Fly Fishing Trip to Frost Valley

The Cadet Fly Fishing Trip to Frost Valley YMCA in the Catskill Mountains for eight cadets and two staff and faculty had some wonderfully scenic fishing opportunities, but was highlighted by a service project in support of Frost Valley. Frost Valley has a maple sugaring operation consisting of nearly 1200 tapped trees, along with all the associated tubing to get the sap from trees to the sugar house. They are in the process of updating their 15-year-old gravity feed system to a new vacuum pump system. The cadet fly fishing club helped them with one of the critical tasks, removing the lines from the trees, disconnecting the lines and hauling them out of the forest. The work site was the side of a hill, so cadets were constantly climbing up and down the hill to retrieve the tubing and remove it. Upon completion of the work, the cadets did get to fish the wonderful waters at Frost Valley. Bisquit Brook, Pigeon Brook, and the West Branch of the Neversink were great waters but the cold water and sluggish trout did not cooperate.