Esopus As A Fish Haven?

Trout Unlimited is a national organization with more than 150,000 volunteers organized into about 400 chapters from Maine to Montana to Alaska. With a mission to conserve, protect and restore North America's coldwater fisheries and their watersheds, this dedicated grassroots army is matched by a staff of lawyers, policy experts and scientists, who work out of more than 30 offices nationwide. These conservation professionals ensure that Trout Unlimited is at the forefront of fisheries restoration work at the local, state and national levels.
The Catskills Mountains Chapter has been in discussions with State Department of Conservation about making a section of the Esopus Creek, from Phoenicia downstream to Boiceville, a "catch and release" section of the waterway.
On Wednesday, May 19th at the Gander Mountain Lodge in Kingston, at the Catskills Mountains Chapters monthly meeting, the proposal was expected to be under discussion with special guest speaker Mike Flaherty, DEC's regional fisheries manager.
Flaherty, according to information provided by the Catskills Mountains Chapter, has been polling anglers in the area and reports that his agents on the Esopus are asking people about their opinion about a catch and release only section on the Esopus. The Catskills Mountain Chapter believes that word is starting to spread that catch and release is now a serious consideration for future management of the creek.
To aid the discussion, Flaherty will also have available some information from his most recent studies.
Expected to attend the session are members of the Ashokan-Pepacton Watershed Chapter of Trout Unlimted.
That Chapter is not so sure the catch and release plan is a good one, according to Vice President Kathy Nolan.
"Our Ashokan-Pepacton Watershed Chapter of Trout Unlimited was alerted to the issue, and we addressed it at the monthly meeting of our Board of Directors' she said Monday. "As a result, our Board is drafting a formal position statement on Catch and Release, specifically related to this proposal. At this time we do not support catch and release on the mainstream Esopus due to the unique character of the communities, watershed and fisheries. We do not believe catch and release is the best management system given these considerations."
Some fisherman feel that catch and release cannot be practiced while bait fishing for trout. Bait caught trout are much more likely to swallow the offering and have higher mortality rates after release.
Others feel that sensible fisheries management needs to be based on reliable scientific data on the system under consideration and that DEC would need to be flexible in the approach to catch and release laws, using trial and error to arrive at a solution which the vast majority of anglers are happy with.
Still others want to simply enjoy a good trout dinner after a day of fishing, and are prepared to go elsewhere to fish to maintain that tradition.
Nothing has been decided yet. DEC is the agency that will rule on the matter, and public hearings on the topic are expected.

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Coming to Your Census

Every third house, someone comes to the door with a shotgun, a machete, or a whistling 3/4 horse weed whacker. Everybody's miffed. I like to call this the "Miffed Myth". It's not true! Oh, sure a NRFU runs into a few grouchy folks but mostly everybody that's home likes to talk. About them.
Some people believe the darndest things. Like refusing to answer a couple of questions will protect your privacy. Hah! A NRFU on computer can watch you from the sky. See, for example, if a car is parked in the driveway. Privacy? We lost that a long time ago. Ironically, with all this information we are getting dumber. The census can't simply get all it needs from the Post Office, IRS and telephone company. Sort of like how the CIA can't talk to the FBI. The answers you give to a NRFU are between you and NRFU and God. $150,000 fine and years in the pokey for the unfortunate NRFU that spills the beans.
But with responsibility comes privilege. Did I mention my G-Man status? The NRFU always rings twice. I can ignore private property signs more confidently than Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger put together.
A big myth is that "This is costing too damn much money." I truthfully don't even know how many millions or billions. But every census that comes back marked "occupied" gets something like 1500 Federal bucks for the hometown to help with schools and roads and such. I estimate that so far, I've raised about 60 grand for Shandaken. Yeah, it costs the Feds about $65 to follow up on every household that didn't mail back the census. However, a good chunk of that money goes back into the community in the form of decent wages, $16.50 per hour and 50 cents a mile. The NRFU enumerator also helps the economy by buying local shock absorbers and transmissions after criss-crossing Cross Mountain Road and the Shin Creek Expressway. The economics are mostly good.
Not a myth: The census makes a difference. NY State and California will probably lose representation and Texas is likely to gain. Some people might think getting rid of a few politicians is a good thing. I tend to go along with that. But it will surely change the balance of power of the mightiest military machine on the face of the Earth. So by failing to cooperate with your confident, sunny, persistent yet polite neighborhood NRFU, you might help determine which country gets bombed next. Think about it.
A big part of the training is in safety. A NRFU must avoid becoming dog chow. We are advised to wear comfortable running shoes for the spontaneous 23 skiddoo, but never to run from dogs or mountain lions as that will make it more likely for one to get partially consumed.
Our area has just about the worst response rate in the country. So we must be a bunch of refuseniks, right? Nope. Half or more homes around here are second homes where no one's home. The sun bleached red & white census bag still hangs on the knob, only to be found in spring after the glacier has retreated. But we can't simply assume no one's living there, as common sensical as it might sound. We have to talk a human being first. Which I don't mind doing. Can we talk? Thanks, Joan Rivers. Seems like a lot of people have lost their Census. For example, why didn't Mrs. McGillicuddy get counted? The Enumer ate her.
It really helps to have a sense of humor. See you soon!

