Bright Waters Catskill

So, I rigged up the old Kiley rod, married it to a vintage Hardy Princess, and started my walk along the river’s edge. I believe they will be very happy together.

There was a little rain still lingering among the slopes of the Catskills, the soft, almost misty kind, but I didn’t see any signs of life on that wide expanse of the pool. I was headed to determine if the fast water, the heavier stuff, had enough depth to hide a trout. The rain was still around you see, but it failed to do much for our rivers throughout this long, nor-easter weekend.

Stopping to watch one of the better stretches, I looked back down over the pool once that misty rain had stopped, and there it was: a soft, twinkling rise!

I took my time of course, walking the stones along the edges, and slowing to a crawl once it was time to work into the pool proper. One doesn’t want to blow an opportunity one has waited for three years to meet. I watched that rise, stopping every slow, gliding step. I didn’t see anything where the trout met the air, though I had marked a handful of whitish mayflies – the summer Cahills, and a few discrete significantly smaller drab mayflies – the olives. The Cross Special has done some good work this season, and it had already been tied on, so…

The float appeared perfect, down gently with the leader and tippet to my side, plenty of distance between the fish’s bailiwick and the leader butt and that fly line. Two casts, three… nothing. So, stop and watch a moment. Still cannot see anything on that surface when he takes something; an emerger? The CDC cripple? No. The olive, it’s always the olives…

The tippet is checked, 5.5X in deference to the clarity of the water, and the little olive T.P. Dun is offered. Multiple drifts… nothing. He’s moving, and he’s not alone! Work on the one though… not having it.

A smaller, darker olive ignored. A winged ant, also ignored and he stops for a time, so I look at the insects showing. Eventually, a few larger mayflies are spotted and tagged as isonychia. A size 14 Pale Isonychia 100-Year Dun is offered to the next riser after he lunges half out of the water after something. That’s definitely a trout, 18, 20… silvery, a bow? Whatever it is they are taking, they are not my dry flies.

They are getting skittish from casting. That first one is down. What are they eating? It’s always the little olives this time of year, always…

Whatever they wanted seems to have stopped, so I withdraw, head back upriver. I find one rising at the head of the run, see a few more of the big mayflies and offer the isonychia, and he ceases rising and vanishes. I walk a long stretch beside the faster water and decide that it’s flow is too thin. All of the measurable rain has fallen east of the Catskills it seems.

Coming back downriver I see one ring when I get close, right there where that first fish rose earlier. I stalk in again and repeat. No sale. The others have not started up again (and they will not). I am smiling though, perhaps with a somewhat crooked little smile, but a smile indeed. They have arrived…

The last threads of the weekend’s nor’easter are passing through our Catskills, leaving us flat clouds and not nearly as much rain as we’d liked. Cool, dampish, the kind of day not promising to make an angler feel comfortable, though the kind of day which should look good to a trout.

I have spent a couple of days doing autumn tasks, painting my porch, ordering the new tarp to cover the drift boat, keeping my mind away from the water. A few thoughts have strayed to the imminent opening day of our grouse season.

Dreary, damp, unsettled weather; but the rivers are calling me. I cannot walk away once a whisper of hope remains for this stalled dry fly season.

I am thinking of one of my older, less glamorous rods, those I think of as my off-season rods. There’s an Orvis 99 very nearly as old as I am, and the original, back when I was still plotting the break toward retirement, that Steve Kiley rod that will throw wet flies, winter’s small streamers, yet with a simple adjustment to it’s leader transforms itself into a lovely dry fly rod. Sometimes the rod regulates the mindset. A classic dry fly rod insists that I fish a proper dry, whether any flies deploy or not. The off-season rods don’t make such demands, allowing me to try to find a trout in questionable water with a soft hackle, before considering the rigorous approach pure dry fly water demands. There are still favorite reaches that have not proven trout have returned there, once waters have cooled.

I recall an afternoon when I fished the Kiley with an autumn searching pattern, convinced that my dry fly season was completed. I caught a hand size smallmouth bass and felt that end was assured, so when I watched a tiny little blip beside an emergent boulder, I simply smiled that they were more of the same. Moments later though I watched a significant bulge in the flat surface of that low water run and the kiss unmistakably made by a sizeable trout!

