“Waloomsac River, is a small stream, which is formed in Bennington by the union of several branches, which rise in Glastenbury, Woodford and Pownal. It takes a northwestern direction, leaves the state near the northwest corner of Bennington and unites with Hoosac river, nearly on the line between Washington and Rensalaer counties, N.Y. Between this stream and Hoosac river was fought the Bennington Battle. On the Waloomsac and its branches are many good mill privileges and some fine meadows.”
Zadock Thompson, A Gazetteer of the State of Vermont, 1824, Montpelier, Vermont, E.P. Walton, Printer.
We stayed two days in Manchester, Vermont. There is a famous river near Manchester. It’s famous because since at least the 1960s Orvis has sold a fine series of reels dubbed Battenkill, and also sold a high-dollar bamboo rod of the same name. The reels are pretty things, always made by somebody else and marketed by Orvis, and I have a couple from the early 90s when they were made in England. Bamboo rods are always pretty, and the Battenkill particularly so, and I don’t have one of the rods, dammit. If the reels are that good though, and the rods that pretty, then the river must be good too, right? So I had a vague notion heading to Vermont that the Batten Kill was the place to fish.
The Batten Kill though doesn’t get that great of reviews. Apparently it’s pretty, but has better name recognition than fish. Our guide, Christian Betit, with Taconic Guide Service, wanted us to fish the Waloomsac near Bennington, a tiny river that runs 16 miles from Vermont across the New York border where it joins the Hoosic. Part of its course takes it along the edge of Bennington, and for a bit the Waloomsac becomes an urban waterway in one of the least urban states in the Northeast.
Bennington was a mill town, and is now a town sans mills. It’s not a wasteland, but it’s not the Ritz either. Mills were built in Bennington in the 19th century in part because of water power, Waloomsac water power specifically, and a diversion dam ran much of the flow out of the Waloomsac proper through Bennington. The old mills died somewhere in the last century, and while some remain vacant or were torn down, others house small businesses such as the de rigueur craft brewery and a racing snowshoe manufacturer. We don’t have many showshoe races in Houston, so the existence of a racing snowshoe manufacturer was pretty remarkable.
“[The Waloomsac’s] a pretty little freestone stream that has suffered the same kinds of neglect as the area through which it flows, so it’s not odd to find an old car battery or lawn furniture half-buried in the gravel riverbed. But despite this evidence of man’s folly, the stream is home to beautiful trout —some wild, some stockers that have migrated from elsewhere in the system. I’d been introduced to the particular hidden stretch of water along Benmont by a couple of colleagues, who referred to the spot as ‘The Sh*thole'”
Phil Monahan, The Trout Stream That No One Else Wanted, Orvis News, June 29, 2017.
If I’ve got the history right, the diversion dam was removed, and the Waloomsac flow was restored. The Bennington sewer plant ain’t the very thing and it discharges into the Waloomsac, but in 2017 the City voted $9.9 million in bonds to fix the plant. I figured if they started from the election it should take about a year to prepare plans, issue bonds, and bid construction contracts, and then another year or two to complete construction. This is why I tell my children: Always vote yes for bonds! Well that and because I’m a bond lawyer, and they should support their father in his dotage.
Vermont Fish & Wildlife began stocking the river in 2014 with trophy rainbows and browns, fish at least 14 inches long, so there are good fish. We didn’t fish Phil Monahan’s raggedy water behind the Taco Bell, so I don’t know if it too has been improved, but what we fished was lovely, with overhanging trees and clear water. We put in at the picturesque Henry Street Bridge and fished downstream towards the New York border. It was a Tuesday, and nobody else was on the water.
Because of Christian and anglers like Christian the Waloomsac seems to be having its moment, and seems to be getting the attention it deserves. Vermont like a lot of states has a fishing season, and the Waloomsac is one of the few Vermont rivers Vermonters can fish year around. I gather that there are Vermont anglers who will in fact fish in the middle of a Vermont winter, and so a bunch of crazy people know and care about the Waloomsac.
