Pepacton Reservoir Memories

I found these shots in a folder, stimulating memory instantly, me inferring the striking comparison between Pepacton Reservoir near Roscoe NY, and Lake Hopatcong NJ where we will fish in two weeks, so long as all goes well. The lake is our favorite home water and we truly love the place, but look how wild this much larger body of water. No homes along the shores; it's all wilderness, the water as clear as Round Valley Reservoir and full of trout and smallmouth bass even though we did poorly for the bass, this our first time fishing and only one day. We got a tip later about where we may try next time. The shelves we found--drop offs stacked with undercut slate--looked delicious, but they just either did not hold bass or those hiding would not hit.

No electric motors allowed, we rented a rowboat kept with many dozens of others on the reservoir shore, chain-locked to trees. Driving along the reservoir, you can see these boats back along edges of certain deep coves. I don't think Pepacton has any shallow. From those shelves I mentioned, we rigged with lead core line and a thin, ribbony spoon to row-troll a half mile to a promising shoreline where another angler fished in the nearing distance. We saw him hook up with a large frucus on the surface. He had cast a spinnerbait, and the bass he lost a second later seemed to be about three pounds. Before we got that far across, we passed the rower photographed above, greeted each other, and inquired about catch. He had a small brown trout of about 2 1/2 pounds on what they call razorbellies--herring.

The lead core was kindly lent us by the camp proprietor in Roscoe. Camping on the bank of the Beaverkill, I awoke well before first light the morning we departed for Pepacton. I didn't expect preparing breakfast would be so satisfying. The simplicity of cooking over fire proved to be one of summer's highlights. Once the bacon and eggs cooked sufficiently, only then I woke Matt. I must have slept real well because I felt great for the 45 minutes or so, temperature in the upper 40's, before we departed for the half hour drive to the reservoir.

This channel catfish was so white with spots it resembled a trout.