I walked out on the porch to get the mail yesterday and felt the sun beaming over Point Mountain. The thermometer read 61 when I looked at it, though experience has revealed that the direct afternoon sun often helps it along by as much as 5 degrees. I couldn’t help but to sit there for a moment and thumb through my mail. God but it felt like spring!

We’re a week into March now, just twenty days from the opening day of baseball with a bit more until the Opening Day of New York trout season. The weather has been warming somewhat, but it still drops below freezing at regular intervals; there’s even snow in today’s forecast. Now comes the longest, most difficult wait of the entire winter.

Mother Nature loves to tease us, one moment tossing her hair and winking over her shoulder, allowing the deep glow of an afternoon sun to warm our desires, the next smirking and vanishing behind a curtain of ice and rain.

Passing the days becomes more difficult the closer I come to an honest day of dry fly fishing.

As of yesterday I have tied 696 flies in the first weeks of this new year. I have blended dubbing, fiddled with tackle, polished rods, read quite a group of angling books, talked fishing with whomever would listen and walked along the rivers searching for a rise that did not come. The Mother teases now every few days, and my lust and torment grows.

I often dream to recapture moments in time. When I writhe in the wretched throes of anticipation as winter slowly wanes, there are splendid moments of springtimes past I long to return to.

There was a day on the West Branch years ago, a breathtaking day when the Hendricksons came by the millions. There were too many flies on the water, so my catch was meager. I was not alone in that fate, as there were dozens of anglers strewn across a couple of miles of river who shared my lack of success, each bearing the same tired, wistful look upon their face.

By five o’clock most of them had walked past me and climbed the trail toward their cars, yet I still wandered the river banks, enjoying a touch of solitude. Along the edges of the river I saw the movement of a few struggling mayflies. I stooped and plucked one from the surface, a size sixteen, brick red bodied Hendrickson. The flies of the blizzard hatch had been consistent, with the tannish bodies in a full size 14 I was used to seeing on the Catskill Rivers, but these ruddy late comers were smaller, and few in number. Males perhaps, or one of the lesser subspecies I had read about. I found an imitation and tied it on, walking the shallow edge along the bank with new purpose.

On the walking trail side of the river, there in the shallow, flat water that had been waded through all afternoon by an army of fishermen, I saw a bulge in the surface and a tiny dimple appear. I pulled line from my reel, checked my backcast for clearance, and delivered the fly gently above the last remnant of the rippled surface.

When the bulge appeared beneath my fly I tensed, setting the hook hard quickly when it vanished into the dimpling rise. The still surface erupted and a tremendous brown trout vaulted out of the water, shaking his head and snapping my tippet before falling back with a terrible splash. In a moment it was as if nothing had happened, the trout, and all evidence of his lurking in the shallow flat was gone. I stood there awhile, mouth agape: that trout was easily 6 or 7 pounds!

Another day on the West Branch, years thence, and I had fared better fishing a heavy Hendrickson hatch. I stayed when most of my brethren departed, hoping as always for that late, sparse little emergence of the red bugs. I waded down toward the tail of one of the large, deep pools, enjoying the early spring evening as I searched. The sun angled lower and bathed the far bank with that antique yellowish glow, and I was mesmerized by the beauty of the scene when I saw the first soft ring.

I tried to wade across, but the channel dug by the run of the current pulled me up short. It was well past six and the rises were the soft, telltale rings of trout sipping spinners. I freshened my tippet and knotted a size fourteen rusty spinner securely, then tried the closest riser with a cast. The fish was out there, sipping in that shady realm between my usual maximum casting range and the distance I needed to reach with a perfect presentation. A few of my casts alighted in line with his feeding station, though not nearly enough of them.

Eventually I resorted to a tippet change, going down to 6X, despite knowing in my heart it was not the answer to the riddle. Of course the trout finally selected my fly from the hundreds available, but it took me an extra microsecond to believe it, squinting to follow that little fly awash in the glare of the setting sun more than 80 feet away. That time was my undoing, for I hurried once convinced and set the hook too hard, knowing I was late. I pricked the brown, he boiled enough to display his significant size, and then he was gone.

There were several more sipping happily away as the last glow of that gorgeous sun slipped behind the mountain, each just a bit further over there than I could reach consistently. It remains a delicious, though bittersweet memory, fishing there until the shadows deepened and the rise subsided. Each spring, as I wade the pools of the West Branch, I remember that evening, and I long to return. Many times the river’s flow is higher, and there is no chance to repeat the past and hope for a more satisfying result. In some years though, conditions appear similar, and I haunt that reach looking for my past. I haven’t found it, at least not tangibly; I only linger there in memory.

I had an impromptu “discussion” with a fellow at the Troutskellar a couple of years ago about fly rods. Some might find this guy’s downright belligerent attitude excusable since he was working as a factory representative for one of the prominent plastic flyrod companies, but I didn’t.

I don’t recall how things got started, but very soon he got pushy, telling me I absolutely had to have the newest (and stiffest) $900 stick of graphite his employer was advertising ad nauseum as revolutionizing fly fishing as we know it. I calmly explained that “technology” wasn’t a substitute for casting ability regardless what his latest ad copy proclaimed and that, from my experience in the industry, ever stiffer fly rods typically made bad casters worse. I went on to say that the 80 odd year old bamboo rod I was fishing on that trip would do everything I needed it to do on the water, and was a heck of a lot more pleasurable to fish throughout the day.

The truth hurts I guess, for my words got this fellow all bombastic and blubbering about line speed and guide friction and shooting capability under low gravity conditions in a vacuum or some such nonsense. I turned him off and turned away at that point, acknowledging there was no hope for him, another soldier in the army of combat fishermen.

