Wallkill River Smallies - New Paltz NY Oct. 21/22 2016

[logs22]

My wife, son and I rented a house in New Paltz NY with a few friends this past weekend and despite being told it was a 'family weekend' which is my wife's way of telling me no planned fishing excursions (or two hour 'trips to the store' that should have taken 20 minutes). Despite this warning I of course found some time to fish - how could I not, there were Walkill River smallies a short walk from the house and a private lake I obtained permission to fish lying directly on my path to the Wallkill.

When the weather cleared up Friday and my wife took my son with her and the girls into town I immediately grabbed my gear to check
Out this lake I had been drooling over on google maps for the past month. It turned out to be a gorgeous lake, however the entire lake was dead - devoid of shoreline or aquatic vegetation, not a single baitfish, frog, etc. I even saw the skeletons of 4-5 beavers scattered around the lake which I know for a fact once held a healthy LMB population. No idea what could have killed everything like that short of someone dumping toxic waste into the lake. I was annoyed I wasted my limited time on the lake and didn't have time to walk to river so I headed home and waited for another opportunity to get away.

Sat. was cold and rainy, really miserable weather. Despite the shitty weather I was able to head to the river for an hour and a half when everyone else decided to take an afternoon nap along with the kids (we were all very hung over). The first section of the river I encountered was not promising - wide slow moving section with no structure, mud and leaves on the bottom - I didn't waste much time there. I walked upstream (which interingly enough is due south in this area) towards some whitewater I noticed on google earth. I came across a nice section of rapids ending in the deepest pool I had yet seen. Game on.

I caught 4-5 smallies over the course of the next half hour, all on a sexy shad square bill crank swum directly under the falls. Nothing huge, but it's always fun times catching anything on new water. Click on link below for pics.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9...nhlbmMyY1pSbTg

[23cardinal]

Nice fish man. Seems like work getting a crank into those deep spots, good job

Yea the wakill runs north-south, starts in sparta. Part of it was moved for flood control/ farmland near Warwick pine island. Very cool story.

I'd love to know more about that dead lake. Seems very sad but there's got to be a reason.

[gwl2oneida]

I fish the wallkill in warwick ny. Fun lil river; rockbass crappy n smb. Never any monsters but always action.

[FASTEDDIE29]

Way to wack em out of state dude! Looks like you had solid action in an unfamiliar place. Good stuff man!