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School Budget Passes

Total number of yes votes came to 1179 versus 925 no votes. The only town to reject the budget was Olive/Marbletown, 296 yes to 353 no. Other towns saw Shandaken/Lexington go 236 yes to 163 no; Woodstock, 358 yes to 200 no; and West Hurley, 289 yes to 209 no.
The proposition requesting $35,000 for the purchase of a vehicle passed a narrow 1058 to 1015. Once again, Olive/Marbletown was the only town to defeat the purchase, 244 yes to 402 no. Other town tallies were Shandaken/Lexington, 215 yes to 178 no; Woostock, 331 yes to 214 no; and West Hurley, 268 yes to 221 no.
With the exception of last year's 2009 budget vote, the town of Olive has traditionally voted against the school budget over the last decade.
In the Middle/High School Teachers conference room, there were very few people awaiting results, mostly administrators and board of education members.
With the budget passed, Superintendent Leslie Ford said, "I would like to thank the community for coming out to vote, this means a lot to the students to have this budget pass during these difficult economic times and I really appreciate their support." This is Ford's third successful budget year.
Tom Hickey and Rob Kurnit, the two candidates on the ballot running uncontested, enjoyed voter support. Hickey gathered 1257 votes in his favor with Kurnit coming in second at 1150. There were also a few write-in candidates.
In Shandaken/Lexington, Hickey received 230 and Kurnit 193. Past school board member Rita Vanacore had one write-in vote and Edward Cahill also received one write-in vote. I
n Olive/Marbletown, Hickey received 354 and Kurnit 322. Vanacore received one write-in vote and Richard Wolff, who resigned from the board last year, gained seven write-in votes.
In Woodstock, Hickey received 365 votes and Kurnit 335. In Hurley Hickey received 318 votes and Kurnit 300.
Board members congratulated the two. Trustee Tony Fletcher said, "You are now officially elected." The two were appointed following the resignation of Michelle Friedel and Wolff in July 2009.
As the results were coming in, Fletcher noticed that the turnout increased compared to 2009 results. By the end of the evening all four polling stations revealed voter town out at a slight increase. Olive/Marbletown showed the highest increase, an additional 137 (99 of those in no votes) compared to the previous year.
The Onteora School district has approximately 11,560 registered voters in Ulster County, not including the small slice of voters in Greene County.
As part of procedure, School board president Laurie Osmond called a board meeting for the acceptance of the election results.
It was passed by a unanimous vote.

