Beaverkill TR

Treked on up to NY from Va on thurs morn. I had a number of concerned
online fishing friends warn me of the river levels but I had been
watching the levels drop and drop and drop so off I was. The Beaver
fishes nicely at 500-600 cfs and at the peak of the Ivan visit the
gauges were recording 46,000 CFS! I couldn't imagine seeing something
like that. We camp about a mile up a feeder brook so our campgrounds
was pretty much spared, access to the upstream portion of the brook
was gone but camp we did. The other campgrounds along side the Beaver
had major damage and lots of campers were washed downstream. It seems
every shop-owner we encountered during the long weekend had his/her
tale of woe. The fishing: Normally, we fish a few stretches awaiting
the typical hatches but we knew that this trip was going to be
different. Grabbed some Iso's, some wooley and into the water we
went. I managed to "accidently " hook up quite quickly in the rapids
just above Cairns. (My fly got caught on a back-cast, waded ashore,
untangled, threw said fly into a runoff, waded back out, went to pick
up and had a fish on!) I'm somewhat of a rank amature so this was
somewhat typical for me when nymphing. That fish wsa the ONLY fish I
saw landed on the Beaver during 3 full days of fishing. Angler
traffic was way down of course but there were still enough skilled
anglers astream to reassure me of "if they're not hooking up, my lack
of success isn't due to skill or knowledge". During the three days on
the water, I saw maybe 1/2 dozen insects over the water. The last day
I did spot a $hitload of tiny nymphs on the shore and just off-shore.
3/8 inch up to maybe 5/8ths. My entomology is not up to snuff so they
will remain unidentified. One final observation: Typically wading is
somewhat tricky due to the slipperyness of the rocks. This trip there
wasn't any slickness to the rocks. Was wondering if the river was
scoured of most if not all insect life.
Bill in Va.