Allan - 1st of all, the quality and quantity of your effort ranks at least an 11 on a scale of 1-10(best). If you ever give up fly tying, you can set up as a chef and I will come.

- as for busyness from other anglers, actually I was surprised how much water was available considering the buginess and Memorial Day weekend. Even Hazel was doable much of the time. There's a lot of water centering around Roscoe.

- the evening cookout worked out well, given the hot weather. It was a great idea to use the Willow Covered Bridge pavilion to fend off the rain, though the Roscoe campground did have great water right there.
Lunch is ok too, again depending on the weather. There weren't too many dead times, even during the early (hot) part of the week. I was catching trouts throughout the day - terrestials worked very well when the hot sun was out. Maybe, again depending on the weather, the 2:00-4:00 period might work, being between the morning big olives and the evening spinner fall and hatch.

- tying was fine - our crowd and the droppers-by never completely saturated the Reynolds Lounge for long. The evening gave a chance to gather info and maybe tie flies for the next day. I repaired some of my flies one evening - faster than tying new ones.
Some of the less hardy anglers tapered off as the week wore on, so there was some self regulation. Reynolds had 2 porches for us to spread out on, at least early in the evening.

- a specific scheduled trip, such as the Neversink, might work for some of the newer folks.

- just observing the newcomers and veterans, it looked like the interaction was great.

- newcomers could speak to the intimidation factor better, but at least one of our group never fly fished before, and she seemed to be enjoying herself. This Board and the chat Hut bring the folks together very well, compared to other groups I've been involved with.

- accomodations at Reynolds were just right. Plus there are a variety of other inns/motels/campgrounds nearby. A lot of choices, and not real pricey either.

- rating = 9+ (the trouts could have been just a bit more cooperative in rising - I really had to hunt them down at times) As it turned out, compared to 2 earlier sessions on the Beaverkill early May, I had more success, keeping a catch rate above 3/hr using just dries and getting a dozen 16"+ alphas among the hundred or so stockers for the week. I did get skunked 2 of the sessions, but I solved that problem by moving to another pool. Sunday morning I landed a 20" rainbow on a spinner at Hendrickson's, using a Kusse Elf with a Hardy Perfect and silk line. Then I broke off 2 bigger ones, the only breakoffs all week - guess I wore out the 6X tippets.

Again, Allan - thanks so much for your superb organization and effort.

tl
les

[This message has been edited by lesyoung (edited 06 June 2006).]