The change to the leader was quick and sure, for I saw a few tiny olives drifting there. With leader lengthened and tippet lightened, I secured a size twenty comparadun and studied the currents for the one pitch this scenario would allow.

Perfectly aimed with controlled slack and a gentle touchdown, that little fly drifted right downstream to destiny! The brown gave me a terrific battle, maneuvering him away from sharp edged rocks and snags, and at last into my net. A gorgeous twenty-two inch wild brownie brought a smile to my face, while shaking hands removed the fly. Dry fly season over be damned!

Sometimes that change of attitude, the relaxation which envelopes me when I shed my expectations can alter the fates I believe.

A quiet day before the season’s first nor’easter brings discord. I am leaning to a four weight rod this morning; perhaps my Sweetgrass pentagonal will fit the bill. The rod’s russet-colored silks against it’s lovely blond cane speaks to autumn, and it has fewer days than some along the turns of this frenetic summer.

I have the reach of water foremost in my thoughts just now, one I know as intimately as any. Fishing has been quiet there too. I have wandered the wide riffles and flats of the Delaware, but the signs of feeding trout have diminished as the month advances. September’s moods…

There are other favored bends, other rivers who are calling, and I have stopped and, inquired, but there are no answers yet.

There is no hook in the vise today, for there are more flies in my light, summer vest than upon the water. My mood is thankful for a bounteous summer, yet harboring wistful thoughts of the gifts might offer as autumn wraps me in her brilliant colors. With the mountainsides aflame and the calm waters reflecting that glory, a fish has a great deal to compete with.

Each day when I feel the afternoon sun upon my shoulders, I know that moment could be the last. Winter here descends as she wishes, ignoring the calendar, but just yet there is still time. I long to feel that warmth, clutch the cork again and feel the cane taught and throbbing with the life of the river!

Our forecast tells us that summer will pass down the river today under cool, overcast skies. My long rod, eight-and-a-half feet of five strip bamboo, is ready and waiting. I just cleaned and dressed the number five line which adorns a vintage Hardy St. George, most suitable for the task. Though I have flies aplenty, perhaps I will still tie a few fresh ones, something to bring a touch of angler’s luck, for summer will be gone tonight.

Autumn is waiting, and this dry fly season has it’s days numbered as it turns.

There is hope for October though, for there are often warm, bright days amid the mountainsides aflame, with bright wild trout sipping the last winged flies that will flutter about until spring. The rush of spring and summer fishing has faded, so October days have a fine opportunity to fix themselves in our memories, often with the assistance of a single, special fish!

Nature’s palette of flies can be varied on a given day, one reach of river. Insects of the land, borne upon autumn winds may cause the angler to grab for his summer fly box for ants, beetles or even larger fare. The tall wings of an isonychia mayfly might be spotted on the afternoon drift, and evening casters could thrill to a hatch of huge October Caddis, rushing to change their leaders from the finest tippets they fished to near invisible olives until dusk. Adaptation and observation will best serve the angler’s needs.

The trout are moving at this time and finding them on one reach today will not guarantee a top spot for tomorrow. A dose of luck is good in any season!

Sitting here and pondering whether that, if I tied a few size 22 olives on one of those “big eye” dry fly hooks, might I be able to see it well enough to tie it onto a slender tippet on the water…

I have reached the age where the deconstruction of time has limited my tableau of tackle and tactics, becoming one of those guys who fishes nothing smaller than a size 20 fly regardless the size, or the lack of size the naturals before me display. Granted, there is a respected school of thought among practitioners of this art that presentation can overcome such trivialities as feeding a size 14 neon yellow “sulfur” to a trout dutifully inspecting every size 24 dark hued olive mayfly passing his station to determine if there are the proper number of grayish bands apparent on his six legs before opening his mouth. While I count as presentation of the fly paramount, I also count as equally vital the quality of the imitation as to the naturals being fed upon.

So, shall I forego the opportunities provided by the smallest aquatic insects to limit failures? I shall not.

