Monday, December 12, 2016

The Straus barn:  Come the hot, dry summer months of July and August, there’s no place this angler would rather drift a dry fly than on the headwaters of the East Branch Neversink, deep in the center of Cecil Heacox’s Charmed Circle, a place some call Shangri-La.  If it were not for the efforts of Roger and Gladys Straus, this opportunity might not exist.


Wild brook trout still succumb to historic old wet fly patterns, like the Scarlet Ibis, in the shadows of the Straus barn along the sheltered banks of the East Branch Neversink.  The barn was a former sawmill, and according to the former caretaker of the Straus properties--- Mike Dean, the oldest continuous still standing structure in the Town of Denning.


The sawmill, 11x14: