The other West Branch!

**northcountryman** · 09-06-2010, 08:45 AM

Yesterday, I decided to do some exploring; since I broke my rod tip and gotta wait till next paycheck to replace, I'm constrained to fish smaller and closer. So, I started pokin' around a little! Drove up to the reservoir (Neversink)first of all, and checked out all the little feeder brooks I could find on the map. Man, were they low!!Most were only a trickle if not completely dried up right now, big surprise (Not!)!. Then, decide to drive up to Denning. About 4 yrs ago, I went up there to check out the E. branch but never went up all the way. This time I did and, for those of you that don't know this, I would say that the east branch is basically inaccessible to the public for all intents and purposes. Unless you own property yourself, or unless a family member or friend does and provides access, its shot!
Virtually the entire stream is posted-if not the whole entire stream-that I could see all the way up to the DEC parking at the end of the road for the hikiing trails. Once I got up to there, I thought I could park and maybe walk in off 1 of the trails but each side of the trail is posted as well. Must be that your required to stay only on the trail itself up there. Anyway, then I turned around and went back to check out the west branch. Like the east, most of the w. branch is posted, including private property houses, cottages and of course, frost valley property which technically, you must be a member or guest to gain access to. However, I did find a couple of spots I never noticed previously that are interspersed between private property that is DEC. I found 2 and there might be 1 or 2 more but that would be about the extent of it. Anyway, 1 is a little pulloff that has a fairly well-traveled path down to the water, takes a bout 2-3 minutes to get there from the pull-off. The water (no surprise) is very small here and could be described as nothing more than a brook. I walked down stream for probably about 500 yards and dropped a line into some of the little pools and runs I found. Didn't catch anything and in most spots, no fished were seen but in a few pools and runs I got rises from litle baby brook trout no more than 3-4 in long! I would say i saw maybe 4-5 little brookies all of this length. Beautiful scenery, nice little brook w/ promise maybe next year but nothing of any size so i moved on. Drove back downstream and several miles down, found another little DEC pulloff w/ a trail to the water.
The water was bigger here and a tfirst, I gota a little excited because of this. But again, the water was sill low and shallow and here I saw and caught nothing. Only checked it out for maybe 45 min or so but didn't seem like too munch was there. However, again, it was very beautiful back there and its worth a stroll just for the scenery perhaps for many of us. I found a deep channel back there that was at least 8-10ft deep and so, tied on the largest bead head I had in my box, added a few shot and plunked it in but again, nuthin. I sat and observed that channel/ pool for a good 15 minutes and saw no fish. There was a rope attached to a tree, evidently a rope swing swimming hole type deal so local teens probably know about the hole. Good guess that trout have learned to stay clear of there as a consequence due to the commotion. Anyway, these spots are no secret but i had never noticed them before when driving past to get to the esopus. Overall, the fishing was poor but there were several fingerlings observed far upstream so next year, who knows?