
A rock shelf formation on the private stream. This kind of terrain creates excellent cover for trout.
Patrick L. Sullivan
A rock shelf formation on the private stream. This kind of terrain creates excellent cover for trout.
When syndicated columnists get lazy they gather together bits and pieces that never made it out of the notebook, mash them together, and email it in.
Usually they try to unify the disparate items under a catch-all heading, such as “Heard on the Street” or “Things the Cabby Told Me.”
I’m working on that.
A few days before Memorial Day I was whiling away an idle hour or two on the Blackberry.
From the bridge at Beckley Furnace I observed a fellow fly-caster. We acknowledged each other, and after a couple casts he called up “Got any tips?”
I scrambled down. He was Andrew Stone of Illinois, with a teenager at one of the private schools.
I gave him the little mini-bugger I have been using with considerable success in recent years and almost immediately he was on a fish.
This was very good for my ego.
Andrew Stone netted a trout on the Blackberry in May, thanks in part to some stellar advice from yours truly.Patrick L. Sullivan
In the last week of May I went on my first solo trip to the private fishing club water. I had my button proclaiming my status as a paid-up member attached to my hat. On advice from the club president, I also made an enlarged photocopy of said button and left it on the dashboard.
The club has an arrangement with property owners along the medium-sized stream. Three members of this particular family drove by at various times, with much waving and tooting of horns.
Armed with an old Orvis seven and a half foot four weight with a slow action and a 10-foot Tenkara rod tucked in my pack, I slithered downstream along surprisingly slick cobble, swinging a team of traditional winged wet flies below me.
Nothing happened.
Then the stream took a hard left into a long shelf formation, and here I struck gold.
Alertly noticing the casings from a bug called isonychia on the streamside rocks, I changed over to a Leadwing Coachman winged wet fly on a dropper under an iso dry fly.
I like isos. They are big, and their imitations are big too. I can see them to tie on.
Isos are also good swimmers, so instead of obsessing about the perfect drift, I can put some English on them, especially the subsurface versions.
There are typically two rounds of isonychia in the streams I frequent in New York and Connecticut. The first starts around the beginning of June and seems to taper off as July approaches.
Then it all starts again in August, and runs for a couple months. I have caught fish in the Esopus and Housatonic in late October on iso imitations.
The first brown nabbed the wet fly, and a few minutes later another sportingly took the dry.
The first brown trout from the private fishing club stream looks much bigger than it was because I deliberately brought my smallest net.Patrick L. Sullivan
After an unfortunate encounter with some knotweed I switched over to the DragonTail Talon Mini 310, which is a fixed-line rod with a slow action that fishes at 10 feet and packs down to 12 inches when collapsed, which means it can be stuck in a shallow pocket on a vest or in the wader’s handwarming pocket or even in a pants pocket
The extra reach allowed me to simply flick the line back and forth in front of me, thus avoiding a back cast and the dratted knotweed.
Using a team of a yellow soft hackle wet in size 14 and the Leadwing, I rustled up a couple more of the truck fish from the stocking the first week of May. Neither paid any attention to the yellow fly, which I only included because I saw a yellowish bug flying around. This is called “Not Matching the Hatch.”
Back at base I next spent a thoroughly frustrating day failing to catch anything anywhere on a day that should have been perfect — overcast, warmish, drizzly. The kind of day that makes aquatic insects leap from their beds and rejoice in the promise of a new day.
After a solid five hours of fooling around I finally found some wild browns who were willing to play. They weren’t big but they were very wiggly, resulting in many “compassionate releases,” which is a convenient rationalization of the failure to land a fish.
Speaking of failure, I forgot to buy milk. Twice. So on two successive mornings I had to drink my coffee black.
I remembered to buy a quart, figuring I could bring it back to Connecticut in the cooler.
Well…
Let’s just say that as I peck this out on a rainy Saturday morning, May 31, I am enjoying a cup of black coffee.
Kevin Kelly
“I was exposed to that cutthroat, ‘Yes, chef’ culture. It’s not for me. I don’t want anyone apologizing for who they are or what they love.”— Kevin Kelly
Kevin Kelly doesn’t call himself a chef; he prefers “cook.” His business, After Hours, based in Great Barrington, operates as what Kelly calls “a restaurant without a home,” a pop-up dining concept that prioritizes collaboration over competition, flexibility over permanence, and accessibility over exclusivity.
Kelly grew up in Great Barrington and has roots in the Southern Berkshires that go back ten generations. He began working in restaurants at age 14. “I started at Allium and was hooked right off the bat,” he said. He worked across the region from Cantina 229 in New Marlborough to The Old Inn on the Green at Jacob’s Pillow before heading to Babson College in Boston to study business. After a few years in Boston kitchens, he returned home to open a restaurant. But the math didn’t work. “The traditional model just didn’t feel financially sustainable,” he said. “So, I took a step back and asked, ‘If that doesn’t work, then what does?’”
The answer became After Hours. Rather than investing in a single location, Kelly partners with various venues and brings the restaurant experience to them. He uses the commercial kitchen at The Thornewood, a former inn turned workforce housing in Great Barrington. “They didn’t really have much use for the commercial kitchen, and I happened to connect with them when they acquired the property. We were actually the first tenant in the building,” said Kelly. Events are usually family-style and rooted in seasonal, local ingredients, sourced from local farms whenever possible including Dancing Greens, Indian Line, Off The Shelf and North Plain.
