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Post by Matt Reger on Jan 15, 2015 13:43:34 GMT -5
Hello there, hope everybody's getting ready for a successful season. In preparation for next year, I had a question regarding the battenkill and beaverkill rivers. I have a dry fly box for here that contains Mosley duns in olive, brown and rusty along with klinkhammers with beetles and hoppers. Is there anything I should add for April for those streams?
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Post by NickConwall on Jan 15, 2015 15:15:56 GMT -5
Hiya Having never been there myself & not to mention I'm sure you have already thought of this but I never leave to go out, especially on new waters without a box of mixed sizes and patterns of sub-surface flies ranging from the small nymphs up to a few woolly/woodybuggers in s few colors and a s box of attractor/Adirondack style flies to either fish alone with or as an indicator. Hope you have a great trip!  Nick C |
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Post by johnbenish on Jan 16, 2015 5:23:42 GMT -5
What time of year are you going? Weamer's books esp his new one of hatches of NY might help. Maybe my opinion only, but two very difficult and somewhat different waters.
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Post by Doug Pennyloff on Jan 20, 2015 10:27:21 GMT -5
I fish both of those rivers a fair amount but usually not in april. Conditions are generally too hit or miss that time of year and fishing quality is largely dependent on the weather being good enough for hatches. Depending on when in april you are going, the hatches will probably be blue quills and hendicksons on both with quill gordons on the beaverkill. Hatches tend to run earlier on the beaverkill so you will probably have a better chance of seeing hendricksons there. They could show on the battenkill but I would think May for good hatches. You will want dries (comparaduns/parachutes) as well as spinnerss if there actually is a hatch. I am going to strongly disagree with the guy who suggested adirondack type flies. The battenkill fish are just not going to fall for that stuff. Maybe on some places (pocketwater) on the beaverkill you could get away with it, but I very much favor sparse, accurate imitations on both. The beetles and hoppers will be useless that time of year.
On both rivers it is likely that the water will be up so be prepared to throw streamers. I don't typically nymph but I suppose you could do that as well. In april the fish will probably need a hatch to come up. I doubt you are going to have a ton of luck pounding them up. By May that will work, but less likely in april. Not to see it will never happen, but I would fish subsurface unless I see fish feeding on top.
The battenkill is the more challenging of the two but also sees less crowds. There are good fish there if you are willing to work, but it is not a beginners river. I believe it to be the most scenic trout stream in the northeast.
There will be lots of people on the beaverkill. Most of them have no clue what they are doing so don't be afraid to branch off from the herd. It fished awesome in 2014 and flows held up through most of the year so 2015 could be good as well.
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