A grand idea

While sitting under our exhibition tent at the Callicoon Street Fair our president, Mr. Frank Salt, came up with a unique idea for the Upper Delaware Chapter of Trout Unlimited. He wanted to design a novel fly that could be sold at the Narrowsburg RiverFest, to support the Casting for Recovery (CFR) group. That organization encourages people to become interested in fly fishing while recovering from the ravages of cancer.

By Saturday evening, Frank’s idea was fully formed. He would design a fly made mostly of pink foam, since that color is associated with CFR. Rather than tie this fly on a fishing hook, he would tie the materials on a large safety pin, allowing people to wear the pin denoting their support for Casting for Recovery. Frank intended to sell the pins for a dollar donation to CFR. Frank wondered if folks would indeed buy and wear this unusual pin. To his amazement, even though he and Ms. Karol Sundholm sat all day at their fly tying vices, they could barely keep up with the demand for these pink fly pins. At the end of the day, the Upper Delaware Chapter had raised over $200 for Casting for Recovery, thanks to the pink fly pins and a generous donation from a chapter member whose wife has recovered from breast cancer. So, Frank, what is your next grand idea?

At the RiverFest I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Paul Santoriello. He is another fly fisher who takes great pleasure from fishing with a fly rod made of split bamboo. Did you know that bamboo is actually a grass? One of the better known builders of bamboo fly rods is called the “Sweetgrass Rod Company.” In fact Paul told me he owned an eight-foot, three-weight Per Brandin Rod. Since I have a warped sense of humor, I promptly told Paul, “That rod is a piece of junk.” Paul could not have looked more wounded had I stabbed him in the heart. I quickly reassured him that I was only kidding. After all, I own the identical fly rod and consider it to be one of the finest fly rods I have ever cast. Paul told me that he has a place over on the Beaverkill. Who knows, perhaps we will bump into one another, each of us fishing a stick made by the inimitable Mr. Brandin.

On Tuesday, July 28, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) was finally able to do an electro shocking survey of the Willowemoc Creek. This survey had been postponed several times due to very high water flows. I took my 13-year-old grandson Matt Brown along to observe how this is done. This time, the DEC used equipment I had never seen before.

The shocking equipment was installed aboard a small aluminum rowboat rather than being hand held by wading DEC people. The boat method worked well on a large, deep pool above Livingston Manor. A great many trout were recovered, including one a bit over 20 inches.

I was a bit skeptical when the boat method was used a good deal further upriver. At this location, the water was barely a third the width of the first location. To my surprise, the boat worked just fine on this smaller water. This pool also yielded plenty of trout. Quite a few fish were between 14 and 16 inches. Linda Wysocki, the only female member of Bob Angyal’s crew, noted they missed a whopper that somehow managed to slip by under the boat. Matt was thrilled when Linda allowed him to handle the individual small brown envelopes used to hold the scale samples taken from a number of fish. Back at DEC headquarters, these scales will be read under a microscope to determine the age of these fish. This was an exciting and interesting day. I sure hope they invite me along on the next survey, which will probably be on the North Branch of Callicoon Creek.