Esopus Creek:  Below are two landscapes of Esopus Creek waters, located upstream of New York City’s Shandaken Tunnel. 

While the first landscape entails a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) Public Fishing Rights (PFR) section, access is now limited through recent roadside posting.  2020 was clearly a year few of us will ever forget.  It featured a worldwide pandemic, a national contested election that tore America apart, and an unprecedent number of visitors to our Catskill region.  Crowds came, including some unruly and thoughtless visitors, resulting in greater usage and misuses of our lands, waters, and forests.  Newly posted signs sprung up like weeds in unkept grass. 

Sadly, the water below is no longer easily accessed, though many a fine memory of outings gone by are held in the stones that guide these waters.  Perhaps a fondest memory includes a twenty-inch wild brown that sucked in a #16 X-Caddis dry fly attached to 5X tippet. 

Posted waters (sold):

Twenty-inch-plus X-Caddis brown trout:

Shandaken is a Native American derivative of the words “land of rapid waters”.  Below is an autumn watercolor of a rapid-water landscape in Oliverea, a mountain Shandaken hamlet.

 Rapid waters (sold):