The Beaverkill

Our little campsite at Beaverkill Campground in the Catskills State Park isn’t anything exceptional unless you credit our fancy parallel parking between marker posts to get situated.  Nothing exceptional except that just beyond that fringe of Joe-Pye-Weed is the Beaverkill. 


THE BEAVERKILL !!!  –-  The mother stream of all dry fly fishing in America, where journeymen and swells have come for over one hundred years to try the Land of Little Waters.  This is where pools are named, enshrined in literature, spoken of in hushed, reverent tones and where, even in these hot , low water conditions, Trout the size of your arm sip flies from the surface in deep pools below covered bridges.
The water was up and clear; the run just below our campsite had some holding water that would have been prime in our home waters, but the Beaverkill is rocky and open to the sun.  Even after a nice rain, the sun beat down relentlessly and the water temperatures were close to 70 degrees. You just can’t release a fish in that water and be confident it would live to fight another day.

 The “sports” we met around town  (in bright pastel fishing shirts and caps with little flip down magnifiers) were just off drift boat trips on the upper Delaware and searching for another place to eat dinner in Roscoe.


Reluctantly, we decided to just wander about visiting the shrines. Of course we sought out the “Famous Roscoe Diner” as consolation for the tragic loss of our Donut Peaches and found it wanting in so many ways, but got intimate glimpses into the training of a new help.

Imagine two amply proportioned young women, raven hair pulled into buns above their matching black slacks and pink tops embroidered “Roscoe Diner’”, studying the computer screen.

This page is fa yah cheeze choices. NEVAH, give da customah a choice of cheeze. Den you gotta go through two moah pages.  Don’t ask. They get Provolone. It’s good!

 

If you can’t fish, you can talk fish or you can visit the place where the scions of Catskill fishing hang out.


The center is located near the fabled Junction pool where the Willowmemac and the Beaverkill merge (not that the young clerk who collected our fees would know).  There were no grey headed sages to speak with (but their names were on plaques EVERYWHERE.













On our own, Patty found a pod of Browns rising just below the bridge.
Robotic trout, deadpanned the guide at one of the local Fly Shops, they turn on automatically when someone crosses the bridge.




Al did find an interesting and knowledgeable fisherman to trade yarns with.  Thanks, John.
We headed back to “Trout Town” to see if anyone would tell us to just buy a license and fish.  No Luck there.