My statement about stiff rods made that guy come unglued I believe because he recognized it as the truth.

When I owned a small fly shop, I worked with a lot of fly casters on a regular basis. My shop wasn’t located in an urban center with loads of disposable income, so my customers put some real thought into buying a fly rod. They tended to be skeptical of advertising claims per se, and wanted some personal feedback. I carried a lot of slower action flyrods, even though the new top of the line rods my manufacturer was pushing in their advertising were stiff, fast action rods. Whenever I worked with a newcomer, or anybody who complained about dissatisfaction with their casting, I invariably took one of the traditional action fly rods when we walked outside to the casting lawn.

If you spend enough time in this sport you learn a couple of universal truths: fly rods are supposed to bend, and the more easily and uniformly they bend the more feedback they give the caster, leading to better casts; and, long distance casting is generally not the holy grail of catching more and larger trout.

The rod in the picture at the beginning of this post is Mr. Jim Downes’ beautifully crafted rendition of a classic Everett Garrison 206 taper, a very, very full working 7 1/2′ 4 weight, photographed with its first better than 20 inch trout. I was talking to Jim at the PA Fly Fishing Museum Heritage Days event a few years ago when I spied that blonde rod in his rack. It stood out between all of the more darkly flamed rods Jim is known for. I cast the rod out of curiosity, and I simply had to have it.

The Garrison felt very soft at first, but as I adjusted a little I felt the perfectly smooth way it loaded, and the hidden power it held. The photo was taken on a stormy morning on the West Branch when the river, already high for wading, rose by a good 250 cfs during my hour and a half of fishing. The trout were tight to the bank that July morning, and they weren’t interested in rising in the fast current for less than a mouthful. The Garrison let me consistently place my size 10 isonychia cripple within an inch of the vegetation on the river bank; the only place the trout would take it.

That Garrison designed full working action proved to be extremely accurate, even when casting large dry flies some would call too big for a four weight rod in blustery conditions. I have used that rod frequently fishing a long, light line in the summer, as it allows wonderfully controlled, gentle presentations on calm water. It does that because its power doesn’t come from stiffness and high line speed, it comes from superior design and craftsmanship by rod makers who understood fly fishing.

There truly is a sensuality about fishing bamboo. Each rod has a personality and an ability to communicate with the caster if only he learns to feel what the rod tells him. Bamboo rods bend, not in that fraction of an inch microsecond only in the very tip way that carbon does, but smoothly and progressively, with touch and power and control. I think that bamboo simply gives our brains a better stimulus, and a little longer to feel that power so that we can apply just the right touch instinctively to make the line and fly do what we want them to do.

Certainly bamboo rods are beautiful, the warm tones of gently flamed cane highlighted by the translucent colors of natural silk windings and the mystery of figured wood. There is a wealth of history and tradition in the craft of rod making to enhance the enjoyment of fishing.

I get tremendous enjoyment out of fishing rods made by artisans I know. It always brings a smile when I think of those friends each time a trout takes the fly and the art of their genius rises into a throbbing, glowing arc transmitting the wild energy of a Catskill trout to my quivering hands.

I also have a special feeling about vintage rods, for I love to fish tackle that is older than I am. I know a little of their histories, who made them and where, but nothing of the rivers they have seen and of those who wielded them. Thinking about that past builds an extra touch of wonder into the experience.

Bamboo can speak to you. All you have to do is listen…

“I’m looking for the April thunderstorms that wash away the drab dull colors of the wintertime; I’m looking for the spring to break wide open; to hear the phoebe and the robin and the meadowlark; to see and smell the violets and the blossoms on the apple trees; to watch the swallows sweeping low across the satin surface of the stream; to wait for ripples of the rising trout, as evening falls and nymphs emerge and all the world is sweet with scent and song and gentle colors” Dana S. Lamb, “The Ides of March”, Woodsmoke And Water Cress 1965

It is a lovely march morning in the Catskills, the sun tinging the southeastern horizon with orange, the landscape bright with a fresh dusting of snow. My thermometer reads fifteen degrees, but my spirits feel warmer than that. The calendar tells me that spring will arrive in just eighteen days…

Yesterday was the occasion of the Dennis Skarka Flyfest, as members of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild gathered in the Catskill Flyfishing Center’s Wulff Gallery to shake off the effects of winter and greet the coming season with open arms. Thanks to the Guild’s Catskill Kids On The Fly program, I enjoyed the opportunity to add two new fly tyers to the thirty or so veterans gathered in the hall.

I used to teach fly tying regularly during my fly shop days, but it has been a long time since I had the chance to help a youngster learn to tie their very first fly. I look forward to our March meeting at the gallery, and a chance to witness some more new smiles as bright young eyes see the magic of a hackle spring up into a sparkling little fan of fibers as they wind it around a hook for the very first time.

Often we mark time during the winter, tying flies, polishing rods and oiling reels as we dream about sunshine reflected in a subtle bulge in the surface of the pool and that miraculous ring that wasn’t there just a moment ago, but now it is time to get serious about the new fishing season. Now the mystery becomes palpable. No matter what the long range forecasts say, every angler knows that spring can happen at any moment. A turn in the wind currents a thousand miles away can send warmer air our way, dispelling the clouds and waking all the creatures of the stream that so delight us.

The time for tying flies on dreams and whimsy has come to an end. It is time to check all those early season boxes to be certain that all the needed patterns are in good supply. The vest must be sorted through, old leaders discarded and fresh ones laid in, and the drift boat will need to be uncovered, tires checked and compartments cleaned. Everything must be absolutely ready to go, for we dare not miss a moment of it.