Last week’s narrative of our flyfishing trip to the Catskills ended at the Covered Bridge Pool on the Beaverkill River where Paul Knauth and I stopped on Day 3 of our trip for lunch at a picnic area. You may recall that there we told an old timer where we thought the Rhododendron Pool was located. He had been searching for that pool for years.
From there, we went back to fish Ferdon’s Pool on the Beaverkill River where we had pretty good luck the night before.
This time Paul fished the tail end of the 200 yard pool and I returned to the rapids entering it. I brought two fly rods to the waters, my trusty L.L.Bean graphite and an old bamboo rod named the Scotty, which was made by Sharpe Co. of England. I have no idea how old that rod is. The plan was to catch one trout with that rod, put it down and continue fishing with the L.L. Beaner. I didn’t want to risk breaking that old classic bamboo rod like I did last year with an old Orvis bamboo rod. Well, I ended up fishing all evening with that rod because I never caught a fish. Paul managed to catch only 1 trout. The fish just weren’t biting.
After returning to the motel, we joined the other anglers around a campfire. Two young German fellows who were in the US on a business trip and who were staying at the motel joined us and brought along some beer. (What else?) Paul and I opted for a splash of bourbon in his fancy glasses which he always brings on our trips. The German fellas had never fly fished before and on that day hired a fishing guide to take them out. One of them caught a trout and he was elated and is probably now hooked on fly fishing.
Feeling better from his bout with vertigo, Dwight Atkinson showed up and he brought a peach pie which we all shared. It was a wonderful evening of comradery. Later, when we returned to our room, Paul suggested that I look at the bottom of his empty glass. Standing there with wings upright and happy as a lark was a live blue winged olive mayfly. We had a good laugh over that.
On Day 4, (Wednesday), we had breakfast at a local diner and just as we were leaving, Paul struck up a conversation with an old gent who knew the area quite well and he gave us some advice as to where to fish on the Willowemoc River.
We checked out one area which wasn’t to our liking as it was not a large area and would probably be crowded if another angler showed up. We checked out the second area mentioned, Dettes Pool and Roscoe Riverside Park, and we found a good looking pool to fish. We decided to fish it that evening after having another lunch of overstuffed sandwiches with a hint of yellow pepper juice followed by my wife Jan’s delicious chocolate chip squares.
It was at the park that we saw the famous 2-Headed Trout sign. (See footnotes below about the Dettes and the 2-Headed Trout.)
When we arrived at the pool, we were disappointed to see that two anglers were there already. So, we found another decent looking spot further downstream and began fishing there. Paul fished downstream toward Junction Pool while I fished the bumpy pocket water upstream with my trusty AuSable Wulff dry fly. The fishing was incredible! It seemed like every piece of pocket water contained a trout. When I worked up near the pool where the two fishermen previously had been, I saw that they had left. Moving right in, I proceeded to have the best fishing in many years.
Around 8:00 p.m., I started fishing back downstream toward Paul and the fishing was even better than when I fished upstream – the fish were larger. I won’t mention how many trout I caught, for readers probably wouldn’t believe me. It was one fish after another, almost every cast for 3 hours. Nice sized trout too, with the largest being 15 inches – all on the same fly, the AuSable Wulff dry fly.
The fishing was so good that I practically had to hide behind bushes and trees in order to apply floatant and refresh the fly, lest a trout would jump and try to take it right out of my hand and perhaps bite me in the process.
Just before dark, while fighting a 15-inch brown trout, I saw another even larger trout jump nearby. After landing the 15 incher, the fly was all beat up, bent and starting to unravel. But I tossed it out near the big fish anyway. Bam! Did it hammer it! When it realized it had been hooked, it immediately shot straight across the river to where there were some submerged slate rocks, swam around one and cut my leader. I had the distinct feeling that fish had used that tactic before.
By then it was too dark to tie on another fly so I watched Paul fish for a little while before total darkness set in. No problem for I had never caught and released that many trout in a day, much less three hours. Retired Dr. Charles Wohl of Lenox has an apt description for fishing times such as these….. “obscene.”
Paul also had a good night of fishing with his old Orvis bamboo rod and using Copper Johns and Gold Ribbed Hares Ear nymphs
That was a lucky evening for me in another way, too. One time I slipped and went down falling on my L.L. Bean flyrod. Fortunately, it didn’t break. But if I had been using that old bamboo Sharpe rod that I used the night before, it would surely have been shattered and it would have tainted an otherwise perfect evening.
When we returned to the motel, it wasn’t long before word got out about my unusual success. I was treated like a celebrity that night with people stopping by to offer congratulations and asking what fly I had used. For a while, I considered charging a consultant fee.
Mike Mcgowan, an angler from Idaho, was very interested in the fly and was going to purchase one the following day, as was Dwight, who was feeling even better and was able to start fishing.
Paul and I headed home that Thursday morning and while on the road, Mike texted telling us he purchased an AuSable Wulff dry fly and proceeded to catch a 20-inch brown trout that morning. Dwight stayed on and fished until Saturday. He fished the Dette Pool and one day he netted 7 trout with the same fly.
No, we never met up with Iron Mike, the big brown trout, on this trip. Instead of returning time after time to the same spot where we last saw him, we opted to fish new places such as the Rhododendron Pool, Covered Bridge Pool and the Roscoe Riverside Park and I’m glad we did. How could I be disappointed after having one of the finest days of fly fishing in my entire life amid such beautiful surroundings? Paul and I look forward to another flyfishing trip to the Catskills this fall, a little more knowledgeable about its wonderful rivers than we were before.
*Walt and Winnie Dette, along with their daughter Mary, tied flies from their home along the banks of the Willowemoc River for almost three-quarters of a century. They had been part of the tradition of Roscoe, a center of fly-fishing, and were the last of the renowned school of the Catskill FlyTiers. Walt was one of the major links in a chain that reaches back to Theodore Gordon, long considered by many as the father of dry-fly fishing in this country. Established in 1928, it is claimed that Dette Flies is the oldest family run fly fishing shop in the world.
** The 2-headed trout sign reads as following: “Legend holds that a trout swam to Juncture Pool where the Beaverkill and Willowemoc meet. Unsure of which way to go, it started left and right. Remaining in one spot so long, the trout grew a second head. To this day, people say they have seen it, but no one has caught it.”