I have always expounded the belief that presentation and imitation go hand in hand, neither taking an overall priority in the catching of wild trout. I will qualify that, as I am a product of the Eastern United States where the vast majority of America’s population resides, and fly fishes if they are so inclined. I was struck very early on in my journey to fall completely in love with difficult trout: large, wild, well-fed, trout gifted with great experience in the meanderings of human beings armed with sticks and a great deal of varied concoctions of fur, feathers, hair, plastics, and assorted sparkly things, all bearing fishhooks. Who I am, who I have become as an angler has formed my thoughts, opinions and beliefs.

So, I embrace this season of transition in my own best operative mode. I will not spend ten minutes failing to thread my tippet through the eye of a hook that I cannot see. I shall look to other flies of the season, all of whom are not miniscule, if not invisible to me. A size 18 winged ant can be threaded onto my chosen tippet, given my abilities, and has a good chance at tempting a fine, old brown trout settled off to the side of those youngsters smacking down 24 olives. His even larger cousin hidden back along the eddy eyeing a slender thread of current off apart from the main flow, might still relish a Grizzly Beetle, or a drowned isonychia dun or spinner, should a fine imitation might happen by.

I do also maintain a good supply of those old, trusty size 20 olives, the ones with the bright, sparkly gray wings that I can track as they drift in and out of the shade at sixty feet. They have become quite a staple.

Light rain is tapping on the metal roof, and I am soothed by the sound. Here in these pre-dawn hours, it’s promise feeds hope for freshened flows as summer comes to it’s quiet finale.

A Catskill Summer is a long glide, a parade of bright, beautiful days carried upon crystalline waters. Upon it’s ending, the ride slows and so the fishing, giving time to appreciate countless days of grace these mountains have bestowed.

Here, at the end of this wonderful ride, the days offer a preview of autumn. The air cools, and the rains have more permanence than those summer showers. The trout have grown scarce, forsaking their regular haunts, and an angler knows that long days may extend his time where his soul is gentled, though likely that the hours expended will not build new memories of his triumphs. These times are for reflection and thanks.

I tried to sit down here this morning, hoping to tie a pair of pale isonychia 100-Year Duns to copy the mayflies that I see at times come September. With forty-four degrees after daybreak, and both windows having been open all night, I couldn’t quite sit in this room long enough to do it!

The morning certainly felt like fall, but a full week remains in summer. I sat outside on the porch just now, under clear blue skies and a bright sun, and savored my last Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, a perfect summer beverage indeed. Toasting summer is well deserved, for my fishing has been exceptional.

Things have slowed down now, and I have changed my game plan, started checking the Beaver Kill since it’s flows and water temperatures have been hospitable to trout once more. I spent several hours and reconnoitered three pools along the lower river, and I could not report any real evidence that a single trout lives within miles of there. It simply isn’t time yet.

The deal is, the lower river cannot sustain trout most summers. There are sanctuary areas that the wild trout must migrate to for survival during the terribly low water and eighty degree and higher temperatures we saw during 2024 and 2025. Ethical anglers don’t go anywhere near these sanctuaries, waiting until the rains and cooler weather comes as autumn nears and then looking for the trout to return to the river at large. Sadly, those past two years were so tough, with the droughts continuing through the summers, autumns and the winters, I feel certain that a large number of those trout did not survive. I found little in the way of fishing in the lower river these past two years, and I missed the spring this year, so I am searching and hoping that Nature has rebounded and will smile once more on our Big Beaver Kill.

I know, many think of the Beaver Kill as a stocked fishery and always full of trout, and of course the upper miles from Junction Pool down through Cooks Falls are heavily planted by New York State. This is the river where the postcards are taken, the miles with the famous named pools, Ferdon’s, Barnhart’s, Hendrickson’s, Cairn’s and the Wagon Tracks. The lower miles, the big water down to the junction with the East Branch of the Delaware, are not stocked for the most part. Wild trout live in these river miles when the water flows and temperatures are suitable, migrating like many of the wild browns and rainbows in the Delaware system. I am a lower river angler, a dry fly, wild trout man – have bamboo rod, will travel, and it hurts to see the two previous years have done to my river.

For now, I search and watch the river gage, hoping to find a taste of the great autumn fishing I enjoyed earlier in my retirement years. In 2019, my first full season in these Catskills, the Beaver Kill excited me in mid-September, thus I always have hope by this time each year. My logs though show that in 2020, 2021 and 2022, my autumn fishing did not begin until October, and in 2023 just three days earlier on September 28th.

