MOHAWK - Discovering the Valley of the Crystals Copyright 2002
Chapter 12 - Tributaries
Ninemile Creek Part 5 - Miller Road to Fox Road (Holland Patent)
Discovery: A Designer Trout Stream
June 3, 2003, 60 degrees, Sunny
Sun! After one of the wettest Mays in history (the 8th wettest to be exact)
a sunny day seemed like a dream. Indeed, it was a near perfect day to explore
and photograph Ninemile Creek. And, with the water down and clear we might
even catch some trout.
After breakfast at the Sweet Basil in Barneveld---we
always start with breakfast---we left Denny's car near Fox Road Bridge
in Holland Patent and drove down to Miller Road Bridge. At first blush
it seemed our 9:45 a.m. start was a bit late. There were already two vehicles
in the Fishermen's Parking Area. An elderly fisherman hurried down to the
pool under the bridge and immediately caught a brown trout on a worm. Two
young anglers unloaded their gear from a cap-covered pickup truck and started
up the trail on the left side of the creek. They told us they were headed
for a pond. Looked like we had this mile-long section all to ourselves.
Denny made a couple of casts near the bridge and fished an upstream run
while I followed a well-packed trail through the woods to a mowed trail
through honeysuckle and tall grass. The honeysuckle was in full bloom and
smelled great. I continued along the trail to where the creek flowed
on both sides of a huge cobble and gravel bar. Patches of phlox and ragged
robin were growing in the cobble.
bend was a trout haven.
I crossed over to the bar and fished the water running
next to a wall of rotting logs. This shaded run gave up two 9-inch brown
trout; one to a Phoebe and the other to a Panther Martin. Years ago sportsmen
working with the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) created
fish habitat where there was practically none. This was the case along
most of this stretch of Public Fishing Water. Hundreds of logs and tons
of stone riprap had been secured to the banks to create pools and runs,
and keep stream banks from falling into the creek. Although the log structures
were deteriorating, they still provided fish habitat.
As
I approached a long stretch of stillwater between cutbanks, I saw the two
young anglers returning from their pond adventure. After fishing for less
than an hour and catching "only one sunfish" they headed back to the bridge.
To get around the stillwater I chose the right side
of the creek. I soon discovered it was the wrong side. Next to the water,
the creek was lined with logs and riprap, so I had to walk along a hillside
overgrown with honeysuckle and thornapple. It took about a half-hour to
get through this tangled and sometimes "painful" mess. When I finally stepped
out onto a gravel bar, I found a comfortable rock and sat down to "cool
off." While cooling off, I discovered crayfish in the creek and deer
and heron tracks in the mud.
This section of the Ninemile is a designer trout
stream, and it was designed to be accessed from the north side. I crossed
over to that side and followed the trail to the pond where the boys had
fished. There were houses on the other side of the pond and I could see
an occasional car moving along Miller Road. The pond outlet ran into the
creek at a heavily riprapped bend. A fish haven if I ever saw one. I crossed
the creek again to fish the waters below the outlet . . . and caught
a 10-inch brown trout.
We both caught brown trout from this section.
Denny also caught fish but used the trail to access pools and runs. I passed up the next two pools and stopped where a large willow was lying in the middle of the creek. It had fallen from the bank and hung up on a cross-stream barrier of chunk limestone. The pool near the tree looked fishy, but I snagged my first cast and spooked every fish in the pool when I released the gold lure from the clutches of an underwater branch.
We discovered a colony of bank swallow in a cutbank.
Upstream from the downed willow were a series of
"S" curves, where the creek flowed between alternating cutbanks, and cobble/gravel/sand
bars. I took a 9 1/2-inch brown from a pool below a cutbank.
High on one of the cutbanks were a series of holes
in the sand. They looked like miniature Pueblo dwellings. They were, of
course, a bank swallow colony. Bank swallows dig tunnels into the sand
where they build nests. While I was photographing the cutbank, a swallow
popped out of one of the holes and swooped low over the water.
Upstream from the swallow colony, we discovered
another colony. This one was behind a small dam of sticks and mud built
across a cut on the right side of the creek. I bypassed the beaver dam,
crossed to the other side of the creek and fished a run and pool next to
another log wall. I hooked but lost two trout; one jumped clear out of
the water. The Holland Patent Fire Company heralded the event with
its noon whistle.
A few minutes later, after passing another
log wall and a tributary on the north side of the creek, we saw Fox Road
Bridge. As we waded up to the bridge, three ducks jumped off the water
and flew up the creek.
While we were stripping off hip boots, Denny commented
on the absence of mosquitoes and black flies along the creek. Didn't think
about it at the time, but I'll bet something "swallowed" them up.
Follow the path of this discovery trip by clicking on
Mohawk
Valley Maps: by Maptech.
Type Holland Patent, select New York, press
GO!
Click
on margin arrows to follow Ninemile Creek.
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