I never had any interest in going up until the last year or so and now I am wondering why I never cared to go? I do not know. I just never thought of it as a place I was truly interested in. Maybe it was because of all the good trout fishing I had in the rivers around here. I was always satisfied and content and there was always new water to explore. Then there was the incredible salt water fishing and offshore fishing and freshwater bass fishing and places like the Cape and Islands and the outer beaches and the rivers and on and on. I never had time to think about the Catskills or ever did. 
I had a mate once who came from there and told me stories about Art Flick and some of the regulars from the area but I never thought to go.
I remember reading early Schwiebert (sp) and his stories about the browns sipping way out there at the end of a long cast and I was intrigued but not moved to go. I think that I preferred Bergman’s stories about the Neversink and then when it was dammed I kind of lost interest in going to the area. I finally met some one who loved the place and told me stories about the rivers and the people she knew who fished there and it touched something deep in me and I wanted to go. It is holy water for sure and I want to stand in it and feel it on my boots. Thank you Denise.

I have no idea what to expect as it is a freestone stream and as a southern New Englander I am used to Coastal Plain rivers with chalk stream energy and lots of insect life.. I know I do nt have the right flies or the right methods or the right anything but I do not care.
I just want to go and get my feet wet. I want to see the Bald Eagles on the East Branch of the Delaware and turkeys and otter and foxes and mink and look out over these waters that so many legendary fly fishermen have loved and savored since the early days of Trout fishing in America. 

I remember the first time I fished The North Umpqua at Steamboat (I think that is the name) and not quite believing I was there. Bergman again, I loved his book and the places he described so well from the thirties and forties and I almost trembled at being there and staying there. I am not quite in the same frame of mind about the Beaverkill but it is close but different. I expect to see crowds of geared up fly fishermen whipping the pools to a froth and that is fine. The tech fly guys will be everywhere and I am a low tech kind of guy at least in my opinion I am.

I hope to get off away from the crowds somehow but that remains to be seen. Perhaps I will be a tourist and fish in the middle of the crowd quite happy to be flailing away at fish that have been caught twenty times in the recent past. I don’t know.

One thing that really appeals to me is this. I will not have to see folks casting and stripping with sinking fly lines all the time and in every situation and that will be refreshing to my eyes no matter what they use for flies. Real fly fishermen actually using fly fishing methods and real flies with fly rods. I do miss that and maybe that is one of the reasons I am going, just to see that actual fly fishing still is being done. 
I bet I see some bamboo rods and silk lines too.