MOHAWK - Discovering the Valley of the Crystals Copyright 2002
Boonville Gorge 4
Discovery: Tail-End Run - Much More Than Expected
July 16, 2002, Sunny, 70 degrees
This was the tail end of our top-to-bottom exploration
of Boonville Gorge. After discovering waterfalls, sinkholes, underground
stream outlets and fabulous fishing holes on previous trips, what could
we possibly discover at the lower end of the gorge? Much more than we ever
expected.
After leaving Denny's car at the parking area where
the southern end of the cross-country ski trail starts, we drove 1.1 miles
down Route 46 to the Fishermen's Parking area. It was 8:45 a.m. when we
started our upstream trek.
The Gorge widens considerably at the lower end, so
the Lansing Kill meanders from one soil bank to another, through log pools
and rocky runs, creating some of the finest trout habitat in the area.
Despite the fact that this roadside area is fished heavily, Denny caught
a 9-inch trout on his first cast and a 10-incher soon after. I caught a
2-inch chub.
By
9:15 we were wading on flat rock where pools and runs were carved in limestone
outcrops. I cast a gold Phoebe into a deep pool next to a large rock. A
couple cranks on the reel and the lure stopped dead. I set the hook and
it held fast . . . to a log. The water was waist high, so I broke
the line. No problem. It was the only lure I had lost to the Lansing Kill.
A turkey vulture circled overhead as I picked red
raspberries and took a closer look at the amazing variety of wildflowers
growing along the stream. Maple, ash, scrub elm and ferns grew in wooded
flats on both sides of the stream. Mud and silt bars were perforated with
deer tracks.
Around 9:30 I heard a dog barking and saw a house
on the roadside of the gorge. Just upstream an abandoned iron bridge with
rotted planking crossed the Kill. To the right of that old bridge, hidden
in the woods on the opposite side of the gorge, was a house. A nice house,
a cream-colored house with green shutters; forsaken, lawn turned to ferns
and untended flowering bushes in full bloom. Who lived here in years gone
by? Someone important I'll bet. Not every house had its own iron
bridge.
Above the bridge I hooked a couple of small trout
in a log pool. Just upstream was a streamside deposit of ground and chipped
shale---silt at the lower end, chips at the upper. There were deer tracks
in the silt, some no bigger than a quarter. Fawns.
At 10:30 as I was walking up a shallow branch of
the stream on the east side of a large island, I heard rushing water on
the other side. When I crossed over I discovered a crumbling stone and
concrete canal lock. The Lansing Kill was running through the lock. At
the upper end was a waterfalls.
I
hooked and lost three fair-size trout in the rapids below the lock. To
get in position to take photographs of the lock and falls, I waded across
the stream, climbed the steep bank on the other side and then climbed down
into the lock. The deep pool below the waterfalls had to hold the biggest
trout in the gorge. Unfortunately, my first cast produced a snag that took
another Phoebe. I didn't want to sacrifice another, so I climbed back up
the bank, and busted through brush until I found a place to climb back
down to the water.
bottom of this crumbling canal lock, creating a waterfalls, and deep water pools and runs.
Denny was waiting for me. "I wanted to make sure
you were alright. You could get in trouble getting around the falls on
that side."
He had caught a half-dozen
trout, one from a pool right under a gorge-side waterfalls. He bragged
that he hadn't lost a single fish that morning.
At 11:15 we discovered an L-shaped concrete dam
that was apparently designed to direct the stream through the old canal.
I lost my third and last gold Phoebe in a pool near the dam. Enough already!
Disgusted, I continued upstream, vowing not to make another cast.
A few minutes after passing a white house and weathered
barn, I approached a long deep pool with a log across the middle. A fish
was rising in that pool! Vow? What vow? I pawed through my pocketsize
tackle box and found a tiny gold Phoebe that someone had given me as a
gift. I had never used it because it was too small for trout. Or so I thought.
That tiny lure took an 11-inch brown from the pool below the log and a
10 1/2-incher from the pool above the log. Scars on both sides of the latter
fish indicated it had escaped the jaws of a predator. A great blue heron
perhaps?
Just downstream from the parking area and the end
of our trek was a deep pool covered with foam. Denny hooked . . . and lost
the best fish of the day in that pool.
It was noon when we climbed the bank to Denny's
car. In a little over three hours we had explored some beautiful and wild
country, caught some good fish, discovered an old iron bridge, a mystery
house, a lock and waterfalls . . . and learned some lessons. Not bad for
a tail-end trip.
Readers Comments: Boonville Gorge
Boonville Gorge 1- Boonville Gorge - A Thing of Beauty
Boonville Gorge 2 - Magic and Mystery on a Muggy Day
Boonville Gorge 3 - In
Search of Underground Streams
Follow the path of these 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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