Catskills the first week of June

Trout fishing outside of NJ
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abitskrewd
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Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2018 8:28 am

Catskills the first week of June

Post by abitskrewd » Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:02 am

I headed up to the Catskills the first week of June as i have been doing for as long as i can remember. This year was the first that i had my raft to float on my own. We concentrated on the Willow and Beaverkill the first few days to limit working in the crowds on the Delaware. The water levels were around normal and made for easy wading on all rivers.
Day 1 (June 1st) we arrived and fished on the Little Beaverkill. We had a few fish working the area where we parked and worked the kinks out. We missed a few on some caddis and march browns. We moved towards Hancock where we were staying and jumped on the West and continued our poor attempts at presenting a decent dry fly drifted through some working fish. Checked in at the Upper Delaware Inn and got ready for the evening session. We headed back east towards the Beaverkill, stopping in town to spend some money at the fly shops. We went to the Beaverkill and set up for the night. As soon as we thought the fishing would turn on, the thunderstorms came through and changed our plans.
Day 2 (June 2nd) we headed east early and got on the Willow. We were surprised to see the bridge empty and quickly headed up stream to work water that seems to get less pressure. My buddy started with a streamer and landed a brown quickly. I was blind casting a big march brown and hooked up quickly as well. We fished down to the bridge and landed a few fish on march browns blind casted to fishy looking water and had twice as many misses. We moved further upstream to work back down to the bridge and were rewarded nicely for our efforts. March Browns were the ticket. Working down and across the water produced for us. We each landed multiple fish with a nice 22" brown being the best of the morning. In the evening we went to one of my favorite places on the Beaverkill and found it empty. Again, blind casted march browns got some fish to come up and feed. We each landed a few and then the action turned off around 6. We stayed hoping for some drakes in the evening and were rewarded with frustration. Like clockwork the midges and caddis started to come upstream in clouds, and from previous experiences in this stretch I was pretty sure the green drakes would follow. As it got dark, they did. Green Drakes stuck in their shucks were floating downstream and the fish were on them. Thousands of drakes emerging with fish slashing through the pools and riffles provided an awesome visual experience, but fooling them proved to be near impossible. Even though the drakes didnt provide us much luck, the start of the week was looking good.
....................to be continued.......................

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njcatchrelease
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Location: Northern NJ
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Re: Catskills the first week of June

Post by njcatchrelease » Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:46 am

Sounds like an awesome trip!
Tight Lines

abitskrewd
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2018 8:28 am

Re: Catskills the first week of June

Post by abitskrewd » Wed Jun 20, 2018 9:28 pm

Day 3 (June 3rd) we fished on the Little Beaverkill for a bit in the morning. As soon as we hit the water the sky opened up. My buddy was throwing the march brown and hooked up on the first cast. i moved upstream and was swinging some caddis and march brown wets. i landed 1 on the caddis as I worked downstream. I switched over to the march brown dry and landed another decent sized brown for the stretch of water. We moved around a bit looking for open water.....the streams were packed once the rain let up. We explored areas on the Willow but didnt want to entertain the crowds. Later in the afternoon we headed back towards the Beaverkill and were looking for some room, which was hard to come by for a Sunday night. We settled on a stretch under 17 and went upstream to some broken water. We worked this water for a while and started to get rewarded. March Browns and Green Drakes were slowly emerging and some fish were active. We both landed multiple fish and I even got a rainbow. We fished the area until dark landing around 10 or 15 between us.

Day 4 (June 4th) we got set up for our first day floating. packed up drinks and food, transferred the essential gear and headed up to Stilesville. There we assembled the raft in about 30 minutes and launched around 11. We made our way slowly down through town and finally saw some decent surface activity above Barking Dog. The fish were picky on small olives. We didnt stay long as we wanted to get below there and be ahead of the boats putting in shortly. We floated down and were working some fish above Dream Catcher and put the first brown in the new boat on a small olive. We worked down to Balls Eddy and picked up a few more fish during a spinner fall that started at 3. We boated 7 fish, mostly on the smaller side.

....................to be continued...................

PortMurrayAng
Posts: 151
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:06 am

Re: Catskills the first week of June

Post by PortMurrayAng » Thu Jun 21, 2018 7:51 am

Thanks for the detailed report!

From what I see and hear the flows are way down and the temps are way up. Hopefully the East Branch won't be packed on Saturday - I'm heading up Friday night. There is 80% chance of rain and thunder for Saturday and my hope is that the weather will keep people home while I fish between the storms (hopefully).

PortMurrayAng
Posts: 151
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:06 am

Re: Catskills the first week of June

Post by PortMurrayAng » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:04 am

Great weekend on the East Branch. Friday night at Long Flats was very quiet and few people catching fish. I got a small brown swinging a sulpher emerger. The sulphurs were abundant with a few olives mixed in.

I met my friend Lee and nymphed during the day. I stuck one strong fish that my brief glimpse of suggested a rainbow. Lee got excited and rushed to help me net the fish and it got off. Lee got a decent brown earlier in the afternoon.

At dusk we went back to Long Flat which had many more people than Friday night. We got a good spot and I quickly caught three brown - one of them about 18 inches. I was swinging the same emerger pattern.

Then, it was Lee's turn. He changed to a tiny - size 18 olive emerger and quickly caught three fish - the smallest was about 18 and the biggest better than 20 inches.

The next morning the Beaverkill was cooled off from the rain so we nymphed a bit and I got one more small brown.

This was my best trip up there to date. While I didn't catch any real hogs it was my largest number of fish and most exciting fights in many years.

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