“More than 20 volunteers worked to clean up a section of the Walloomsac River on Saturday morning. The volunteers pulled out bicycles, scrap metal, tires, wheels, and a propane tank from the Walloomsac, a popular recreation spot and cold water fish habitat.”
Edward Damon, Volunteers pitch in to clean up Walloomsac River, The Bennington Banner, August 1, 2016.
So I was on a nice river with an eager guide and my lovely fishing partner and notwithstanding all of that I was in a foul mood. It was raining. Okay, it was a light, pleasant rain and I knew it would be raining, but still it was wet and grey and a wee bit dreary. Launching the boat I slipped on a rock and fell down in the river. I wasn’t hurt except for that whole pride thing, and I didn’t get water in my waders. Still. That pride thing.
And I wasn’t catching any fish. For the first two hours I caught no fish. Kris caught fish. She hooked three fish while we were fishing at the boat launch. Not that I would let Kris’s good fortune ever blacken my mood. Oh no, not me. I’m surely above that. But dang, right at the launch?
Then I broke my rod. It was the new R.L. Winston 5 weight Pure that Trout Unlimited had sent me for perfect attendance, and I broke the rod tip when I slammed a weighted streamer into it on a forward cast. Now mind, I knew theoretically that sort of thing could happen, but in my earlier years I must have slammed a thousand woolly buggers into a thousand rod tips and come out fine. Now when I don’t do that sort of thing very often I finally break a rod tip. Worse still it was just after I’d finally hooked and lost a couple of fish. Poor Christian, he had an angler in a dark mood smashing rod tips and he had to loan him a rod to finish the day. I’m not sure I’d have done it.
But Christian loaned me a rod and he pulled out the day. At one point late in the morning–we were on a half-day float–Christian was pondering our final stretch, a nine-foot deep hole, and I watched him think through the alternatives and come up with an appropriate answer: an indicator high on the butt of the leader, a lot of weight, and a random buggy brown pheasant tail nymph variant–random to me, but presumably not to Christian. I’d fished much the same rig before, not that I would have thought of it, but with a different fly it’s the going concern on San Juan River drifts. Watching Christian think through his approach was a joy. He’d worked hard all morning and even with a cranky old guy in the back of his boat he was still working hard. And then I caught five nice rainbows in about 30 minutes. Not that my mood would brighten because I caught fish.
Oh no, not me. Man I love the Waloomsac.
*
We went to Manchester in the first place because Orvis is there, and there is both an outlet store (which is huge) and a separate flagship store (which is huger). American-made Orvis rods are also made in Manchester, though the corporate offices are in Sunderland on the way from Manchester to Bennington.
Manchester is decidedly upscale. We stayed in the Equinox Resort which dates back to a tavern founded before the Revolution, and it was pretty posh. Kris was convinced that Tiger Woods was in the resort with us, though the guy she thought was Woods was sitting behind a pillar in the dining room and I couldn’t get a good look. It might have been Tiger Woods. Woods wasn’t playing at the PGA Rocket Mortgage Classic, so he had to be somewhere, and the guy in the dining room was wearing a golf shirt, plus the Equinox is the kind of place where Tiger Woods might be staying. It could have been Tiger Woods.
Including the Equinox, I counted three pretty big resort hotels within a mile of each other on Main Street. There were good restaurants (though my duck breast glazed with maple syrup came off a bit like duck breast pancakes). Not even counting the Orvis stores, there were enough outlet shops–Ralph Lauren, Kate Spade, Vineyard Vines, and Brooks Brothers among others–to keep a shopper happy. The Orvis stores were enough for us, though we did find a great laundromat. The Orvis stores were magnificent temples to the fly fishing shopping gods, and there were great deals on Helios 2 rods in the outlet store. I went looking and found an Orvis bamboo rod in a glass case in the flagship store. It was one of the newer models, not a Battenkill, and I didn’t buy it this time either.
Instead I bought two size twelve brown drake flies, because that’s the sort of thing one has in one’s flybox in Vermont. You never know when you might need one. I wouldn’t anyway.
