The Neversink Gorge in Rockland, New York: My First and Most Memorable Experience

Many times you remember your first fishing trip to a certain river, or a certain stretch of a river strictly based on the fishing quality. And if you don't, well I normally do. The hiking, wading and bears are usually never a concern to me as long as the fishing quality is good. However, in this I case I remember much more about other things than just the fishing quality.

The Neversink River is one of the most historic rivers in the history rich Catskill Mountain Area of New York. I was lucky enough to live and work (for the conservation department) on most of these rivers for many years. I got to explore the rivers as part of my job and would fish everyday after work.

The one area that always eluded my felt soles was the Neversink River's Gorge, or Unique Area. The Neversink River is one of the less pressured Catskill Rivers and also one of its most pristine. I had fished outside of the Gorge Area a few times, but the legendary Beaverkill was my backyard and the Delaware branches were only a few miles away. So why would I want to go to the Gorge?

Well for me personally it was for the adventure. My best friend and I love hiking and fishing remote streams. Usually that means small streams but in this case it is a small river. We got a few tips from friends and headed out. We had no map or true understanding of where we were going and ended up parking in an unnamed parking area (which I know now) and started our hike down to the Gorge. People had told me is was about a 15-20 minute hike, well about 45 minutes into our hike I was cursing at all of them and promising my friend we should see the river any minute. Well we had parked at the access point farthest from the river and had taken the wrong "fork in the road," even though it was a trail.

Finally after an hour of hiking we arrived at the most beautiful of all the Catskill Rivers. It is a steep gradient section of the normally placid Neversink, with many pockets and boulder-strewn pools. This was our type of water, fast moving, tough wading, hard mends and water that will push you downstream. We began fishing just like we did as kids, leap frogging one another as we fished and explored. Again it brings a smile to my face just thinking about it because this is what we both truly loved to do. It was just as much about what was around the next corner, as it was what we caught. And catch we did, it was early spring and we hit a fantastic caddis hatch that lasted the 2-3 hours that we fished. Most fish were in the 12-14" range but in fast water they fought like 20 inchers. The largest was a 17" wild beauty.

After hiking some distance upstream and the sun beginning to set we knew we should leave. We sat for a moment to take in the experience one last time and got on our way. As we started to leave we noticed a trail right in front of us we decided to take it believing it was the right choice to the mistake we had made earlier. Well, we were wrong. Talking about the fishing made time go by much to fast and before we realized it we were very lost. If we turned around it would easily be dark by the time we got back to were we started fishing and it would still be an hour hike out. So we decided to take a westerly heading, leaving the trail and hoping that it would at least bring us to the road that we drove to get to the parking area. The sun was setting and it was getting dark in the thick forest and we only had one small pocket flashlight between us.

We had been walking around for about 2 hours and it had been dark for at least half an hour. My friend started to swear things were started to look familiar to him. In my opinion that was impossible because it was so dark out. However, he was right and we had found the trail and we only had about another five-minute walk to my car. We decided to stop and finish the last of the water that we had been conserving, and had a good chuckle over our luck in finding the trail. Well our laughing must have startled the large black bear that was in front of us on the trail. Luckily (we thought) the bear took off into the woods and we decided to get to the car. My friend joked at least nothing else could go wrong, well he was wrong. As we started to the car I turned the flashlight up the trail and noticed four small eyes glowing. My friend knew immediately what they were and said, "cubs." It took me a second or two and then I realized he was right, they were bear cubs and we had just witnessed what was probably the mother go to the other side of us when we startled it. I was just about to comment on how bad the situation was when we heard the mother bear make a rustling in the bushes. By the time I turned to yell, "run," my friend was already gone. Instead of 5 minutes we made it to the car in about 30 seconds, which is hard to do when running in the dark with a fly rod in the woods.

What a trip, we went through almost every emotional experience you expect when fishing and some that we didn't expect. The real kicker to the story was when I was reliving the experience at the local fly shop. When I finished with the sarcastic, yah right a 15-20 minute hike, the guide at the fly shop replied, "it would have been if you had driven about ½ mile longer and gone to the state access point." And as always the guide was right and I now frequent the area he was describing as often as I can.