JONATHAN MEHRING
Traveling riverside blues
Monte Burke introduces a friend to trout fishing in the Catskill Mountains, where, despite bitter early-season conditions, the pair are consumed by the history of the place
IT HAD been the coldest and windiest spring anyone could remember. The rivers were in good shape — the snowpack was excellent, the early spring rains robust. But the temperature had delayed the annual commencement of mayfly season in the Catskills. Still, old habits are hard to break. My journals going back to nearly three decades of fishing up there told me that the third week of April was Hendrickson, quill and caddis time. So, I went.
I had company this year. Tom Montgomery, a guide in Jackson, Wyoming, who was also a former sporting photographer, flew east to finally fish the rivers I’d gone on and on about with him over the years, when we were on assignment together in Labrador or the Bahamas. I worried about the weather. But Tom remained enthusiastic. And, anyway, I’d planned a full itinerary to try to squeeze in as much of the scene as I could, which included stays with three friends of mine. It was our own little Catskills odyssey.
The crystal spring creeks of the Catskills form a heritage trail graced by fly-fishing’s greatest anglers.
JONATHAN MEHRING
We left Brooklyn in the morning and headed for Lew Beach and the private club water on the Upper Beaverkill, to fish with David Goodman, who is sort of the Zelig of modern fly-fishing. He was one of the Letort Regulars, the legendary group of scientific anglers — which included the likes of Lefty Kreh, Vincent Marinaro and Charlie Fox — who pushed the sport of fly-fishing forward, popularizing the use of terrestrials and fishing “far and fine” while trying to fool the decidedly unfoolish trout in that spring creek.
The Letort Anglers: a group of pioneering fly-fishers captivated by the famously difficult Letort spring creek in Pennsylvania. David was part of this Latort group, along with Lefty Kreh (front row: 2nd from left) and Charlie Fox (front row: 2nd from right).
David Lewis Goodman next Billy Pate (far right) and George Hommell (second from left).
Goodman fished in Homosassa with Billy Pate during the heady days of the world record tarpon chase there in the late 1980s. He has long been a close personal friend of Joan Wulff’s. He’s had beats on the Alta and maintains a man cave on the Cascapedia. He is among the top practitioners of Spey casting in the world and now only fishes with a double-handed rod, even for tarpon. He is a tall man with an aristocratic forehead and nose. He had emailed Tom and me before the trip, regaling us with tales of fishing in the Catskills, in the evening alpenglow on the West Branch of the Delaware back in the 1980s, before that river became an overcrowded mess. But he also told us that he had stopped trout fishing in 1989. Huh? “I now salmon-fish for trout,” he explained.
We never left the motel bar that night, content with our scheming and well bourbon
The three of us met at Dette Flies in Livingston Manor, New York, located on the banks of the Willowemoc River, and mooned over the shop’s excellent collection of vintage reels and exquisite, traditionally tied Catskill patterns. We then headed up to the private water on the Beaverkill. I had never fished it before but had long drooled over the prospect. Back in my early 20s, the artist, James Prosek, and I, concocted a plan one night to sneak onto some of the water. Schwarz fishing, he called it (“schwarz” being the German word for “black”). Thankfully, we never left the motel bar that night, content with our scheming and well bourbon.
Tradition first: you cannot visit the Catskills without sampling the local favourites.
JONATHAN MEHRING
Goodman took us to a comely stretch of water. It was still frigid — 30 degrees F — and the club had yet to do its stocking due to the cold spring. Our chances of actually catching fish seemed slim, but we rigged up anyway. Tom managed to dredge up two holdover browns with nymphs. I caught a skinny rainbow on a black streamer. The most interesting part of the day, however, was watching Goodman work his double-hander, effortlessly throwing long, graceful casts that covered all of the water with his Sunray Shadow. Salmon fishing for trout.
Like bankruptcy, the flakes started slowly and then came down all at once
The three of us later moved down to the “Big” Beaverkill, the public water that I was more familiar with and that, frankly, was more my jam. We stopped at the Sunoco Pool, a deep run that abuts a wall of riprap and is located behind — you guessed it — a gas station. The sylvan, unpopulated and uncommercialized Upper Beaverkill this was not.
We spread out. My fingers were red and unresponsive. Tiny flecks of ice sprayed from the rod guides when I cast. As I moved up to the head of the pool, I saw my first rise of the season. I began to clip off my streamer. And then it began to snow. Like bankruptcy, the flakes started slowly and then came down all at once. Pretty soon, the whiteout made it impossible to see anything. We retreated back to Goodman’s cabin for a hot shower, a Guinness and dinner.
Gordon’s Elbow Pool where Monte paid tribute to the great dry-fly exponent Theodore Gordon.
DOUGLAS MCFAYDEN
The next morning dawned at 22 degrees. Nevertheless, I wadered up. Gordon’s Elbow Pool — once Theodore Gordon’s favorite — was a five-minute walk from Goodman’s place. I decided that I had to at least throw a few casts into the water once fished by the “father of American dry-fly fishing.” Predictably, I came up empty. But I was glad I did it.
