818 
FOREST AND STREAM 
June 29, 1912 
Hikes Near Town 
By PERRY D. FRAZER 
O N Broadway, New York city, at this season 
you see men carrying fishing rod cases or 
canoe paddles or some part of a camping- 
outfit, and you naturally wonder where each one 
is bound for and wish you could go along. Express 
wagons and trucks, heavily laden with boxes and 
parcels, frequently carry canoes and camp duffle 
on their way to the railway terminals, and you 
try to picture the sort of people they belong to, 
and whether they have chosen a place of all 
the many within a comparatively short distance 
of town that is really worth while. This sets 
you to thinking of ways and means to follow 
suit, and the more you ponder the subject the 
more difficult you find it to decide just where 
you would go if you had time. 
Take the canoeists, for example, for they are 
scattering everywhere and poking into odd cor¬ 
ners no one thought of visiting a few years ago, 
when handy light outfits were not to be had so 
easily as now. A favorite trip with them is to 
paddle up the Hudson to South Nyack, on a 
Saturday afternoon and Sunday, have their 
canoes and duffle carted up over the big hill to 
West Nyack and stored in a barn or other con¬ 
venient building until the following week. Then 
they launch the canoes on the narrow but pretty 
Hackensack River, and spend two or three days 
in following that winding, shaded stream down 
through the woods to tide water at New Mil¬ 
ford and on to Hackensack—not over thirty miles 
by train, but very much further as the stream 
winds about. And at the finish it is only a short 
distance back to the Hudson again, by rail. 
If you have never seen the Hudson from a 
canoe, this is a grand season to do it, and the 
possibilities of good fun are almost unlimited. 
There are so many nooks and corners that 
should be investigated that a number of 
weeks might very well be spent in a cruise to 
Albany. Starting on a Saturday afternoon, the 
first stopping place should be Hermit Point, 
where the canoeists hold their week-end pow¬ 
wows and fill up on grub such as mother never 
used to cook. Then off on the flood tide to 
Croton Point, plenty far enough for the first 
full day. We used always to go back into the 
Croton River, but camping on the islands there 
is no longer attractive. Jim’s Cove, across the 
bay from Peekskill, is the next campsite near a 
good spring, but Popolopen Creek at old Fort 
Montgomery is more attractive, and a few days 
spent there offer abundant opportunities for 
hikes back into the hills, to Highland Lake, Popo¬ 
lopen Pond and a number of ponds and brooks 
where fishing is fair to good. 
Faring along, day by day, you will find dozens 
of little coves and creeks on both sides of the 
river, and all worth an hour or two of investi¬ 
gation, particularly if you carry along a.camera. 
Some of them furnish very good fishing for 
bass, pickerel and perch. Most of us grow 
lazy on the way, however, and when we see a 
tow coming we throw the painter to a good- 
natured barge captain and take it easy as the 
flotilla moves along Albanyward. You miss a 
lot in this way, but it is good to be on the river 
anyhow, and when the tide is flooding you make 
good time. 
One of the nicest short-time hikes is to take 
a light camp outfit and your trout tackle and go 
to Stroudsburg, Pa. Hire a spring wagon and 
drive up the East Branch of the Brodhead about 
three miles above the junction of the two 
streams, or some eight miles in all, and make 
camp alongshore. Here is good brown and 
brook trout fishing, and being on the spot, 
you get the cream of the fishing, early and late. 
Anyway, you do not have to climb over the 
mountain to Anomalink or Henryville to eat and 
sleep, and campsites are numerous and delightful. 
A bit nearer is the Delaware, with campsites 
and good bass fishing galore, and the great 
Water Gap to fill the eye with pleasure. Better 
fishing, however, is to be had further up the 
river, but it is difficult to choose between Calli- 
coon and Narrowsburg, the most convenient 
places, either for camping or hotel living. Of 
course the best plan is to float down from Han¬ 
cock in a canoe, but if your time is limited, plan 
to move very slowly from Hancock to Callicoon 
or Cochecton village and fish carefully all the 
way; or as far as Narrowsburg. Most of the 
canoeists move too rapidly to get the best fish¬ 
ing, and try to cover too great a distance. In 
this way they pass good water without trying it 
out, or they try it at unfavorable hours. I have 
camped alongside good bass water without hav¬ 
ing much success at first, due to rain or a little 
rise in the river, to find the bass striking at any 
sort of a lure later on or next day. As the farm¬ 
ers say, “You can’t always sometimes tell’’ until 
you have tried out a good-looking stretch of 
water. And in this river you have to “first 
find your bass’’ before you can catch him. He 
may be at the tail of a rift when the signs point 
to the head of the fast water, and if you think 
he should be looking for a meal at the top of 
a pool, he may be lying at the head of the next 
rift, taking whatever comes his way, and ready 
to receive your prickly visiting card the moment 
you present it. It is good fun to adopt trout 
tactics and wade the rifts while casting a bass 
fly. Someone tells a wonderful tale of big bass 
and lots of them in the Delaware, but while they 
are abundant they do not run into pounds, as 
a rule. In that swift cold water, however, the 
pounders and two-pounders are good enough for 
me when I cast with a five-ounce fly-rod, and 
NOT F.\R KRO.M THE P.\LIS.M)ES. 