Reviewing those logs this morning proved somewhat sobering, at least in regard to my September hopes. Nature works in her own time. She cannot be rushed, particularly by an eager angler anxious to relive his best times on the Beaver Kill’s golden autumn days!

I love to hear the morning rain, particularly in summer whether during it’s earliest days or now as it plays out it’s annual run, for it is the sound of life for our rivers. The last few hours of the 32nd Catskill Gathering are ticking down, as the rod makers will assemble for their last goodbyes. We enjoyed a lovely weekend, so I doubt these raindrops will dampen any spirits after the beautiful days we spent there amid the grounds of the Catskill Fly Fishing Center. Water is of the essence of our bond, and we all know how vital summer rains are.

I think on some of the most poignant memories which I will keep from this year’s Gathering…

John, Tom Mason and I watched and listened as Tom Smithwick told the Gathering of that miraculous fly rod that has been named The Friendship Rod. He told us as the first work done toward a nice eight-foot four weight bamboo fly rod would be revisited over a couple of decades. Each time Tom’s growing knowledge and intuitive magic with tapers developed, and the rod developed with him. He has seen the wide reception of his labors of love. Some have already made their own rods following the Smithwick taper, and nearly thirty have added to their names to the list John has kept in the Catskill Rodmakers’ Workshop at CFFCM. The four of us and our bond of friendship is spreading!

Cane rodmakers are of course a diverse and inventive group, and some have experimented with Tom’s wonderful taper in new directions. I cast two hollowbuilt versions yesterday, one from Muncy Wheby from North Carolina and another from Frank Payne from Rochester, New York. Both were faster due to the hollowing, and quite different from one another, and very fine rods. I still hold the original Smithwick rod as the penultimate, though I would be proud to own and fish either of Muncy’s or Frank’s innovations.

John Shaner told us of two hallowed Catskill rivers, the Beaver Kill and the Willowemoc, and how they helped mold what has become to be known as Catskill rodmaking. He blended his memories of heralded anglers of the past and the Catskill rods close to his heart. John has lived and fished rivers around the country, but his deep fondness for these Catskills shows through!

I could not help but smile, inside and out, as celebrated rodmaker Per Brandin shared his thoughts and memories of special rods and their makers who inspired his life’s work at the bench. When he spoke of how he had fished a few of Everett Garrison’s original rods, he told us that he had never cast a Garrison design which felt like the originals, as something of the man was in them! I had to stifle a cheer at that statement and the depth of feeling he conveyed, my thought’s bubbling up “yes, the magic, the magic that’s in them!”

The rain has nearly ceased, and morning advances. Yes, indeed that magic can be felt in something of my friends Tom Smithwick and John Apgar in my Friendship Rod, and I cherish the magic I feel in the miraculous rods that Dennis Menscer has made for me right here in these Catskills.

When I fish one of my Dream Catcher fly rods crafted by my friend Wyatt Dietrich, I feel the bright smile in his face and the spark in his eyes as we talked about bamboo rods many years ago in Chambersburg! The magic is in the air and rock and soil and these waters, and deeply in the hands and smiles of those who toiled at their benches to craft the keys, the magic wands which connect us to the magic in bright waters!

The clouds gathered as I walked down river, and I felt one of those special days was at hand. I had tied one of the morning’s flies, a dark winged olive poster, sure that the hatch would be early. Alas, a river’s moods do not follow those of the anglers who frequent it’s environs!

Despite the dark clouds, fewer rises were in my future than during Tuesday’s bright sunshine. Thankfully, the Red Gods offered some gusty winds to pass the waiting I still felt would be rewarded.

I had lingered for several hours, sitting on a downed tree when it blew hard, or standing in the current during the calm periods, even swinging a soft hackle down through a few riffles that experience swears may hold surprises, all with nothing to report.

Come mid-afternoon, a solitary rise began here and there, some with significant authority behind them, though casting to any within reach proved fruitless. Eventually, my solitude surrendered to a couple of fellow wanderers, the kind that proved happy to nudge into my little reach of water, no matter were I casting actively or resting it. Sadly, this is the norm in these days, even on as large a river as the Delaware with just three people in sight.