We bid Goodman goodbye and followed the Beaverkill down to where it runs into the East Branch of the Delaware, and then to where the East Branch meets the West Branch to form the Main Stem of the Delaware. We continued downriver to the old railroad town of Callicoon, where the rainbows that dominate the Main Stem were supposedly first stocked by a railroad man in the late 19th century. There, we turned east, to Jeffersonville, and pulled up at the home of Brendan McCarthy.
His next job, paradoxically, was as a bartender in Manhattan in the 1980s and ’90s
Brendan had moved to the Catskills from Brooklyn the year prior, fed up with the extortionate price he paid for the shop there in which he made his exquisite, Argentine-style high-heat grills. He remains an on-again, off-again inshore saltwater guide on Long Island, and is still among the best to ply that trade.
A hungry Catskill brownie.
JONATHAN MEHRING
Brendan has lived his life a bit on the edge. He was a self-described juvenile delinquent until he gave up drinking in his early 20s. His next job, paradoxically, was as a bartender in Manhattan in the 1980s and ’90s. He still has some of that flair with his hands, which Tom and I witnessed as he cooked our dinner that night and expertly flipped hunks of steak and then quickly and precisely sliced them up with a sharp knife. Brendan spent that evening regaling us with stories from his bartending days, back when models and actresses frequented the scene, and stylishly coy young Manhattan women became less so with each drink served by the black Irish bartender. Tom’s eyes grew wider with every subsequent tale.
Summer hatches, vibrant banks and fat brownies.
JONATHAN MEHRING
We awoke the next morning and decided to do a short float on the Main Stem because 1), we wanted to take our time and work the pools and 2), it was still intermittently snowing. Despite the snowflakes, I felt optimistic. The Hendricksons had to hatch at some point and today was as good a day as any.
Brendan rowed and continued to tell Tom stories about 1980s Manhattan. Tom nymphed from the front. I chucked a streamer in the back. Tom is among the fishiest people I know, and he quickly got into two decent fish on his nymphs. After lunch, we anchored below the run of one of the better pools on the Main Stem and waited. The trees on the banks were just beginning to bud. The grasses were already a hopeful green. “We’ll see them at 2:30,” I said. I tried to sound confident.
And, lo and behold, a few bugs did start to show up around that time. And then a fish rose, and then another. It was finally on, I thought.
Tom had graciously offered to row, something he does very well thanks to his decades on the Snake. Brendan immediately caught a chunky brown. Then I did, too. Tom took the bow for his turn. And then the fish quit.
The big hatches would begin any day and wouldn’t end for another six
They didn’t stop completely — we’d see a rise here and there for the next two hours. But they weren’t the rhythm feeders needed for a decent shot. We did not catch another fish.
As we pulled out after saying goodbye to Brendan, Tom turned to me, his eyes widening once again. “That was an incredible guy. My God.”
We were headed back upriver to stay with Matt Hackett, a guide who had recently purchased and refurbished the iconic Beaver-Del motel, located on a bend of the East Branch. When we arrived, Matt and four of his fellow guides were in their “hangout room” in the motel. They were in good spirits, apple-cheeked from the day on the water. The mood, in general, had to do with the upcoming season. The big hatches would begin any day and wouldn’t end for another six months. In specific, they were excited about the day Matt had with his clients on the Upper East Branch. That water is usually too small to run a drift boat through. But Matt had read the gauge and surmised that he could get away with it. They’d caught fish on streamers and then run into a healthy hatch of quills. That intuition and connection to the water are what make Matt one of the best in the area.
Dry-fly fishing and the Catskills go hand-in-hand, but early spring often calls for the nymph box.
JONATHAN MEHRING
Another young man showed up and plopped several Ziploc bags on a table, filled with something indiscernibly dark
Drinks flowed. Tom and I were careful not to match the pace of the younger men, who reminded me of me at that age — fully consumed with the beauty, history and fishing in these rivers that flowed through the cleavage of these ancient mountains. At some point, another young man showed up and plopped several Ziploc bags on a table, filled with something indiscernibly dark. “That’s my nymph dealer,” Matt said. Another guide, Pete Horger, bought all of them on the spot. Pete, we learned, had guided all over the country, from Wyoming to Georgia. The Catskills were just the latest stop on what appeared to be a lifelong journey. He reminded me of McGuane’s line in one of his stories, when he spots Russell Chatham walking a cutbank above a Montana river carrying a shotgun and a fly-rod and thinks that this is “a man who has ruined his life with sport.” Meant in a sort of an admiring and perhaps even slightly jealous way, I always believed.
Tom and I woke up the next morning to more cold and, yes, more snowflakes. We nymphed a stretch of water in front of the Beaver-Del without much enthusiasm and then cried “uncle.” We had to be back in the city that night for a dinner honoring a fly-fishing legend. We were windburned, cold-toed and exhausted. I told Tom I was sorry that he hadn’t seen the Catskills in its prime. He looked at me with a smile and said, “I’d do this again next year in a heartbeat.” I believed him.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Monte Burke
Monte Burke is the New York Times best-selling author of Men of Troy, Rivers Always Reach the Sea, Lords of the Fly and Saban. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters.
