Some memorable fishing adventures

There is a place on the Niagara River, behind Lynch’s Trailer Park on the outskirts of Niagara Falls, that was a great spot for smallmouth bass when I was in high school.

You’d go there in the evening, wade out to the drop off, and you’d catch fish, usually quite a few, if not too big.

There was a problem, however. When you wade in at dark, you’d hear all this squealing and notice a lot of scurrying all through the riprap along the bank.

The first time it happened, I had no idea what was going on, but as I got closer, I realized what the deal was – rats, scores of them, nasty, plait-tailed, beady-eyed vermin scrambling all over the place, in and out of the holes and cracks in the rocks, scavenging for whatever had washed up during the day. Very disturbing.

“Oh, man, how I’m going to get out of here?” I thought. “I can’t stand in the river all night.”

With that in mind, I finally gathered up enough courage to climb out as the company of rodents ran off in every possible direction. What a relief. I went back a few times, but the rats finally got the better of me, mentally, anyway.

I decided there were other places to catch bass.

Those were memorable fishing experiences. I’ve had a great many of them. Memorable obviously does not necessarily mean good, but most have been.

Here’s one. Jack Henke has been an Oneida Lake angler for about a thousand years, and he knows what he is doing. I fish with him now and again.

One day Jack decided to use an old-time method – dragging the anchor. The theory is the anchor, on a shortened line, bumps along the bottom, stirring up anything that is down there, and bass come in behind, picking off whatever shows up.

Did it work? Are you kidding? We drifted with nightcrawlers and, I think, crayfish, in eight to 10 feet of water, and we caught smallmouth after smallmouth, dozens of them. We fished two rods apiece, and a couple of times we had four fish on at once. Almost all of them were jumpers.

I might be kidding myself, but I think there was a moment when we had four fish in the air at one time.

A memorable trip? Yeah, and yes, a pretty good one.

Here’s another. John Page of the Utica Department of Environmental Region 6 office set up a cod fishing trip with Yankee Charters of Gloucester, Massachusetts. We left the dock at 10 p.m., slept on the boat, and arrived at Cash’s Ledge, about 80 miles out, at 3:30 a.m.

The seas were very rough, and a lot of guys were sick, including a few in our party, one of whom had insisted that he was a Navy veteran and Dramamine was unnecessary.

Jim Farquhar, now the chief of the DEC’s Bureau of Wildlife, and I fished the entire time, about eight hours, on what eventually turned into a sunny, flat calm day. I never ate anything or drank one Pepsi or Coke. You might say we were focused on fishing.

We caught many cod, haddock, and I don’t know what else, and it was beautiful out there. The ocean looked empty at first, but it was not. There were tons of fish, birds, maybe a whale – I thought I saw one in the distance, but I might have been wishing for it – wind and sun and just a throbbing sense of vitality.

What made that trip most memorable, though, was that there were 100 guys on that boat, and probably half of them never got on deck. Some came up for a few minutes, turned green, and went right back down. There were a lot of miserable anglers that day, including the Navy veteran.

Another time, Bob Lewis, his wife Barbara, and I hiked far up Slough Creek in Yellowstone Park. It was beautiful back there, crystal clear water running through high-grass meadows, the Bear Tooth Mountains up to the north in Montana, the Absarokas out to the east. Both were more than two miles high.

The cutthroat trout were savagely eager and indiscriminate. You could catch one just about every cast, no matter what was on the end of the line. We stopped counting at 50 apiece, and we caught a lot more after that. I was just learning to fly fish, and was a terrible caster, so stupid fish didn’t do much to improve my form. And you could watch as the fish came up through three or four feet of water to grab the fly.

I had my first encounter with a coyote back there – a very close encounter – and on the way out at dusk we met a guy with a team and wagon hauling some gear into some camp way back in. He was the only other person we saw all day.

That was a great experience.

And one of the very best came when my brother-in-law Randy Hake took my brother Jerry and me up Paint Rock Canyon, at the base of Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains. Paint Rock Creek was clear and cold, full of big boulders, pocket water everywhere. We walked a long, long way – everything looked great, but Randy had a particular stretch he wanted to fish – then started in. We used two-fly rigs, grasshoppers and Rio Grande Kings fished wet. I doubt anyone had fished that part of the creek in quite a while, and we caught fish after fish – mostly cutthroats, a few brook trout I think, and I believe some rainbows and browns.

I hooked one bruiser that took off like a torpedo and broke me off, but most of the trout were 12 to 15 inches. They fought hard in that icy water. It was just wonderful.

We walked the long walk back to the car, then drove down the ranch road to Hyattville, a dot on the map – population 75 as of this writing – where the creek flattens out on its way to the Nowood River.

The newest house there looked like it had been built before the battle of Gettysburg and hadn’t been painted since World War I.

We had hiked a long way, fished hard for six hours or so, and were very dry, so we stopped into the tavern there. My recollection is that the bar was a pair of two-by-twelve set on 55-gallon drums, only beer was served, and only in 16-ounce cans, I think Coors, but it might have been Budweiser.

Whatever. You had no choice in the matter.

Midway into the third round it was time to go.

“Can I take this with me,” I asked the bartender as I held up my beer.

“Son,” he said, “This is Hyattville. You can do anything you want.”

That was a memorable trip, and a good one, too. I’ve had a lot of them.

I’ll tell you some more sometime.

Write to John Pitarresi at 60 Pearl Street, New Hartford, N.Y. 13413 or jcpitarresi41@gmail.com or call him at 315-724-5266.

NOTEBOOK

Mohawk River creel survey under way

The Department of Environmental Conservation has begun a creel survey on the Mohawk River, from Rome to Waterford.

The survey, which will run through October, is aimed at learning more about the fishery to enhance management. Smallmouth and largemouth bass, walleye, northern pike, tiger muskies, and a variety of panfish are among the species available in the river and Barge Canal.

DEC creel agents will interview anglers at boat ramps and shore access sites. Anglers who have not completed their trip will be given catch cards to record their experiences. The cards can be placed in DEC drop boxes at many of the interview sites.

The information collected will provide a better understanding of angler use, expectations and satisfaction along the river. A summary of the results will be posted on the DEC’s web site soon after the survey is completed.

Bass seminar set at All Seasons Sports

It’s too late unless you are reading this online, but Bill Alexander of M.T.O Lures will hold a bass fishing seminar Saturday, May 11 at All Season Sports, 4505 Commercial Drive in New Hartford.

Alexander will discuss techniques and will provide information on his company’s new ideas for plastic baits. The free seminar runs from noon to 5 p.m.

Deer take is down from 2022

The Department of Environmental Conservation has announced the 2023 deer take numbers.

They are down overall, early 10 percent, from 231,961, to 209,781. We will discuss the report in our next column.

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Remembering some of the more memorable fishing trips