Posted on April 30 2026
After spending Tuesday mostly driving around looking for rivers we couldn't find, Mark and I decided to save gas, pay for a shuttle, and float an area where we felt certain there would be a good caddis spinner fall. A Hendrickson hatch would be a nice bonus, but if we had fish up eating caddis spinners during the last hour of the day, everything would be just fine.
Put in at 1:30, (heard from a fisherman that he had Hendrickson's in the same water at 2:00 the day before), and saw a few Hendrickson's already on the water at the launch site. Despite the presence of Hendrickson's on the water we did not see a single rise for almost two hours. At about three we started see rising fish, not many, but enough to keep us interested.
From 3:30 until we arrived at our take out at about 7:45, we were occupied trying to entice both one and doners and feeding pods to eat out dry flies. We met with varying degrees of success. Mark is an able boatman, but is still learning the river. As a wade fisherman, I did a poor job of putting our boat in position to cast to fish in about twice as much water as I am use to wading in.
The fishing - Was a huge upgrade from the previous day's follies. We fished a decent hatch of mayflies, we cast at rising fish, we saw Hendrickson duns and spinners as well as paraleps. At 7:00 we arrived in the big still water pool where we planned to put a serious hurt on fish gulping caddis spinners but, as most of you know, caddis don't like to play in the rain, and by then it was pouring. We rowed through the pool to the take out without seeing a caddis or a rise. As usual my vest was worn outside my raincoat and is hanging over the stove drying out.
How'd we do? We hooked ten fish, landing nine, a 19 inch brown being the biggest.
So Dennis beat me to it. Hit the BK at 7:30am (I can’t sleep so fishing starts earlier) and found a few bank feeding targets. One happened to be a big thick 20" Brown who ate a rusty spinner. Great fight and an amazing way to start a day.
Had a great time with the other Associate Editors on the Willow. Would have been better if the fish responded to all of the caddis…oh well.
How can you tell Hendricksons? How close do you have to get to them to identify?
A119 -Thanks for the report, going with Diana Ross for this one.
Angler119’- Sounds like a great day fishing with your friend Mark. Fantastic. I also had a wonderful day on the water with Associate. Ed’s, Dennis and JimN.Congratulations to Dennis and Jim on landing big browns. As for me —- nothing, nada , squat. Didn’t even see a riser to cast to. Did manage to fall in -again. I going to start wearing scuba gear to stay dry. There caddis in the air and a some on the water. I also saw some blue quills. The Hendricksons Dennis mentioned occurred will I was getting changed and drying off. Oh well , you snooze , you lose. All My Best Ed
Fished the UE and found some Hendo spinners and fish eating. Landed 2 and it was over by 4. So, last evening I and some buddies started looking at photos of our Hendo successes and found that mostly it was May that it was good. Last year I had 2 good days on the UE 5-2/3. Then it rained and I have pics from 5-10 at Al’s and Corbett bridge of 6000+ flows. Did the Hendo spinners fall in areas that became dry a few week later? Still optimistic that it will get better.
The associate editors had a nice day on the water. I was fortunate enough to get a personal tour of the willow from the other associates. There were plenty of caddis and no rising fish. The last stop of the day was on the beaverkill. We hit a very short lived Hendrickson hatch and we landed a fish. Jim N had the fish of the day 20 in.brown. I ended up with a 16 in. Rainbow and 3 refusals.
Thanks to the associate editors for showing me the willow and a great day on the water
Good for you! I’ve been following your reports from NH and am heading out on Saturday. Everything to me sounds familiar to last spring, but it’s heartening to hear of some Hendrickson’s and spinners, it’ll be a pleasant change from Triggerfishing.
Thanks as always for posting, I’ll chime in on how I’m doing.