Chapter 12 - The Tributaries
Sauquoit Creek 4
A Manmade Trout Stream 
September 24, 2002, 50 degrees, Sunny
Falling on your face in the
middle of a stream with a camera hanging around your neck is not the way
to start the day.
get any better than this.
With Denny's car parked two miles upstream at Piggy
Pat's Restaurant in Washington Mills, we continued our exploration of Sauquoit
Creek from Brookline Drive near the Utica / New Hartford border. After
nearly a month of unusually warm weather, the water felt cold as it penetrated
our wading shoes. Denny didn't catch anything near the rusted railroad
bridge, but the deep run along the concrete wall on the left side of the
creek further upstream looked fishy.
At 9:30 in the morning the sun was reflecting off
the water and shining in our faces, making it impossible to photograph
looking upstream. So, I circled wide to the right and returned to the creek
where it flows over a series of shale ledges. I had to cross one of those
ledges to photograph Denny fishing near the wall. Piece of cake. The water
was only a foot deep and the creek bottom was sidewalk-flat. 
After leaning the fishing rod next to a tree, I
hung one camera around my neck and put the other in a case on my belt.
Halfway across the flat-bottomed creek I stepped in a hole and fell forward.
Fortunately, the hole wasn't very deep or wide and I landed on my knees
on the opposite side of the hole, thus avoiding falling flat on my face.
The lens of the camera hanging around my neck got splashed with cold water
and was fogged for the rest of the morning. The other camera didn't even
get damp. Lucky break.
We could hear the traffic on the Route 8 Expressway
but didn't come close enough to see vehicles until 10 o'clock. In this
area the roadside streambank is high and covered with brush and small trees.
I was surprised to discover the bank was supported at creek-level by several
structures that looked like large grey tree stumps with two branches facing
downward. Never saw anything like them before.
With cars and trucks passing overhead, Denny saw
a grey fox running through the roadside trees and I caught a small brown
trout from a shaded run. Just upstream we could see a waterfalls. Closer
examination revealed a concrete dam and large chunks of limestone in pools
below and above the falls. Denny was having problems with his fishing line,
so I had this water all to myself. In 10 minutes I hooked and released
four brown trout.
Above the falls, the creek swung away from the road,
flowing through woods. While Denny stopped to replace the line on his spinning
reel, I fished without success in the pools below and above another concrete
dam. Nearby the golden blossoms of head-high wild sunflowers waved in an
almost imperceptible breeze.
For the next hour we waded over cobblestones through
woodlands, past high gravel banks on the left and cobblestone bars on the
right. ATV trails crossed and paralleled the creek, and ran up the middle
of a wooded island. There were some good runs and pools beside gravel banks
and around tree roots, but only one small trout was interested in my offerings.
On the right side of the creek we discovered a section
of black pipe running parallel to the streambank. It was at least 12 inches
in diameter and over a hundred feet long. It was probably buried underground
but uncovered by the creek during spring runoffs. Gas or water?
It
was noon when we saw buildings and smelled food cooking: a sure sign Washington
Mills was just ahead. We fished another small waterfalls and a couple of
root-pools where I lost my last two gold Phoebes. I didn't tie on another
lure until a deep run --- right behind Piggy Pat's Restaurant --- looked
especially inviting. When I flipped a gold spinner into that run a 10-inch
brook trout ate it. It was the first brookie we had caught in Sauquoit
Creek . . . and the last fish of the day. It was 12:30.
We intended to have lunch at Piggy Pat's but it wasn't
open, so we returned to the Castlewood Cafe where we had breakfast early
that morning. Without a doubt, mile for mile, there are more places to
eat along Sauquoit Creek than on any stream in the Mohawk Valley.
Follow the path of this discovery trip by clicking on Mohawk
Valley Maps: by Maptech.
Type New Hartford, select New York, press GO!
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