On Wednesday, May 17, John Walker, and Pete Drochelman headed to Montauk State Park for the day. The specific goal was to get John out of the lab and for Pete to try out a new Euro Nymphing rod his immensely magnanimous wife bought him for his birthday. (You read that right, his wife bought him a fly rod.) 

Because of a thunderstorm the day before in the Montauk area, the water level in the park had risen to 2.11 on the gauge which is about twice its normal level. So the water was running faster than normal, and fishing conditions were challenging. For whatever reason, they chose to bypass the park and fish below the Cable (accessed through the far end of the campground within Montauk), further downstream at Tan Vat, and even further downstream at Baptist Camp.

Below the Cable, John proved true to form and quickly caught a few fish. To his surprise, Pete caught a few fish as well, even though he was a bumbling, stumbling, Euro nymphing neophyte, trying to learn a new form of flyfishing. Both of them each caught a fish in the 16–17 inch range. All of the fish were hungry for ordinary hamburgers (pheasant tail) and had no interest in gourmet offerings (frenchie, egg pattern, soft hackle, etc.) One fish was caught on a pistachio encrusted pork chop (chartreuse Copper John), but that was an anomaly.

They next traveled to Baptist Camp, where the water was a bit more murky. That section quickly proved to be a vast wasteland where not even a nibble was detected. Downstream, maybe 75 to 100 yards, there was a fresh section of sand that had deposited on the bottom of the stream maybe due to flooding. John, unaware of the new deposit of sand, waded in and quickly became stuck in “quicksand.“ He contemplated yelling for his buddy Pete to come save him, but after pondering on the dilemma with his PhD mind, he was able to free himself. Pete, as usual, was blissfully unaware of the problem.

Lastly, they traveled upstream to Tan Vat and found more success. Both fishermen caught a few more fish both below, and above the access point. In an effort to be consistent on their culinary quest for the day, all of the fish were again only interested in ordinary hamburger (pheasant tail.) 

For the day, John caught five fish which was a nice day under challenging conditions. For Pete – who normally has to borrow a fish in order to get his photo taken with a fish – surprisingly caught eight fish. His use of a European Nymphing rod proved to be quite successful, and officially turned him into a cautious believer. I say cautious, because aside from using Euro Nymphing techniques, Pete introduced another variable, smiling out of the right side of his mouth versus his normal left side. It didn’t dawn on him to only introduced one variable for a proper scientific test. If only he had a PhD after his name like John to understand the scientific method.

It was a fun day, even though there were challenging conditions. John felt refreshed at the end of the day, and Pete will be starting his national speaking tour lecturing on the virtues of Euro Nymphing and smiling out of the right side of one’s mouth.