Wanted fly tying feathers for 13 year old

Gary, total aside. How is the Battenkill fishing these days? I was a somewhat regular while in college down in Williamstown. (Though I spent more time on the Walloomsac and Hoosic which were closer to home.) I also did several site visits when there was concern over crashing wild trout populations, and have always wondered where there had been some recovery.

One of the most humbling experiences of my life was my first blanket Blue Winged Olive hatch down near the NY border. Rising trout everywhere for 2 solid hours, and I never touched one.
 
Jamie Woods, on this site, is a far better arbiter of the Batten Kill's fishing these days than me! Hope he chimes in here.
Gary
 
So Jeff: I will respond as GT has suggested that I do. While I have not fished as much on the BK in the last two years as previously, I am on the river observing or talking with my friends who are fishing a couple of times a week. The fishery on both the Vermont side and the NY side seems to be recovering. NY instituted some stocking in the no kill after the abject decline in fish and fish classes. I would say based upon my experience and my friends' in NY we are still seeing a predominance of stocked fish and holdovers, but are seeing natives, both brook trout and browns in the no-kill. I am told from friends that the Vt section has recovered well, with good sized brook trout and browns. I run the river (on the road) in Vermont and NY often once a week in the summer and have fished it since 1959 and I can tell you that I still do not see, since the decline in the mid nineties, the numbers of brook trout of all different year classes in the backwaters of the large pools. In Vermont, up until the decline, you could visit any large pool along River Road with a backwater and in the backwater there would be 20-30 brook trout from 5 inches to 12 inches smudging surface insects out of the surface film all day long. I have spent hours trying to put myself in a position to cast without drag and find the right fly.

Not back there yet. Still worth a trip now.

Now, to turn to pure speculation, especially since I am not a biologist, but this is based upon observation, In the spring of 94 I fished the last NY bridge before Vt on 313 during the Hendrickson Hatch. An area I know well. A great afternoon, not many caught fish, but I was fishing over 15 rising fish between 11-14 inches within casting distance all afternoon, which the BK veterans will know, is a nice showing. The water was low, subsequently we had a low water year, with the August water extraordinary low. Followed by a winter of heavy snow with snow cover from December to May, with weeks below zero and/or freezing as well. Ice jams, anchor ice, and an incredible January thaw, four inches of rain on top of two feet of snow, flooding, ice flows up in the fields and then a return to frigid weather until early May.

To me the following year, it seemed that entire classes of trout were wiped out. I did not see the brookies in the backwaters, few fish rising during the hatches. Biologists confirmed the drop in numbers, but attribution was to lack of cover and nutrients.

Just saying.
 
Thanks, Gary and James.

I remember talking to a TU friend who was a Battenkill regular in the early 00's. He said that fish numbers had really declined, but that the few wild fish that remained were extremely large back then. He showed some photos from electrofishing surveys that seemed to confirm that.

May have to make a trip during Hendrickson season this year.
 
Turkey feathers can absolutely be used in tying flies. However, he is pretty well set with turkey feathers as he shot one last spring.
Thanks anyway.
 
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