NIce… The only time I was on the Esopus had to be well over 30 years ago. Met up with my college roommate. We hit the river with flyrods rather than kayaks. I hooked a beautiful brown trout in the 16-18" range. Best trout I caught at the time. 
I tend to look at white water with as much interest in flyfishing as in paddling. Of course, I got into kayaking after years of watching ww kayakers going by me as I fish the waters of the Androscoggin.
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I’m not totally locked into the Fall for Connecticut River, just post-Labor Day I don’t expect to have any other conflicts between the two other trips I mentioned, work projects, and summer time visitors.(When I paddle-sail solo, I’m not as fussy about my camp preparations, as when I throw-in with a paddle group.)
I usually tag a double at Mongaup in Aug/Sept., especially if everything else around is down. And of course, if you find your way to Esopus at anytime, give me a shout–You can also camp on my Catskill forest property if it’s not a half hour out of your way.
I’ll give you a shout in FB Messenger/you can PM me. (Think we hijacked this thread enough.
) Thanks for the bedtime blog reading!
It is a good trout stream.
Quick story: One of my longtime ww paddling partners who used to have nothing but disdain for fisherman wherever we went, recently took up the fly rod.
–Now I can’t get the chump to take the waders off and go paddling!
The “disdain” (which can be mutual) is an outcome of the competition rather than the sharing of “resources.” Whitewater paddlers seek and use the eddies and flatwater spots behind midstream boulders for rest and recon. These are the same spots that flyfishers know will hold fish. Fish are in these spots to avoid fighting currents unnecessarily and to the spot the “meals” floating by.
With understanding, one can respect and rotate for the “line up”. Who has right of way?
Learn to take turns, as one would taking turns on a standing wave.
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Yep, I’ve always had that view.
The irony is in my friend’s conversion from having previously treated fishermen as the other/adversary. I’d often have to tell him to lighten up. Now of course with fly fishing being his new obsession, I’m just waiting for the day he calls out to me from the banks "Hey paddler, get the hell off my stream!"
Would be richly ironic. LOL!
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Whatever doesn’t drown ya
only makes ya wetter.
But then how are we fish-out-of-water
ever to get better?
And so we paddle, flip and flop,
mix grimace with a grin.
Oft twain the rocks we douse in shocks
now grown a little fin.
But “Paddle On” and paddle in
to hone our paddlecraft,
near tirelessly quite swimmingly
till last bow sinks our aft,
and as you tire do not expire,
rinse, repeat and you’ll wash clear,
on your bag of coconuts from rocky river ruts,
to shout, “Hey Bastards! I’m still here!”
That is, unless perhaps all you need is to Schtupp and take a lil break:
Best line from Papillion, after shaking a leper’s paw:
“How did you know I was a dry leper?”
Papi: "I didn’t."
I remember that profoundly. Anthony Zerbe. A dwindling sentient spark to that arcane theory we must possess some faith in humanity. I still blow upon those embers, but DAMN, it’s become so dizzying an effort in my dotage.