August angling: Unleash the Chupacabra

Welcome to the Mixed Bag edition of Tangled Lines.

A recent sojourn to the Catskills was not as productive as I’d hoped. The hot and dry weather rendered the freestones all but unfishable, with low flows and correspondingly high water temperatures.

That left the tailwaters, and from Phoenicia, New York, to either the East or West branches of the Delaware or to the Neversink was more driving than I wanted to do.

So the Esopus was the default setting.

This is not your standard tailwater, with cold water coming out of a dam. In this case, the water comes out of a tunnel, drilled a century or so ago under the mountains. It conveys water from the Schoharie Reservoir to the north into the Esopus at Allaben, which isn’t even a wide spot in the road.

The water dumps into the Esopus at what is known as the Portal, and the river from there down some 11 miles and change to the Ashokan Reservoir is a tailwater.

In theory, the cold water releases keep conditions congenial for trout.

In practice, it is important to remember that the whole point of the exercise is to provide drinking water for New York City. The health of fish, and mental health of fishermen, comes in a distinct and distant second.

The United States Geological Survey has a gauge in Boiceville, before the river enters the reservoir. This gauge has lots of useful information, including water temperature.

It was clear that fishing the lower part of the Esopus tailwater could only be done in the morning, as afternoon water temperatures were getting into the low 70s.

But the closer you get to the Portal, the cooler the water. So at Point A, the water temperature at 5 p.m. was a reasonable 63 degrees.

I confined myself to swinging wet flies through the riffles. Leadwing Coachmen, Light Cahills, and assorted soft-hackled wets did the trick, and I netted several small, wild rainbows. This is pretty standard stuff for an Esopus outing in late July.

The next morning Gary Dodson and I convened at what we call Disneyland in Boiceville. It looks like hell, as the state is replacing the main bridge there, but the recreation area is the western terminus of a trail that runs along the old railroad bed all the way to Hurley. It is very popular with bicyclists and joggers and other land-based life forms.

It also provides handy access for anglers.

August brings warm-water lake fishing, which means it’s time to test out the new big flies. The Chupacabra is eight inches long and Gary Dodson says “it’s like casting a wet towel.”Patrick L. Sullivan

We started at 9 a.m., which was good from the standpoint of not being half-asleep but not so great from the water temperature side of things.

The water temperature was 64. We guessed it would hit 68 by noon, so we got started.

Noticing stonefly shucks on the rocks, I chucked Stimulators, a big bushy dry fly that imitates the adult stonefly. I stuck them into every bit of soft water I could find and was rewarded by several smallish but feisty brown trout coming to the net.

Gary worked a Griffith’s Gnat, size 18, on a long, slack downstream cast and got a couple of rainbows that, while not big, at least made it interesting.

Our prediction was solid. The thermometer read 69 degrees at noon, so we cheesed it.

We should have started at 5 a.m. and fished until 9 a.m., but neither one of us was eager to leap out of bed pre-dawn.

Tangled Lines World Headquarters now shifts to warm water lake fishing for August. I recently splurged on some really big flies, meant for pike or muskie but certainly applicable to largemouth bass etc.

This includes the Chupacabra, which is eight inches long from head to tail. Gary says “it’s like casting a wet towel.”

The program for August is simple. Get up at dawn and float around the lake in a pontoon boat catching largemouth, the occasional smallie, plus perch, crappie, the odd pickerel and assorted panfish. Get out once the sun is up and running, go to work, blah blah blah. Afternoon nap. Head out again in the evening.

I particularly like floating around at 8 p.m. or so, hauling up bucketmouths while listening to the Mets game on the radio.

I have yet to drop the radio in the lake.