MOHAWK - Discovering the Valley of the Crystals Copyright 2002
Chapter 12 - Tributuaries
Schoharie Creek
| Discovery: Scraping the Schoharie for Smallmouths(below) | Discovery: Canoe Trip From Hell |
| What Does Schoharie Mean Anyway? | Canoe-Fishing Middleburg to Schoharie |
Discovery: Scraping the Schoharie for Smallmouths
June 21, 2002, 80 degrees, promising 90, Sunny
"Look at the mess you got us into now?"
They sounded like Oliver Hardy complaining to Stan Laurel in one
of those old Laurel & Hardy movies. Problem was, no one was laughing.
Not yet anyway.
We had to carry and drag the canoes to deeper water below the bridge at Mill Point.
After parking a vehicle at Schoharie Crossing Park
across from Fort Hunter, we launched the canoes at Mill Point six miles
upstream. Launched is not quite accurate. We had to carry and walk the
canoes through a shallow run of rocks and boulders to deeper water downstream
from the bridge. Ron Gugnacki and Dale Janes carried and floated a 16-foot
canoe. I did the same with my 10-foot Willow Leaf. It was 10:15 a.m. by
the time we were actually afloat.
Schoharie Creek starts in the Catskill Mountains and flows north for
83 miles through a valley rich in soil, fish, wildlife and history. It's
second only to West Canada Creek in volume of water flowing into the Mohawk
River, and like the West Canada was designated a river on early maps. It
was here that the Mohawks lived, fished and farmed for hundreds of years,
followed by the Palatines and other European immigrants. During the Revolutionary
War, battles were fought here, hundreds of homes and farms destroyed, settlers
killed and captured. Farmland still dominates the landscape in Schoharie
Valley, and long stretches of the river are still wild and untamed. One
of the wildest stretches is the last six miles.
swinging against high banks of silt, gravel or shale outcrops.
From Mill Point to Fort Hunter there are no roads
along the stream, so it's impossible to check for obstructions and stretches
of low water. Longtime friend, Ron Kolodziej from Amsterdam had told me
when the water is down there are long stretches of shallow water that will
not float a canoe, and when the water is up these areas can be dangerous
rapids. A few days earlier torrential rains had raised the creek to near
runoff levels, but on the day of our outing the Schoharie was not high.
While we were getting the canoes ready Dale saw
crayfish among the rocks in the river. At first he thought they were dead,
but he discovered they were in the process of discarding their outer shells,
becoming in fact soft-shell crayfish. Smallmouths feed heavily on crayfish
during this stage, so there was a good chance they would be on the feed.
We weren't fishing live bait, but a hungry bass will often take a variety
of lures.
Ron
and Dale fished below the fast water on the west side of the river, and
I drifted down the east shore. We were fishing different lures. Ron sometimes
fishes small minnow plugs, but he has phenomenal success with plastic jigs,
usually black. Dale sometimes fishes jigs but prefers small plugs and spinners.
I hate fishing jigs unless the fish won't take anything else, preferring
instead to cast flashy gold spoons and spinners.
With the sun so bright, it figured the fish would
be deep or in the shade. My first cast into a stretch of shaded water produced
a 15-inch smallmouth. I hooked and lost another fish and caught a runt
bass before I drifted into the sun again. I had my formula for the day.
The Schoharie in this area meanders down a broad
valley, swinging against high banks of silt, gravel or shale outcrops.
Long stretches of the creek bottom are Adirondack cobblestones and boulders
that were delivered to this area 10,000 years ago by the last glacier to
cover New York State. .
plentiful and took a variety of lures.
I drifted through a deep pool of boulders next to
a gravel-over-silt bank, topped with birch and a few white pines, and then
passed into a shallow rapids. My canoe took on water as it cut through
waves, and it bumped and scraped over rocks as I approached a bend in the
river that ran deep next to a gravel-over-shale bank.
As I drifted along, I realized the only sounds I
could hear were the rush of water and the calls of crows and blackbirds.
White puffy clouds drifted in a deep blue sky. A cormorant flew over. I
wondered if these notorious fish eaters were here when the Mohawks fished
these waters.
A
cast into the shade next to a rocky outcrop produced another 15-inch smallmouth.
And after I stopped on a rock shelf to empty a couple gallons of water
out of the canoe, I caught another bass and a rockbass.
When I was landing the rockbass, Ron and Dale came
into view, so I waited for them to catch up. They were not happy. They
hadn't caught fish and had to walk the canoe through 500 yards of rocks.
