FLY FISHING IN THE CATSKILLS

Fly Fishing in the Catskills is two days on the Beaverkill in late May for six members, with guides and rods provided. No experience is assumed.

It exists so that a member who has only ever looked at a river from a bridge has stood in one.

The Dry Fly

The dry fly is an English refinement. It floats on the surface, as a newly hatched insect does, and the trout rises to take it. Frederic Halford worked out its method on the chalk streams of southern England, and published it in 1886.

In 1890 he sent a set of his flies across the Atlantic to Theodore Gordon, who fished the Catskills. They were tied for English insects. Gordon spent the rest of his life tying flies to match what hatched on the Neversink, the Willowemoc and the Beaverkill, and the best known of them, the Quill Gordon, carries his name. He is called the father of American dry-fly fishing.

He taught his flies to Roy Steenrod, who worked at the post office, on condition that he keep them to himself for the time being. Steenrod went on to tie the Hendrickson, for the spring hatch on the Beaverkill and the Willowemoc, and named it for A. E. Hendrickson.

The Beaverkill runs some forty-four miles out of the mountains to the East Branch of the Delaware. The Willowemoc joins it at Junction Pool, in Roscoe, the best-known water on the river.

The Two Days

Six places, and a guide to every pair.

The first afternoon is spent on the lawn of the house with a rod and no river: how it is held, how the line goes back and comes forward, and how to put the fly down on the water without a splash.

Each morning the members go out in pairs at first light, each pair with its guide, to water chosen the night before. The guides choose the flies and say where to stand.

Every trout goes back into the river.

The second afternoon takes in the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum at Livingston Manor, on the Willowemoc, and Junction Pool on the way.

Each day ends at the house, at a long table, where the fish are described again, some of them accurately.

What Is Asked

Country attire, in quiet colours. A trout sees the bank as well as the fly.

The guides provide the rods, the waders and the flies. No member need bring their own.

Every member of sixteen or over needs a New York fishing licence, bought online before the weekend.

Wade where the guide says, and nowhere else.

Keep quiet on the water, and keep back from the bank.

The Places

Six. Three pairs, three guides, three pools.

Members are written to in March.

The sum is stated in the invitation and covers the guides, the rods, the house and the table.

Those who take to it are offered a place at The Berkshire Weekend in September, where the fishing is their own.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.