Beaverkill Fishing Guides and Conditions, New York

About the Beaverkill

No trout stream in the country carries more history than the Beaverkill. Theodore Gordon fished it, the Catskill dry fly was developed on it, and the pools below Roscoe have names that appear in fishing books written a century ago: Junction, Barnhart, Hendrickson, Cairns, Wagon Tracks. Roscoe still calls itself Trout Town USA, and on the April opener it means it.

The river runs about forty-four miles from the headwaters in the Catskill Forest Preserve to the East Branch of the Delaware at East Branch. Above Roscoe it is a small, wooded, wadeable stream with brook and brown trout. Below the junction with Willowemoc Creek it doubles in size and becomes the famous water, with a no-kill section from Junction Pool downstream and another at Horton. Wild browns dominate, stocked fish fill in, and the hatches, Hendricksons in April, March Browns and sulphurs in May, are the whole reason people plan trips around specific weeks.

The Cooks Falls gauge is the reference number for the lower river and it swings hard because this is a freestone with no dam upstream. Spring flows of several hundred to a couple of thousand cfs fish well and wade carefully; midsummer can drop under a hundred, when the river warms into the seventies and ethical anglers move to the Delaware tailwaters instead. Water temperature matters more here than flow in July and August.

Roscoe and Livingston Manor have fly shops, lodging and the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum, which is worth an hour before or after a day on the water. Access is generous, with state fishing easements marked along much of the corridor.

Access

Junction Pool, Roscoe: where the Willowemoc meets the Beaverkill, the most famous pool in the Catskills.
Roscoe to Cooks Falls: state fishing easements and marked parking along Old Route 17.
No-kill section below Junction Pool: catch-and-release, artificials only.
Cooks Falls Access: parking at the gauge with a long public reach.
Horton no-kill section: the lower catch-and-release water.
Covered Bridge and Beaverkill Campground: upper river access in the forest preserve.
East Branch: the mouth, where the Beaverkill joins the Delaware system.

Seasons

April: opening day, high water, Hendricksons late in the month.
May and June: the peak, March Browns, sulphurs and evening spinner falls.
July and August: low and warm; fish at dawn or move to the Delaware tailwaters.
September and October: cooler water, blue-winged olives and streamers, very little pressure.