitting motionless against the sky. (The wind was cutting the smoke off right above the smokestack by the Deposit exit.)  Stopped for a minute to see Dave at the Troutfitter and then began a search for risers. In short, there weren't many. With the wind roughing up the water on the pools the fish don't like to rise and if they do, they are hard to see. Ended up on the UEB at about 2:00, where Tuesday we watched over a dozen fish sipping pseudos. For the second straight day the temp was in the seventies, (not what the pseudos like), and they just weren't hatching. With the hills on the west side blocking the wind the water was relat...
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What To Know If You Decide To Go.

 Jean and I headed to the "Lordville Estate", (I haven't yet told her it's been downgraded to a fishing camp), this morning to take in the Catskill colors at their peak. We weren't disappointed. Left Lafayette in the rain, encountered clouds and fog in the morning but for once the weatherman was right, the sun came out in the afternoon and the hillside colors were magnificent.  With the hurricane rain the rivers came up and the Cannonsville release came down. Arrived in Deposit about 11:00 to find rising fish below the town bridge. On our foliage tour we also saw rising fish on the EB, BK, Willow and UEB. There were a good number of fishermen taking advantage of a beautiful day with a high temp on the car thermometer of 74.  The restaurant we planned to eat at was closed, (they were open on Monday their normal off day), so we drove back to the camp and were entertained by a group of five adult deer finishing off the last of the apples in the backyard while four fa...
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On The Road Again - - -

 Left home at 10:00 this morning and drove down to the fishing camp, primarily to cut the lawn. Apparently the cooler temps have slowed things down. The backyard that faces south and gets full sun all day, needed cutting, the sides and front didn't. Finished mowing by 1:15, had lunch, and drove over to the UEB, in part because it's where I've seen the best hatches, and in part to get out of the wind that had the wind turbines spinning and white caps on the east/ west running rivers.  Saw a half dozen very nice fish upstream of the Corbett bridge, but the pod that is usually rising below the bridge was nowhere to be seen. Went down river a bit and found a place that was sorta out of the wind but the combo of wind gusts, (both upstream and down), and leaves in the water made fishing difficult. (So did the lack of bugs and rising fish). Hooked the first three fish I threw at and then pulled out of one because I had tied a half hitch around the bend in the size 22 hook I was us...
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