Ep. #40: Todd Spire of Esopus Creel

Tell Me What You’re Reading

Todd Spire is a licensed fly fishing guide and instructor, and is the owner of Esopus Creel, a company devoted to fly fishing in the Catskill Mountains, where he’s lived since 2008. Todd’s on the board of the local Trout Unlimited chapter, which helps to protect the Esopus Creek, which feeds into the Ashokan reservoir, which provides New York City with about 40% of its drinking water. Todd is a scholar of our local river, the Esopus Creek. Todd discusses Neversink - One Angler's Intense Exploration of a Trout River, by Leonard M. Wright, Jr., and also the beauty and the rhythm of trout fishing in the Catskills, learning through observation and experience, and the futility of trying to control mother nature. After the credits, Todd discusses the relationship of birds over the water to the presence of insects, the relationship between the blooming of flowers and insect hatches, turbidity on the Esopus, and the impact of warm temperatures on our trout fishing, and particularly whether we will be fishing earlier or later in the season as a result of warming temperatures. All consistent with Todd’s drive to learn from observation and experience rather than solely from what others have written and from Google.