I tried to console them by explaining I had caught some nice bass and was
sure they would too, but that didn't seem to work. So I tried pointing
out the beauty of the sunny day in this magnificent valley away from the
sights and sounds of civilization. When that didn't work, I decided to
stay well ahead of them so I didn't have to listen to their whining.
Below a multicolored, shale cliff the river
was broad and fairly deep, looking much like a small lake. A check of the
bottom revealed solid rock. A big carp swam past the canoe and I was greeted
by the resounding slap of a beaver's tale. When I stopped on a gravel bar
to empty the canoe, I discovered the split-hoof tracks of whitetail deer.
Around noon I approached the upper end of a huge
island of cobblestones. I chose the right side of the island and soon discovered
the water was too shallow even for Willow Leaf. So, I grabbed my paddle
and used it as a walking stick to wade and drag the canoe through a half-mile
of cobble-bottom water. A half-hour later my legs and feet were hurting
and I was dog tired . . . and feeling sorry for Ron and Dale. If they had
a problem with 500 yards of rock, how would they feel after dragging the
canoe a half-mile?
I considered moving on, but after catching
a few more bass, I parked the canoe in the shade below another cliff and
waited. Much to my surprise they paddled into view a few minutes after
I arrived. They had chosen the left side of the island and despite bumping
and scraping the canoe, made it through without walking. They had also
caught some beautiful smallmouths. Ron had taken most of them on a jig
while fishing a deep run next to a high bank, but Dale had also caught
fish. A couple of Ron's fish were 16-17 inches long and weighed nearly
three pounds. I could hardly stand their smiles, which turned to laughter
when they learned I had waded around the island. 
We continued to catch smallmouths throughout the
afternoon in shallow and deep water, and we had to wade and drag the canoes
for well over a mile, but there were no more gripes or snide remarks.
My interest in fishing waned as I moved down the
river, turning instead to noting wildflowers, cottonwoods and sycamores,
and red-tailed hawks circling overhead. After passing an erosion-sculptured
gravel slip bank where a small tributary enters the river, I saw two anglers
fishing from shore. They hadn't caught any smallmouths that afternoon,
but did well the previous Saturday.
Although I started hearing Thruway traffic
at 3 o'clock, it was 30 minutes before the Thruway Bridge came into view.
On April 5, 1987 this massive structure had fallen into the river when
a pier washed away. Ten people lost their lives when their vehicles fell
into the river. It was hard to imagine the volume of water it took to undermine
this massive structure.
By
this time Ron and Dale had caught up, so I asked them to fish under the
bridge so I could take a few photographs. True to form Ron caught a 17-inch
walleye on a plastic jig.
We paddled under the Route 5S bridge and the old
railroad bridge, but stopped at the remnants of the Schoharie Crossing
Aqueduct. This stone arch structure was built in the early 1800s to carry
the Erie Canal across the creek. Although it's an excellent place to fish,
we stopped just long enough to take photographs.
This crumbling stone arch aqueduct once carried the Erie Canal over
Schoharie Creek.
We beached the canoes at the park at 4:15 p.m. some six hours after leaving Mill Point. While Ron and I drove back to get his truck, Dale unloaded the gear and turned over the canoes to let them drip dry. When we returned 20 minutes later to load the significantly "scratched" canoes, Ron commented on how many bass we caught and how much red and yellow gelcoat we scraped off on rocks that day.
"Yeah" I thought, "We were scraping the Schoharie for smallmouths."
Heh, I can't help it. It's a writer's thing.
Follow the path of this discovery trip by clicking on Mohawk Valley Maps: by Maptech.
Type Fort Hunter select New York, press GO!
This is a discovery trip was first published in Canoe-Fishing New York Rivers and Streams.
Discovery: Schoharie
Creek - Something New At Every Bend
I've never canoe-fished a stream that I knew so little about. The only
information I had about upper Schoharie Creek was that it could be canoed
between Middleburgh and Schoharie and that it was smallmouth bass water.
When Mark Eychner and I launched the canoe below Middleburgh on the first
Sunday in October, we had no idea how many surprises were waiting for us.
After parking the takeout vehicle near the Bridge
Street bridge just off Route 30 in the village of Schoharie, we drove to
Middleburgh, turned right on Route 145, crossed the river and drove downstream
about a half mile to a dirt road that offers access to the water. It was
50 degrees, windy, but sunny, not a hint of rain. We had found a place
to put in and a place to take out about seven miles apart. So far so good.
