When will the flooding end?

The first phone call came at 9:00 Sunday morning. My fishing buddy, Paul Tootleman of West Windsor, NJ, informed me in worried tones that the Catskill region’s rivers were again flooding. The figures he had been getting from the Internet made it appear that this flood was going to be worse than Ivan.

Paul was concerned about his trailer site at Twin Islands campground. When Ivan came roaring down the Beaverkill last September, it destroyed the wooden deck in front of his trailer. Now, it appeared that the river would once again inundate the campground.

After ending the conversation with Paul, I phoned Tom and Sue Brown, whose home is a quarter-mile upstream from our cabin. They confirmed that the river was rising higher than Ivan’s peak. Tom reported that the river was within 30 feet of their home and that they had water in their basement.

Oh, Oh. In that case, I wondered how things were at our cabin.

Tom volunteered to go down and open it up in order to inspect for any problems. I suggested that he shouldn’t call me back if all was well, and fortunately, he found no reason to get back to us.

Later that afternoon I learned that the exit off of Route 17 leading into Roscoe was closed. The streets of the town were flooded. This was hard to believe. It sure sounded as if most of the stores would suffer water damage. Our friends, Mark Romero and Misako Ishimura, who live near the mouth of Stewart Brook, had their barn destroyed, and the first floor of their home was flooded.

I heard from Paul again, later in the week. His friends, Pete Peterson and Eddie McQuat, had driven up to check on the situation at Twin Islands. The campground had suffered considerable damage and a great deal of the area was covered with two to three feet of rock rubble. Nevertheless, Bill Lambrigger, the owner, is determined to rebuild yet again.

As usual, some well-intentioned folks are calling for streams to be bulldozed in order to prevent flooding. This is not the answer. Channeling or berming streambeds only allows water to flow downstream with greater velocity, causing worse damages to properties in the floodplain, and perhaps even above it.

The only long-term answer to flood damage is to remove structures from a river or brook’s floodplain. If you build in the floodplain of a river or a brook, it is guaranteed that the water will come and visit from time to time.

Yesterday in the mail I received the 2004 Angler Diary Program report from Norm McBride, the Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) head fisheries biologist of Region Four. If you fish the East or West Branch Rivers of the Delaware or the Main Stem, consider keeping one of these diaries for the DEC. It is easy enough that even The Tangler can do it properly. Last year, 41 anglers kept diaries and returned them to McBride. For just a little effort and no cost you can help the DEC keep tabs on these fisheries.

Fishing hours, according to these diary keepers, increased 62 percent in 2004. The overall catch rate in the Upper Delaware main stem and the East and West branches was 0.84 trout per hour. This was virtually identical to the catch rate in 2003.

On the West Branch in 2003, 1.4 percent of the trout caught were 20 inches or larger. In 2004, 3.7 trout caught met the 20-inch mark.

On the East Branch in 2003, 1.3 percent of the trout caught were 20 inches or larger. In 2004, 2.3 percent of those caught were 20 inches or larger.

On the Main Stem in 2003, 3.1 percent of the trout caught were 20 inches or larger. In 2004, this percentage fell to 2.2.

In general, fishing on the Upper Delaware tailwaters in 2004 was comparable to that recorded in 2003. Catch rates on the East and West branches were up, while on the main stem they were down.

To participate in this important diary program contact Norm McBride at 607/652-7366.