There was one rise that, while very occasional, seemed to be in about the same place. One of the interlopers had set up just downstream but proved as oblivious as he was to my presence. With another cozying from above, and the lower paying no attention, I finally waded out to take a shot at the only repetitive riser available.

It was a poke, you might say, and though expecting rain I had carried my old Paradigm graphite, it’s four weight line was blowing quite a lot in the gusts. Trusting patience, there were little opportunities between the gusts, so I used them judiciously, placing my Halo Isonychia above the hidden rock the current betrayed then playing out slack to follow it down.

The fish didn’t make a production to take it as it had whatever the river had been offering, but my strike was on instinct rather than a showy visual clue. It used the current immediately, had me thinking about the tippet and smiling to myself that he hadn’t been eating a size twenty or something like that.

It didn’t take long for me to conclude he was a rainbow, for he fought and pulled like he was a bull with a turbocharger. Delaware River rainbows are simply amazing! It seems that they get a great deal of exercise, roaming the entire river system to find suitable temperatures through the extremes of our seasons. The Mainstem, the East and West Branches, the Beaver Kill and the Willowemoc are proven a part of their vacation route, and all of that travelling produces a lot of hard muscle tissue. These fish are unmistakable on the line, as they simply will not quit!

Finally, sweeping him into the net, there was a sixteen-inch trout with a wider profile than the slim torpedoes we used to see here and vibrant colors. No fish that size should be able to pull that long for that hard, but that is what they do as a matter of course.

I was hoping for another, lurking way out there on that rock and it’s bubble trail, but interloper number two was easing out just to my right, eyeing a cast right where I had caught that fish. I had seen him casting earlier, and understood he couldn’t make the cast, so I said nothing, simply continued placing my Halo out there and feeding it line to cover the bubble trail a bit further down current. He winced and wandered down to bother interloper number one and cozied up too close to him, making short casts to nothing I could see, despite his proximity. I hope they enjoyed each other.

The moods of rivers have mystified anglers for literally centuries, there having been evidence that the Chinese tied feathers on a hook and fished their flies with bamboo rods well before the English from whom our traditions have come, four thousand years ago if I recall properly.

Anglers: we routinely puzzle at the conditions Nature offers, justify our lack of fishing activity as dictated by them, and wish for something different no matter we get: sun when it’s wet, rain if it’s dry; winds if it’s too calm and calm amid a zephyr of breeze. I was pleased enough with the day, despite the images of grandeur I held when it began, happy to get a good pull from my one rambunctious trout and a smile!

I have cleaned the ferrules on the Maxwell Leonard, checked the line and leader on my 3-1/2 inch Trutta Perfetta reel, and just tied half a dozen flies: twenty olives and the bright olive/Hebe facsimiles foremost. I will spend this afternoon along the Delaware!

It is rare for me to angle the big river in spring, the season of frequent rains and spilling reservoirs, for in that season it is a boaters’ river. Come September though, with lower flows and cooler weather I can feel it’s call each season. Late summer, with it’s introduction to autumn in these Catskills, is the perfect time.

There are blue skies this morning, and I was counting on the earlier forecast for cloud cover, but if some flies show themselves the trout will take notice. They say the winds will be gentle, even calm, and that portends to a pleasant afternoon.

The holiday has passed, and I expect the miles along the Upper Delaware will be quiet. A few local anglers will likely show. I expect their thinking is much as mine: enjoy their time to wander the Mainstem without the frenetic pace of springtime, perhaps have the thrill of a good river rainbow light up the drag in your reel.

Since I have some time on my hands, perhaps I will tie a few flying ants. Since that sun intends to shine after all, and the winds remain calm, a flight could find their way along those same miles I chose to wander. If they do, I will hope they aren’t the teeny-tinies I last encountered on a late summer Catskill river. Tying on a fly smaller than size twenty seems to tax my capabilities these days.

Two weeks and two days: these are the last days in the parade of summer 2026. The Equinox comes at 8:05 PM on the 22nd of the month and autumn takes charge of our angling fates. We have been fortunate weather wise during my years of retirement here, the dry fly season hanging in to perhaps the last week of October. That of course does not promise strong hatches and plenty of rising trout through those several weeks of October. I count the end as the last day when I find a substantial wild trout to entice to my dry fly, whether hooked and landed or simply cast to and wished for.