When we pushed out into the current three sandpipers
flying upstream in close formation seemed intent on strafing the canoe,
but veered at the last moment. First time I ever started a canoe trip with
a flyover. Around the first bend a great blue heron, that was to become
our constant companion, stood proudly in shallow water, lifting off only
when we were close enough to see his eyeballs. Just downstream from the
heron were a dozen domestic geese sitting on a small island. They honked
when we went by but didn't budge. Mergansers left the water soon after
we passed the geese and flew downriver.
It looked great for smallmouths; long riffles leading
to pools and runs, mostly over a rock and gravel streambed. In many areas
the fast water was so low we had to walk the canoe through, so it seemed
that the smallmouths would concentrate in the runs and pools. Everything
looked right, but we couldn't get a single fish to bite. After more than
three hours we were convinced the bass had moved to deeper downstream water,
so we decided to paddle through, casting only to the best looking spots.
With "great blue" leading the way, we covered water,
looking for a very deep pool or run near a rock ledge. I had caught fish
in similar water in other streams. We found several outcrops but none with
water more than a couple feet deep.
Most of the stream bank was lined with willows,
soft maple, basswood and cottonwood, a few sycamore and some trees I had
never seen before. I first noticed this strange tree by the fruit floating
in the river. When I found a concentration of these green apple-like balls
near a large tree, I gave it the once over. My tree identification book
indicates they are Osage-orange or "hedge apple" trees that originated
in the southwestern United States and were widely planted and became naturalized
in the East.
In some areas cornfields grew just inside the tree
line. From time to time we could hear gunshots as bird hunters worked these
fields. Beaver had also taken advantage of the corn, dragging stalks to
the river over well-worn slides. The "larder" next to a large beaver house
was almost entirely cornstalks. Not far from the beaver house was another
surprise.
Schoharie Creek is no small stream. It's bigger
water than most rivers in the state. Fact is until around 1800 it was called
the Schoharie River. In any case it's not the kind of water where you'd
expect to see a beaver dam. Yet, there it was, two-feet high and a good
50-feet long. First time I'd seen so many cornstalks in a beaver dam.
Just below the beaver dam were the remains of an
old earthen dam that had been made by dumping rocks and gravel between
pilings. Next to this manmade pile of rocks was a deep hole. Not quite
what we were looking for, but we worked it with spinners and plugs. Not
even a snag.
Mark caught a fallfish on a Rapala from a long run
that should have held a couple of bass. As we drifted out of this run into
shallow water and had to walk, Mark scooped up a crayfish and dropped it
in a puddle of water in the canoe.
We were hungry and tired when we finally came to
a long deep pool next to a rock outcrop where the water was at least five
feet deep, the deepest water we had seen since the beginning of our trip.
Hunger outweighed my eagerness to fish, so I opened the cooler and spread
sandwiches and drink on a large flat rock. Mark rigged up the crayfish
and tossed it into the hole, propping the rod in the canoe. Before he got
two bites out of his sandwich, the rod took a tumble and Mark ran back
to the canoe. No fish on. Another try produced a few nibbles, but no fish.
A rock ledge finally snagged the bait.
After lunch, I tied on a chartreuse plastic
jig and cast it to the middle of the river. A fish took it on the first
hop off the bottom. It was a 9-inch perch. Two casts later a bigger fish
ate the jig. It was an 18-inch walleye.
Faster than a speeding bullet Mark had a chartreuse
plastic jig on his rod and was casting into the pool about 50-feet upstream.
His first fish was a 13-inch smallmouth. There really were smallies in
the Schoharie. His second fish was a big fallfish.
After a half-hour of no fish and losing jigs to
the underwater rock ledge, we decided to move on. On his way back to the
canoe Mark made a couple casts. As he worked the jig from midstream to
the edge of the ledge, a fish took it and held on. Mark's rod tip bent
to the river. The following conversation ensued.
MARK: "It feels like a big smallmouth."
PAUL: "Fights like a walleye."
MARK: "It's a walleye. The biggest walleye I've ever caught in ... my ... life!"
That walleye was 24 inches long and weighed 4 1\2
pounds. Suddenly a good canoe-fishing trip became a great canoe-fishing
trip. I took a dozen pictures of Mark's fish before we returned to the
canoe.
We had been on the river for about 4 1\2 hours and
didn't know how far it was to the takeout. We paddled hard, reaching the
Bridge at Schoharie in less than an hour. After fishing the deep water
near the bridge for a few minutes, we hauled the canoe and gear up the
steep trail to Mark's car.
In this case knowing almost nothing about the river
was a boon. We found something new at every bend, met friendly "wildlife",
saw a tree I had never seen before, crossed a beaver dam where there shouldn't
be one, and caught a big walleye in a river noted for smallmouth bass.
Never did find those bass. Maybe next time.
