Boonville Gorge 3
Discovery: In Search of Underground Streams
July 9, 2002, Cloudy, Showers, 72 degrees
Despite the threat of showers, I was excited about this discovery trip.
After all, we would be looking for the outlets from the underground streams
that bypass Pixley Falls.
At 9:30 a.m. we parked at the second pull-off along
Route 46 below Pixley Falls State Park. It was raining. Didn't matter.
We were wearing rain jackets and planned to wade in sneakers. The path
to the stream passed between two wooden posts and was bracketed by sumac
and blue-flowered chicory. Boot tracks in the mud indicated this area was
fished heavily.
There was a good pool near a small private picnic
area, but we couldn't raise a fish. While Denny fished the next pool and
run, I cut into a stand of ferns to circle the area. When the ferns gave
to burdocks and briars, I headed back to the stream. My brush-busting startled
a fawn that ran by Denny.
By 10 o'clock Mother Nature couldn't decide---rain
or sunshine---so she sent both. Denny had caught a small brown from a sunlit
rapids and I caught a 9-inch fish from a shaded run.
At a sweeping bend where the stream ran against
an undercut bank, fish were sucking flies off the water. It was a beautiful
sight: dimples on the surface of the water and wild daisies hanging on
the side of the bank.
A
fish hit my lure in a run below a small birch. Just upstream, where water
was falling from a limestone ledge, a couple of small trout took time off
from eating flies to smack my lure.
The valley widens in this area and the stream flows
around islands. As I approached a logjam at the lower end of an island,
a floating branch turned into a mink when it came over a small waterfalls.
When it saw me standing open-mouthed in midstream, it disappeared.
A pair of cedar waxwings staked their claim
to a dead tree as a base of operations to feed on hatching insects. I was
watching them when Denny caught up. We exchanged wildlife encounters and
fish tallies. He had caught another small brown from fast water.
While
I photographed a bright red bee balm in a cluster of white flowers, Denny
waded upstream into a wooded section where the valley narrows and the stream
flows against alternate outcrops of limestone, creating more than a half-mile
of ledge-pools and runs. Denny cast his gold lure into one of these runs
and caught a bright-colored 13-inch brown trout. It was 11 o'clock.
At 11:30 Denny found a small stream flowing from
a hole in the side of the gorge but it was no where near the volume of
water we had seen going underground above Pixley Falls. The major outlets
couldn't be far ahead.
`By this time it was pouring rain and we
were getting into fish right and left. Most of them were 9-10 inch trout,
but we had follows from browns we guessed to be 17-18 inches long. 
It was exactly 12:45 when Denny said, "I can see
the outlets. One is coming from the side and another is bubbling up in
the middle."
I could see water coming out of a rock ledge and
flowing across the stream, but I couldn't see the mid-stream "bubble" until
I was close enough to cast. As soon as the Phoebe hit the water below the
cross-stream outlet, a 13-inch brown ate it. It was my best fish in the
Gorge.
Denny waded up to the pool above the cross-stream
outlet and below the mid-stream outlet. When his Phoebe hit the water a
big fish took it and went to the bottom. It criss-crossed the pool for
several minutes before Denny eased it to shore. Even in the dim light and
pouring rain, the red spots on that golden fish were brilliant. It measured
16 1/2 inches. Denny's best stream trout ever. Despite the rain, I photographed
that fish.
Denny took this 16 1/2- inch brown from the outlet pool. Note how red the adipose fin is.
The contrast between the water above and below the
outlets was astounding. Downstream it was flowing relatively deep and fast
through pools and runs. Upstream it was shallow and barely moving. There
were a few small fish in the pools above the outlets and of course the
plunge pool below Pixley Falls was deep enough to hold fish, although we
didn't catch any when we got there.
When we loaded our gear into Denny's car at 1:30,
he was still talking about the red spots on that big fish.
Post
Script: We went back three days later when it was bright
and sunny so I could take some photographs. This time we parked near the
park entrance and walked down the cross- country ski trail to the first
parking area. Along the way we saw a fawn running in the brush on the other
side of the old canal and doe lying in a sunlit patch of grass in the canal
bed. They disappeared before I could get my cameras ready.
We spent three hours in the Gorge catching a
few small trout and taking photographs. When we got back to the car, the
Park Manager, told us we were illegally parked. We told her we didn't see
the No Parking sign when we came in and she said that's because she had
just put it next to our car. And she added, we owed her a $5.00 day-use
fee for being in the park. Small price to pay for discovering wonders of
nature.
Pixley Falls State Park, by the way, "covers 375
acres of land of which 15 acres are developed." It includes a large picnic
area, 22 stream-side campsites, modern comfort stations, a half-mile
nature trail, a 50-foot waterfalls and access to the gorge via the Lansing
Kill and the cross country ski trail. It's located on Route 46 between
Rome and Boonville.
Readers Comments: Boonville Gorge
Boonville Gorge 1- Boonville Gorge - A Thing of Beauty
Boonville Gorge 2 - Magic
and Mystery on a Muggy Day
Follow the path of this discovery trip by clicking on Mohawk Valley Maps: by Maptech.
Type Boonville select New York, press GO! Select Boonville Gorge State Park and use margin arrows to follow the Lansing Kill.
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