Water temperature generally tells me that pinnacle of fishing has passed. Come October, the rivers cool through the sixties, then the fifties, and some years on into the forties. Once fifty-five degree water remains only in memory, there are few chances to see a significant trout urged to feed on the surface. Likely, there is nothing much to make them.

Depending upon water levels and temperatures through September, the larger fish I seek will begin to move closer to their spawning areas. I will not follow, for it is not right nor proper nor sporting to harry them whence they seek to sustain their kind.

October can bring a wave of Indian Summer weather, temperatures flirting with the upper sixties and seventies, but it is likely that the fish I hunt have gone to their task to ensure next season’s fry. Then I begin carrying an over-under shotgun rather than my bamboo fly rod, though I can be enticed to riverside come afternoon.

In kinder years, I have seen gentler days later in October, even found post spawn trout back in their feeding lies, but that is a rare gift.

This year, September has begun with the rivers in good condition. We had enough rain through the summer so that flows and temperatures are more favorable for this long farewell to summer fishing. The relief is palpable after the past couple of years, when heat and long droughts proved life quite taxing for all of the river creatures, including the two-footed, booted variety.

I am hoping that September’s early signs point to good fishing as summer eases it’s way toward autumn.

When you are passionate as something like Catskill fly fishing, it is easy to be deeply interested, even obsessed, with the history: the tales behind the people, the flies, rods, reels and the legends they wrought. I hatched that interest more than thirty years ago and have only swum deeper in those bright waters after retiring and moving here, the “cradle of American fly fishing”.

I have found often that there is a great deal of information available about these artifacts, and yet there are even more questions and mysteries.

If you develop an interest in classic fly-fishing tackle, the stories behind and within the great Catskill rodmakers are at the top of the list. The Catskill region lies at the heart of the craft in America, yet there are many questions. The epicenter of this world began about an hour’s drive southeast of the Catskill Rodmakers Workshop in Livingston Manor, New York, the site of the 32nd Catskill Rodmakers Gathering next weekend. Hiram Leonard, who had established himself worldwide as one of the finest rodmakers alive, agreed to move his rod shop from Maine to the small town of Central Valley, NY in 1881, at the request of William Mills & Son, his partners and principal retailers of his hand made bamboo fly rods. Leonard assembled a group of exceptional craftsmen to expand his production, and their names would rise beside his own as the architects of American fly rods: Edwards, Thomas, Payne and Hawes among others. As the concept and practice of fishing the dry fly spread through the Catskills, these men revolutionized rod making and design.

Leonard’s shop has been called the fountainhead of Catskill rodmaking, and the description is more than apt. They became the most famous name in bamboo flyrods, sustained their legacy for more than a century after the move to Central Valley, and yet there has never been a complete history, a book chronicling the best of them all. Surviving records lie in private hands, for most along with the equipment and inventory perished in a terrible fire in 1964 which destroyed the factory. Mills rebuilt the factory, and the company continued for twenty years, though after several changes in ownership the assets of the H.L. Leonard Rod Company were seized and auctioned by the government. Remaining rods, records and equipment were scattered to the four winds.

Thousands of wonderful bamboo fly rods remain, privately owned, cherished and fished saved for a few exhibited in museums. The majority have no markings save a stamped company name on their reel seats, and perhaps a small, ephemeral paper tag attached to their rod bags. Mysteries begin immediately at a Leonard rod’s appearance: what model, what year, which line? Such questions jump to the minds of lovers of their smoothness, power and simple beauty on the stream. Answering is not an exact science.

Beginning more than fifty years ago, after William Mills & Son rebuilt the Leonard factory, rodmaker Ted Simroe was put in charge of the company and began inking each rod with a serial number. That simple act was profound, as it establishes for the most part whether a Leonard rod in hand was made before the great fire or after it. Some post-fire rods may were made and sold without the serial numbers, but there no seems to be any clarity with regard to their numbers.

Once the numbering was begun by Ted Simroe, it appears the practice continued, though the numbering itself was changed after his tenure. Information indicates that Tom Maxwell who assumed the mantle of control after Ted’s departure, started over using low numbers for several hundred rods at least, then changed in 1980 by numbering the rods with the first two digits indicating the year followed by the rod’s order of manufacture, thus “8015” would be the fifteenth rod made in Maxwell’s final year of 1980. The changes confuse rod owners and would be Leonard fishers.

