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3. Today's banner, Page 2

1/3/10 @ 9:50 AM CST

I’ll take a stab at today’s banner, fully aware of the deception created by cropped photos, or should I say it appears I was deceived in the past. It sure would be nice to have a “CLICK HERE FOR FULL VIEW”. One of the things in this photo that has me questioning my accuracy is the amount of driftwood lining the banks. I don’t recall the areas of NW WI’s White River that I have fished, to be this heavily accumulated.

OK, I should have known better. For any one interested in viewing some, if not all, of the banner pictures in full view, click on “Landscapes & Trout” just below the site header. When that opens, click on “Landscapes” on the right. Caution: there are 60 pages of pictures, but they are awesome!!!!

Falsifly, I don't see any photo of the White.



But I know where this one is from... :)

John, so do I, at least I think I do. By the way, have you ever run into David Lucca or Joel Johnson on the water? I haven’t seen them in years.

I have never met Dave personally, nor have I seen many guys on the river lately. I did see what appeared to be him sitting by the water's edge at the Wayside waiting for the Hexs one evening. It was the night I met up with Jason below the Lake, and later Brad Bohen. So I am guessing that was 2003. A few of us all know a great Hex spot, you too probably. :)

The pic I bet is Seeley.

BTW, look at the header on my FF website's home page. Do you recognize it?

http://www.wiflyfisher.com/

You're right.



Is Joel Johnson the bug-eyed guy who sounds and acts like Gilbert Gottfried? I ran across him on a bridge one time and he went off on a crazy tirade about how this website was destroying his river. Normally people have friendly comments when I meet them on the stream and they recognize me from my website--that was my first experience with an angry weirdo, so I remember it pretty well. That was back in 2003 or 2004 I think.





It's not the White. The wood is actually not driftwood, but an artificial bank stabilization project.

Here's the full image (see full size here):


It is from the greater Hayward area, but I bet you'll never guess it in a million years. It's reportedly a brook trout stream, but I only caught chubs the one time I tried.

Also, it seems like nobody's going to figure out the original one from the start of the thread:



So I'll give you a huge whopping clue. Here's a view from pretty much the same spot, earlier in the year:



Someone should be able to get it now if you guys know the Catskills as well as I think you do!

OK guys, I’ve looked at so many pictures since this thread opened, and I swear I’ve stood on many a location, but now I find myself totally lost. The White is ruled out so I will keep scratching my head on that one. John, you say Seely, but I’m inclined to say it’s a spot along Riverview Rd., above the Squaw Bend Rd. bridge. As far as your banner John, my head is again reeling, so much so that I’m not even sure if I’m looking upstream or down. My first guess (and from now on they will all be guesses) is a stretch off of Pfiefer Rd. just upstream and around the bend from the house that was torn down (can’t remember the owners name but I use to shot Sporting Clays league with him) My second guess is Squaw Bend, but I have my doubts on both. Man, I guess I better pay more attention to where I’m at, and less attention on trying to catch fish.

Jason's photo is above Seeley. Looking up from where the bridge use to be behind the town. He was standing on the opposite bank is my guess.

This is the same place as Jason's but in the spring...


My home page photo is the tail of the pool behind the cemetery at Seeley.

I had a nice email reply from F. Pratt about the river and possible new regulations.

Private water on upper Beaverkill?

I guess I'm not as well traveled on the Catskill rivers as I thought I was. I give up.

Okay, I'll give it away: It's the West Branch of the Neversink, shortly upstream from the confluence with the East Branch where the main river starts above the reservoir. It's along the road that goes up around Slide Mountain and over the pass into the Esopus headwaters. I didn't stop to fish it and I haven't heard much about the fishing there, but it's a pretty spot.

"It's the West Branch of the Neversink"

Ah, the Neversink, the one river I've never fished in forty-five years of Catskill angling.

How is that possible???

Jason wrote;

"How is that possible???"

Easy, I just never had any interest to fish there. Maybe a little background is in order. I used to live in northern New Jersey and during the winter of 1964 there had been an article, in Outdoor Life I believe, about the Beaverkill River. I was already enraptured by the lure of fishing but had still not yet embraced fly fishing 100%. Most of the time I was still spinning with bait but would usually pick up the fly rod whenever I saw feeding fish.

In July of 1965 an opportunity arose where I decided to go up and see if I could find the Beaverkill and fish there a couple of days. My route of travel was north on Route 17 in NJ to Mahwah, then onto the NYS Thruway to Harriman, and then the Quickway to Livingston Manor and beyond.

I remember seeing the section of the Neversink as I crossed it in Bridgeville I think was the name of the exit. It never looked very appealing and I had no clue as to where to really get to the river. Remember my first intentions were to fish the Beaverkill. So for the rest of 1965 I fished the BK above and below the Junction Pool. In 1966 I went up early in the season, probably mid April and discovered the Willowemoc. You have to realize that this was before the interest in fly fishing boomed, and more than a decade before "The Movie", so I had those two rivers pretty much to myself with just a very light group of guys fishing there. I only fished on weekends but was hammering twenty - thirty trout every day nymphing the Willow from the Power Lines all the way down to the bridge behind Darbee's and the BK from Barnhart's to Wagon Tracks. There was no need to go anywhere else, I was already in Heaven.

Sometime in the late 1960's I met Ed Van Put who at the time was doing a creel census for the DEC on the Willow. I'd see him 3 - 4 times a day with his clip board as he asked me and my friend how many more we had caught. We become friendly and he told us about the wild rainbows of the Delaware. We went over and that was it, we were hooked for life, here it is maybe 1968 or 1969 and we are on the main stem of the Delaware with virtually no one else fishing there. Wild rainbows rising with impunity all over the river! It was tough at first wading bigger water and learning to cast much further but we got the hang of it and started catching lots of fish.

During the early 1970's we also became familar with the East Branch of the Delaware. I would fish all day and never see another guy fishing. There was one time though when I met two old guys (now I'm an old guy) on a pool upstream from Fishs Eddy and they told me and my buddy about the West Branch of the Delaware. I didn't even know there was such a river that is how niave I was. Then we went over there and began to explore it's potential. Again my Dad and I and my friend could fish the stretch above Upper Gamelands and below West Branch Angler all weekend long and never see another guy. Here we are in the Mecca of fly fishing with zillions of trout on five major river sytems and you ask me how it is possible to not have fished the Neversink?

Yes Jason that would be the guy. He claimed that your site would have people flocking to the area from all over the country.

Yeah, I still don't understand it. Your stories covered why you never fished it before I was born, but from 1980 on, what's the excuse? ;)

The stretch right below the Quickway bridge is totally unappealing, but much of the river is outstanding. It doesn't seem to hold the big trout of the Delaware, but I've had better-than-average luck finding mid-sized fish rising to some sort of hatch most times I visit. Mostly I just like the aesthetic... it's still got a tailwater character, but it's smaller and less crowded than the Delawares. The famous Gorge is one of the prettiest spots in the Catskills, too.

Heh, no great loss if nobody's heard from him in a while, then. What an obnoxious guy.

"but from 1980 on, what's the excuse?"

There is no need for an excuse. There just was no interest on my part to drive away from streams with plentiful trout.

amen, matt
my first rule of fishing -
NEVER leave fish to find fish