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A Firetower All His Own

We are up 43 feet in the back portion of the 15 acres Knight's lived on since his father moved to a property along Route 28A to take an IBM job in 1955, when young Barry was but five years old.
We are up on Barry Knight's very own fire tower, which he moved from Schoharie County and rebuilt for his pleasure, and inspiration, by himself over a four year stint from 2002 to 2006.
"My quest for a view has always been to get higher, to see something from an angle you can't see from the ground," he says, jumping up onto the highest point on his tower for a moment and spreading his arms like a bird. "It's a different perspective from up here."
Knight, who ran his own color photo printing business out of his West Hurley home, not far from the Olive and Marbletown borders, for a quarter century, notes how there was a time when he "saw the world in my dark room."
"I used to figure out where I wanted to travel from printing other people's travel photos," he says of the business he ran until the digital revolution convinced him it was time to retire and follow other dreams he'd been holding his whole life. "When I came up with this idea about the fire tower, my girl friend thought I was crazy..."
Knight tells about being up on Overlook Mountain one morning a few years back and talking with Dick Voloshen, one of the key movers and shakers of the revival movement that's seen five local towers brought back to life, including Overlook, Mt. Tremper, Hunter, Balsam Mt. and Red Hill. The fact that there were sometimes old fire towers available for sale, especially up in the Adirondacks, stuck with him.
"A light bulb went off in my head, and not just a 25 watt but a 100 watt bulb," Knight recalls of his initial Eureka moment. "I knew I wanted one of them."
Knight had Voloshen call Marty Podskoch, whose Purple Mountain Press book on the history of local fire towers led to the movement that resulted in the five resurrected towers. Podskock, in turn, gave Knight "a number and a name" for the owner of one.
"It was a 1944 tower that was changed to use as a communications tower in 1983 and then taken down in 1999," Knight explains of what we're standing on. "It had been up on a mountain near the Schoharie County town of Summit until this gentleman, Al Moulin, took it to his property with plans of putting it up on another mountain near Esperance."
When he got up to see what Moulin had, he continues, the tower was in pieces overgrown with weeds in a field. All its bolts were in a pile, half-buried in mud.
"I asked Al how much he wanted for everything and he said his wife just wanted him to get it out," Knight says. "I went up there with some friends and brought it all back here in a 24 foot truck."
Back home, the former photo processor set up his front yard as a workplace and started scraping down all the 60 year old aluminum. He washed each piece, and bolt, down with mineral spirits and then primed it all with metal etching paint. Finally he painted everything in aluminum weather proofing paint.
As for getting the various pieces from his front yard to the rise where the completed tower now stands, Knight earlier showed his path. He'd carry the main pieces on his shoulder, one at a time, up through scrub oak and blueberry bushes to the place he and his sisters used to call their mountain when kids, and he's set up as a picnic and party area, complete with outhouse, cabin and firepit, in his adult years. He rigged a wheelbarrow for the 60 bags of cement needed for his footings.
Those footings, he adds, were dug down to bedrock, with 3/4 inch rebar attached deep into the earth's surface for stability. He put the tower's corners in each of the key directions; ran a hose up 375 feet from his house to mix the concrete.
As for putting the actual tower up, including the new central stairway he fashioned from what had originally been a 68 foot high structure until telecommunications equipment buckled the lower levels, Knight explains how he did it all himself, layer by layer... making platforms in between each stage. Then disassembling them to get to the next level.
"I only had to replace 13 pieces,: he says. "Altogether, the entire thing ended up costing me $4,000. Not including labor, of course."
He adds that he chose to do it all alone because he realized, early on, that with all the work at great heights, "it was important not to be distracted in any way."
We talk about what it's like to have lived a lifetime in the same place and what changes have been most notable over the past 50 some years. Knight speaks about traffic on Route 28, which used to have a 65 mph speed limit and no lights. He talks about the benefits of zoning, and his own need for a height variance for his fire tower. He brings up the May, 1963 crash of two jets over the reservoir and how one could find detritus from it for years.
He notes how much he wished his father and brother had had a chance to see things from this perch.
"Can you believe how long I've lived up here and only now get to see THIS view," he says. You know what I wish? That I had a time machine and could go back to the 1980s and look out on this Esopus Valley now under the reservoir back when the trains were running its length, when it was all filled with farms and life..."
We silence before the sea of green, the Ashokan ribboned in its midst. Only two percent of the earth's surface, I'm told, has been disturbed by man. And yet the hum we hear behind the wind is of cars from distant highways.
There's a bird sailing our direction. Knight identifies it as a young turkey vulture. He notes how if we were to duck out of sight it would circle overhead. But then he flutters his own arms, his face lit up like the boy who once dreamed of this vision a half century ago.
"You know, ever since man was alive, they've wanted to do that," he says, eyes on the bird. "How can you do that?"
It's time to descend back to earth. We start down the stairs of Barry Knight's fire tower.
"You know, Al Moulin and his girlfriend came here once," he said of the man he'd bought this dream-come-true from. "She took me aside at one point and said, 'You know what you've built, don't you?' And I said, 'What?'"
He tells me to watch my head, then locks the gate to his treasure shut.
"You've built HIS dream," he ended his story. "With all the trouble in the world, this is a good place to retreat."
And a great dream to have realized...

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