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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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My Bags Are Packed, I'm Ready To Go - - -

 Sadly, reality is starting to sink in. Sat and watched the Syracuse football team beat the UConn football team by one point in overtime. A battle of two stumbling, bumbling teams, because frankly, the dry fly fishing right now is worse. Drove around after the game, which ended after 4:00, and found nothing worth putting the waders on for. There were little brown caddis making their endless journey up river, but absolutely nothing on the water where I stopped. Smith's Motel on 97 had the NO tacked up next to Vacancy and I think Dave said the Troutfitter was full this weekend. The leaves are at better than 50%, (next weekend should be peak), and are well worth viewing. My drive this evening was a short one, perhaps the bugs and fish went crazy in the low water on the WB, I'm sure there were anglers there giving it a go, but I've found nothing recently to keep me here five days at a time. Have a Dermatologist appointment Monday morning and will stay in Lafayette to pick up Je...
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If You Want It, Here It Is, Come And Get It - - - -

 If you haven't been paying attention, NYC is in the process of reducing the releases on its reservoirs. They did Pepacton, (UEB), all at once cutting the flow in half,from 180 to 90 cfs. They are in the process of "stepping down"  the release at Cannonsville. The first two drops in flow took it  from 460 to 340 cfs  with more to come. There were two trailers at Balls Eddy and three at Shehawken today, probably none tomorrow. With both the EB and BR affected by the flow cuts, I'm sure most guides will be off to the Lake Ontario, (aka Lake America???), tributaries for the salmon, brown trout and steelhead runs.  The good - Wade fishermen can wade anywhere and there will be no boats to interfere with their fishing, trout have yet to spawn and by dropping the flows pre spawn, the eggs will be laid where they will be covered with water all winter.  The bad - The fish will be concentrated and more vulnerable to all predators. Eagles will have a field day diving ...
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You Know If He's Hungry, He Can Dance.

The local skunk is persistent if nothing else, shows up most nights to dine on the grubs that seem to enjoy eating the roots of my yard grass. Last week he found what turned out to be a large ground bee nest. Apparently decided that the trade off of stings for honey was worth it 'cause he came back twice leaving a hole Caitlin Clark could  bury a basketball in, from the railroad tracks. He followed me around all day today and at about six o'clock when a nice rainbow came unstuck he began his dance. How'd it happen? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Saw rising trout in more places than I have since I left the Sulfur Zone in mid August. Cast to a pod of about a dozen fish in a slow water pool in the BK for over an hour, got half a dozen refusals, and enough ignores that, if they were dollar bills, would have made a substantial dent in the national debt. What were they eating? Swear to God, nothing. Stared at the water running by me, nothing, watched a very very fe...
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