New York

The cradle of American fly fishing.

The Catskill Mountains are where American fly fishing as we know it was born. Theodore Gordon, the Dette family, Walt and Winnie Dette, the Darbees — the Catskill dry-fly tradition that shaped the sport was developed on the Beaverkill, the Willowemoc, and the Neversink in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Today New York holds a deep portfolio of trout water: the historic Catskill freestones, the Esopus tailwater system, the world-class Upper Delaware wild-trout fishery, and the Public Fishing Rights (PFR) easements that the NYSDEC has assembled across the state.