Many of the answers come from private enthusiasts, leading further questions as to the origins of any information. As human beings all, enthusiasts face the same fate: memory and time can alter recollections, recalled facts can be changed or simply forgotten.

I have found that internet searches return too little that can be fully trusted. Electronic records yield sales listings from private dealers, sometimes based upon previous rod owners’ recollections or often guesses offered by their descendants. These can only be trusted as the dealer’s best honest opinion and information. Searches today tend to include AI filtered and compiled information, and that automated “filtering” seems to tender authenticity in the absence of any confirmed facts.

It would be wonderful to sit down and record a few long conversations with the people who made these remarkable rods, but it seems sadly that most of those opportunities have passed.

I missed my best chance at learning about the Leonard Rod Company and their marvelous fly rods during my first summer here in the Catskills. While I worked to ready my little house for moving our family here, a diverse group of anglers, rodmakers, collectors, dealers and enthusiasts met at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum to hold a Leonard Gathering. Unfortunately, though a long-time museum member, I never learned about that event until several years later.

Perhaps I did not miss my chance, as the best way to learn about the Leonard fly rods is to cast and fish them, particularly in these Catskill rivers, and fishing is something I do my best more than a hundred days each year!

The quest continues, as it seems no one will pen the definitive book about the H.L. Leonard Rod Company. If, when the end of my time upon these rivers comes, perhaps I will retain the strength and drive to consider tackling that project myself. It would be tough though to replace my rod and dry fly with a pen.

Watching river gages has become a staple of my daily routine. Even when things go bad, like the photo above, I watch then whether it is a fishing day or not. I live from river to river, gage to gage, for I am a fly angler.

The rain finished up yesterday and the sun came out to dry the grass enough so I could mow it. After a porch sit and a cold beer, I walked down around the corner to take a look at the Big East as it turned against the slope of Point Mountain. Big and brown, just as I expected.

It’s Friday, my last fishing day of this first week of September. The rains have been beneficial, and we are still sitting in a band of blessed Catskill Summer weather as I begin counting the days until autumn steps in. Unfortunately, I only enjoyed one fishing day out of this week, so I am watching those river gages with the 66 ACM leaning against the armoire expecting to find some action today.

Taking my first look this morning, I found that some more rain fell while I was sleeping, so all of those gages that were dropping when I turned out the lights are rising again. Areas that were dropping and clearing when I went to bed are once more questionable. My day now comes down to some more patience and then the boot test. That involves gearing up, driving to the reach of river I hope to fish, and wading into the flow and see if I can see my boots when I am at least knee deep in the flow.

The bottom line of course, is that I really need more than just one fishing day this week, so I am going to go out there and hope the water I find is clear enough to let a big old trout see a big old dry fly. I’m going to pack along a stick that has a big dose of mojo, do whatever I can to hedge my bets.

An angler realizes that rainfall, winds, clouds, sun, fog and all of the events of Nature make fishing interesting. No, not interesting; they make it magic! Day after day and season after season of perfect conditions would be horribly boring.

That conjures up a tale from one of the late Charles Fox’s classic books. An angler has passed on, and he is led to a beautiful sparkling stream bubbling around a bend through a lush, green meadow, and he is told that this if for him. A trout rises, and he casts his dry fly and catches a beautiful 15-inch trout. He releases it, sees another rise in the same place, and catches an exact copy, if not the same trout. After he repeats that identical sequence of events a few times, he walks upstream around that bend and is confronted with the same identical scene where he began, sees the rise, and catches that same 15-inch trout. After a couple of hours, he realizes that, while he thought that he was in Heaven, he’s been really condemned to the other place.

Simple things can be wonderful out there on the river. I often stop and appreciate the utter beauty of the character of the light along the water and the landscape. The views are startling, and often bring to mind similar scenes and moments, but it is never exactly the same as another. Each moment is unique, precious, and I savor every one!

Looks like the river’s flow has stabilized after that second rise. That gives me hope that that surprise overnight rain wasn’t too hard and didn’t muddy things up. The boots will find out…