September brings a time for change, with new beginnings as well as endings. This week my 4-year-old granddaughter accompanied me on a journey up to Prattsville the day before she started Kindergarten to enjoy the beauty of nature, have a picnic lunch, and visit our horse Morgan at the farm where she now resides. It was a beautiful and memorable trip; the difference between last week’s August leaves and this week’s September foliage was striking, and we enjoyed seeing a snippet of the beautiful colors yet to come. 

As we drove along the placid Pepacton Reservoir and noted the sign “former site of Arena”, one of four communities swallowed up by its construction in the 1940s and 1950, I couldn’t help but think of the tremendous changes that occurred, which displaced nearly 1,000 residents of the communities of Arena, Pepacton, Shavertown, and Union Grove and required the clearing of thousands of acres of land along the East Branch of the Delaware. It brought to mind Jay Ungar’s haunting lament, Ashokan Farewell, which he wrote in 1982 to reflect his strong emotional letdown and longing for the community, music, and friendships after returning from the secluded woodland of his summer music camp on the Ashokan campus. His reluctance at having to transition from the natural world evokes a powerful, tearful sense of American identity, reflection, and nostalgia which can be envisioned when viewing these massive man-made lakes. We can only imagine the collective ache which the scattered communities must have felt as they lined the ridges and watched the rising water slowly swallow generations of their history; the roads, gardens, pastures, porches, rooftops, barns and steeples they knew so well, and turn their homelands into a silent, underwater ghost town.

However, construction of the Catskill reservoirs was deemed a necessity to provide drinking water for millions of thirsty residents in the New York metropolitan area, and through the years have provided Catskill residents and visitors with recreational opportunities, such as boating, hiking, and excellent fishing. And a bonus we’ve come to enjoy are the Tailwater fisheries for trout below each impoundment, thanks to regulated cold-water releases from the reservoirs during the heat of summer. On our journey from Livingston Manor to Prattsville, we traveled past no less than 10 different streams - the Willowemoc, Beaverkill, Alder Creek, Barkaboom, East Branch Delaware, Bush Kill, Dry Brook, Esopus, Schoharie, and West Kill. It was a reminder of how fortunate we are to live in such a water-rich area, and to be able to fish in so many different creeks and rivers. Most of our streams are still graced by the presence of those tiny “Catskill Jewels,” the wild brook trout, each with their own unique heritage strains, now beginning to sport their glorious colors as they enter their spawning season. It was heartening to see water levels so favorable for the fish, after a fairly rainy summer, which bodes well for growth heading into the fall and winter. Both the Willowemoc and Beaverkill have remained well above their average flows, and water temperatures have remained down in the sixties.  Hatches of Blue Winged Olives, Sulphurs, Light Cahills, and various caddis flies are still about, along with Isonychias, especially in the afternoons and evenings. The outlook for the beautiful season of Fall fishing is favorable. It’s a favorite time of year to fish with streamers. Streamer flies imitate the young of the year, and with the excellent water levels we’ve been enjoying this summer, the larger trout will be enticed by the prospect of a nicely presented streamer. It’s fun to fish a streamer, which is easy to see in clear water - you can make it swim faster or slower - and watch the trout take the fly! 

Here’s the pattern for a Little Brook Trout streamer, from the Joseph Bates Streamer Book, as tied by John Apgar, President of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild. John is a fantastic fly tier and provided the following tips when tying this fly:

The Little Brook Trout (one of a series of Bucktail patterns)

Hook: 6X-long streamer hook, size #10 to #2

Thread: Black 6/0

Tail: Bright green bucktail and red floss

Body: Cream dubbing

Rib: Narrow flat silver tinsel

Throat: Orange bucktail (& narrow white saddle fibers)

Wing: White bucktail, orange bucktail, bright green bucktail, barred badger hair (you may substitute brown or squirrel tail hair. (2 red 2 blue Krystal flash)

Cheeks: Jungle cock

 “As for suggestions on tying Bucktails, always use less than you think you need. Sparsely tied always looks better, maybe start with a small clump of hair 20 to 25 strands (guessing here) then thin out the too long and too short ones and it should be just about right. When layering colors the bottom color is the shortest and each additional layer is just slightly longer. I usually put a drop of clear nail polish over the cut ends once the layering is complete too, helps hold things together and also help seal the hard of the fly once