Since launching in December 2023, After Hours has hosted more than 150 events and partnered with nearly 100 local businesses including Wards Nursery in Great Barrington, Paige’s Place in Otis, Massachusetts, The Berkshire Botanical Garden, and coming up is a summer residency at The White Hart in Salisbury. From multi-course dinners to casual market pop-ups, its model adapts to the space, the moment, and the ingredients. “We design menus based on the venue,” said Kelly. “Whatever the kitchen allows, we make it work.”
Looking for partnerships that are mutually beneficial adds to the community-oriented business model. “Something we always look to curate with events and event partners is finding ways to mutually collaborate on marketing. So, Wards is a great example where they’re really looking to tap into a younger demographic and that’s something we’re able to really bring to the table.”
Now, Kelly is extending the model with a new initiative called The After Hours Supper Club. A subscription-based model, members will receive monthly meals for two or four with seasonally inspired mains, small plates, desserts, and extras. A portion of the proceeds supports Berkshire Bounty, a nonprofit fighting local food insecurity.
The Supper Club is not Kelly’s first collaboration with Berkshire Bounty. Last Thanksgiving, he launched a “buy one, give one” meal kit where one purchased meal equaled one donated to a local family. “Berkshire Bounty is so grateful for the continued support from Kevin and After Hours. Through Kevin’s creativity and care, together we are making an impact on food security in this community and providing nourishing food for the most vulnerable among us,” said Morgan Ovitsky, Executive Director of Berkshire Bounty.The subscription model allows After Hours to extend its reach into homes across the region. “We’ve had strong early interest,” said Kelly. “We’re fulfilling our first orders in June.”
Staffing such a fluid operation is a challenge. To address this, Kelly also created After Hours Gigs, a flexible labor system where people can sign up for one-off shifts. “Most people around here have three or four jobs,” he said. “This lets them pick up a gig with low commitment.” About 15 to 20 people work regularly through the system, but Kelly is often still scrambling to fill roles on busy weekends. With five events in just four days on the calendar, Kelly keeps moving. “It’s a lot,” he said. “But you just do it. One event at a time.”
There is a distinctly anti-macho ethos to his kitchens. “I was exposed to that cutthroat, ‘Yes, chef’ culture. It’s not for me. I don’t want anyone apologizing for who they are or what they love.” When someone asks what to wear to a gig, his response is simple. “Be comfortable. Be presentable. Be yourself.”
What Kelly has built with After Hours is less a brand than a belief that food should be personal, shared, grounded in place and people. So, what’s the most delicious thing he’s made recently? “A white pizza with ramp pesto,” he told me, eyes lighting up. “We’ve started doing Sicilian slices at the farmer’s market. Breakfast pizzas are next.”
For more information, visit: www.afterhoursgb.com
Dee Salomon on what makes a garden a garden.
On June 20 and 21, the Cornwall Library will celebrate its 10th anniversary of Books & Blooms, the two-day celebration of gardens, art, and the rural beauty of Cornwall. This beloved annual benefit features a talk, reception, art exhibit, and self-guided tours of four extraordinary local gardens.
The first Library sponsored garden tour was in June 2010 and featured a talk by Page Dickey, an avid gardener and author. This year’s Books & Blooms will coincide with Ellen Moon’s exhibit “Thinking About Gardens,” a collection of watercolors capturing the quiet spirit of Cornwall’s private gardens. Moon, a weekly storyteller to the first grade at Cornwall Consolidated School and art curator for The Cornwall Library, paints en plein air. Her work investigates what constitutes a garden. In the description of the show, she writes: “there are many sorts...formal, botanical, cottage, vegetable, herb...even a path through the woods is a kind of garden. My current working definition of a garden is a human intervention in the landscape to enhance human appreciation of the landscape.” Also on display are two of her hand-embroidered jackets. One depicts spring’s flowering trees and pollinators. The other, a kimono, was inspired by Yeats’s “The Song of the Wandering Aengus.”
On Friday, June 20 at 5:30 p.m. writer and garden philosopher Dee Salomon will give a talk titled, “What Makes a Garden a Garden?” at Cornwall Town Hall. Beloved for her “Ungardener” column here in our newspapers, Salomon will reflect on the meaning of gardens and their place in the human imagination. The presentation is followed by a festive cocktail reception at the library, with live music by the Crownback Funk Trio, an improvisational blend of funk, blues, and jazz.
Then on Saturday, participants can enjoy self-guided tours of four distinctive Cornwall gardens, each with docents on hand to answer questions. From a terraced Italianate hillside overlooking the Housatonic River to a wild deer-frequented garden brimming with perennials and daffodils, these gardens tell stories of transformation, imagination, and place.
Books & Blooms is a reflection of the Cornwall Library’s vital role in town. “The library really is the central meeting place,” said event organizer Kirk Van Tassel. “People come here for talks, kids’ programs, art exhibits. It’s a cornerstone of community life.”
To purchase tickets, visit cornwalllibrary.org
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