The first thing I noticed on pulling into the driveway of the ancestral manor last week was that a dead tree fell and clipped the edge of the new and expensive roof.
Turned out to be a close call. The primary victim was the gutter.
I called the roof guy and he came out and fixed things. He is also going to cut down some additional dead trees, mostly ash, that are looming over the house.
My nomadic attorney, Thos. Gallucio Esq., was holed up at the private campground in Phoenicia, with the state campgrounds closed for the season.
He declared his intention of heading south as soon as our fishing experience was over. Being cold at night is “against my ethics.”
Nomads used to be tougher. Imagine somebody in the Golden Horde whining about the weather and announcing his intention to head off for the Mediterranean.
The boys would bury him up to his neck in a hill of fire ants.
All the rivers were a bit on the high side, so we explored a couple of little blue lines with satisfactory results.
We also fished a major Esopus tributary, Woodland Valley Creek, and caught nothing but wild-ish browns of respectable heft, 12 to 14 inches.
I say “wild-ish” because with the new regulations adopted three years go, the Esopus and environs are no longer stocked. These browns are probably from the last batch of stockers.
The high point of the trip was traveling the circuitous route to the West Branch of the Delaware.
Thos. and I were packed into Gary’s truck, and Gary entertained us with tall tales of past angling adventures, including “The Strange Case of the Lucky Gas Station Hot Dog.” I need to let this one settle before attempting to write it up for public consumption.
The West Branch is a humbling experience. The stretch we were in is wide like the Housatonic, but nowhere near as deep.
It’s full of spooky wild brown trout that grow to mammoth proportions, and only eat specks.
A speck is a tiny fly, about the size of a fraction of an iota. On the Hous I will tie on a bass popper to use as an indicator and then a piece of tippet to the bend of the hook, attached to the speck.
That low-rent tactic doesn’t fly on the West Branch. Between the vast distances between angler and fish, and the steady wind blowing straight downstream, the only way to go is a 12-foot leader minimum, the speck, and dropping a pile cast downstream so the first thing Mr. Fish sees is the speck, not line or leader.
It’s maddening, watching the rises and finally getting a speck out in the strike zone, only to watch the wakes as the alarmed fish bolt.
We were in the ballpark, but no tangible results. Gary and I each had a couple on for a hot second, and Thos. didn’t fall in, which counts as a victory.
On the cinema front, we explored the subtext of “Deathstalker II,” the dystopian pathos of “Mad Max,” and the countercultural significance of “Repo Man.”
After each flick Thos. confidently pronounced it to be the worst movie he’d ever seen.
I’ve got at least one more trip planned before I shut the camp down for the winter. And with New York adopting year-round fishing, there’s no reason other than inertia not to toddle over for day trips before the snow flies.
Meanwhile, Connecticut has stocked our streams for the fall, including the Housatonic Trout Management Area between Cornwall Bridge and Lime Rock, and the Blackberry in East Canaan.
The Housatonic system got a hearty slug of rain Oct. 20-21, so check the USGS gauge for the Hous at Falls Village before venturing out.
