Beaverkill River

The cradle of American fly fishing.

The Beaverkill rises in the western Catskills and runs roughly 44 miles to its confluence with the East Branch of the Delaware at Junction Pool in Hancock, NY. It is, by general consensus, the river where American fly fishing was born — Theodore Gordon's Catskill dry-fly tradition took root here in the late 1800s, and the patterns developed for these hatches still carry the river's name.

The fishery today is a mix of wild and stocked browns and rainbows, with native brook trout in the headwater tributaries. The upper river (above Roscoe) is freestone, cool and tea-stained; the lower river (Roscoe to Junction Pool) is bigger water, warmer in summer, and famous for its evening hatches.