A section of a car bumper may have been the biggest catch of the day on the Esopus Creek. Volunteers also hauled away beer cans, cigarette butts, a visor, two caps, plastic food wrappers, and a single black sock.

It was all catch and no release at a cleanup on Saturday, July 18, organized by the Ashokan-Pepacton Watershed Chapter of Trout Unlimited.

Despite impending rain, more than two dozen volunteers gathered at the Town of Olive’s new streamside park in Boiceville. Organizers Kyle Black, Yuki Asada, and John Yanzek distributed maps of six cleanup sites, stretching from the park to Plank Road in Phoenicia. Equipped with pails, trash bags, and rubber gloves, the volunteers split into six groups after being warned to avoid sharp objects.

On Plank Road, local fishing guide and chapter board member George Holz picked up metal cups, beer cans, and other discarded drink containers.

“I bring people here to fish. I’m always packing out any trash I see. It’s a way to give back to the stream and show a little love to the Esopus,” Holz said.

At another site along Plank Road, August Crouser and Michael Vier cleaned the parking area before making their way to the creek. Much of the debris lay along the roadside.

“We fish here all the time,” Vier said. He said he had enjoyed a strong early season catching rainbow trout.

“It’s only right to give back to the water,” Crouser said. He had caught more than a few trout this year, he said, “mainly browns.”

The Esopus’ proximity to New York City has drawn anglers and other visitors for generations. In “Nineteen Reservoirs: On Their Creation and the Promise of Water for New York City,” author Lucy Sante described the Ashokan Valley, as the area was known before the city dammed the creek, as a popular tourist destination for city residents seeking the outdoors.

Not far from the cleanup crews, Ryan Gross, visiting from Connecticut, cast blue-winged olive flies for brown trout. He thanked the volunteers and described fishing the Esopus as his favorite activity in his favorite place.

“I come here to chase nature and find a simpler state of mind. When I see beer cans and plastic, it takes me out of that state. It just makes me sad,” Gross said.

He had already caught and released a 14-inch brown trout.

Below a bridge in Mount Tremper, Deirdre Campbell, Ed Ostapczuk, and Joseph Soltis filled bags with “lots and lots of cigarette butts.” They also picked up debris that they said had been carried downstream by high water.

After several hours, the volunteers regrouped and loaded the trash onto a Town of Olive truck for disposal. They then headed to Davis Park for a cookout and raffle hosted by Trout Unlimited.

Olive Town Supervisor Jim Sofranko, who joined the cleanup, said he was grateful for the volunteers’ concern for the creek. The town has worked with New York City on voluntary buyouts of properties damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Irene, allowing the land to be restored and transferred to the town for public use.

The streamside park where the cleanup began is the first in a planned network of pocket parks on former flood-prone properties, Sofranko said. Its development took years of negotiations with landowners, environmental analysis, permitting, remediation, and planning. Invasive plants are now being removed and replaced with native species.

Sofranko said Trout Unlimited, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the John Burroughs Natural History Society have partnered in the work, which is intended to benefit the community, trout habitat, and the water supply for Olive and New York City residents.

The chapter’s conservation work extends beyond cleanups, chapter President Tony Cocozza said. He cited its work with the state Department of Environmental Conservation to reduce hatchery stocking in the Esopus, an effort intended to strengthen wild trout populations.

The chapter has also worked with the department and the Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program on studies that use DNA to identify and monitor genetically distinct brook trout populations in upper Esopus tributaries.

“Health and conservation of the rivers and streams of the Ashokan-Pepacton watershed is good for the trout and the people who live here,” Cocozza said.

“The Esopus is a most egalitarian trout stream,” Austin M. Francis wrote in “Catskill Rivers: Birthplace of American Fly Fishing,” first published in 1983. He cited its plentiful wild rainbow and brown trout and its accessibility to local and visiting anglers.

For Saturday’s volunteers, that access came with an obligation to care for the creek.

Bennet Ratcliff is a contributing writer for The Overlook. Reach him at reporting@theoverlooknews.com.