Recently at an author talk at the Livingston Manor Free Public Library, a question was asked of Ed Van Put if the story of Dan Cahill stocking rainbow trout in the Delaware River was true. Ed replied “No, it’s a great story, but that’s all it is – a story!” 

Unfortunately, that story has been repeated for decades - in print, by word of mouth, and now it consumes the internet – just Google “Dan Cahill and rainbow trout in the Delaware” and you’ll find dozens of links/articles/webpages memorializing Dan Cahill for being responsible for the Delaware’s rainbow trout - among other credits.

The stories vary, from a train delay resulting in Cahill dumping cans of juvenile rainbows sent from the west into Callicoon Creek in the early 1870s, to releasing large breeding stock in the late 1870s, to stocking rainbow trout fingerlings in the late 1880s! 

According to official New York State records, Rainbow trout first came to New York from California in 1875, thanks to the efforts of pioneer fish culturist Seth Green, Superintendent of the State fish hatchery in Caledonia, New York, who attempted to replenish the state’s rivers and streams that were fast becoming depleted of brook trout (by overfishing) in the mid-to-late 1800s. 

Green, an avid angler, traveled to California and fished for the “California Mountain Trout” (rainbow trout) that populated those streams.  He was impressed with the rainbows’ ability to survive in extreme conditions; from high flows in near-flooding stage to very low water, with temperatures higher than the 70-degree Fahrenheit limit that our New York State brook trout could tolerate. 

He found the rainbows challenging to fish for, providing excellent fishing. Realizing that there were rivers all across New York that contained trout only in their extreme headwaters and smaller tributaries, Green was eager to introduce rainbows.

The first rainbow trout (fry) were released into the Delaware watershed at the headwaters of the West Branch of the Delaware River in 1881. A few months later, more rainbow fry were stocked into the Beaverkill and Willowemoc. 

As Seth Green observed in their native California, rainbows tolerated water temperatures and conditions that were inhospitable to Eastern brook trout; they did well, grew quickly, and thrived. (However, it was soon learned that the feisty rainbows migrated far downstream from where they were stocked. As a result, stocking rainbows fell out of favor in the Delaware watershed, and were slowly replaced by brown trout imported from Europe.)

The rainbows in the Delaware system migrate into the Delaware tributaries to spawn in spring (unlike their brook and brown trout counterparts that spawn in the fall) and as a result, many Delaware tributaries, including the East and West Branches, also provide excellent rainbow trout fishing. Today the Delaware’s wild rainbow trout population make up what is known as one of the finest fisheries East of the Mississippi.

The colorful but untrue story of how rainbow trout were stocked in the Delaware system originated from a tale that was told by Edward R. Hewitt in the early 1940s that appeared in Harold Smedley’s Fly Patterns and Their Origins (1943). 

In the Forward of the book, which is a collection of anecdotal stories told by fly-tiers offering opinions and stories relating to flies and their creators, Smedley writes that he makes no claim “for any original opinion in this volume” adding “like a wise editor, the author assumes no responsibility for opinions used.” Smedley writes that Hewitt and Dan Cahill fished together, and states:

“As related by Mr. Hewitt: Back in the 80’s, Cahill was responsible for stocking Callicoon Creek with big rainbows. He says a train on which Cahill was working was delayed near Callicoon by a wreck ahead, certain to entail a long delay. On the train there were some cans of big rainbows, 2 and 4 pounds, in transit from the west to some eastern point. Realizing that the fish would not survive the delay, Cahill determined that they should not be wasted and induced two other railroad men to help him carry the cans about a mile to Callicoon Creek where he placed the trout.”

Ed Van Put, a historian and avid researcher for the past 40 years of the history of trout fishing, spent countless hours searching for information on Dan Cahill, including the Library of Congress’s website, Chronicling America, the newspapers of New York and Pennsylvania communities along the Delaware River, and the Port Jervis Evening Gazette which was published in the town Cahill supposedly lived. 

The newspaper archives covered the period from 1869 to 1929, and included a large portion of Pike County, PA, and Masthope, where a friend of Hewitt’s supposedly said Cahill was a “fishing authority.” Ed found that there were a great many trout-fishing-related articles that named individual fishermen, but the name Dan Cahill never appeared. 

He then searched the Erie Railroad Internet Employee Archives, as well as the U.S. Federal and State Census Records in New York and Pennsylvania from 1860 to 1910 and was unsuccessful in finding any Dan Cahill – from Port Jervis, Masthope, or anywhere else in the Delaware River watershed! 

Ed states “The tale of the train wreck and saving large rainbow trout from perishing is a satisfying, sentimental story that appeals to all anglers, which is why it has been told over and over, along with the story that Dan Cahill created the Cahill fly pattern.” (He did not, more about that in another Streamside column!)

And “After all of my research, I found no information to substantiate any of the stories about Dan Cahill or evidence that he even existed. History should be verified by dates, testimony, and supporting documentation. The lack of any evidence that this story is factual was disappointing, but the conclusion I reached is that it is simply a story.”