Have I mentioned that this has been a tough season? That fact isn’t changing from my consideration of all available evidence. Perhaps a mild hurricane system could send us enough rain to freshen our watersheds, perhaps even bring us back to those lovely Catskill summer days with highs in the seventies, and cool, fresh nights. Barring that, well, I guess I can just continue to pray for an all night, gentle soaking rain.

I have taken to hunting trout along the West Branch, as it is the one river in the region with enough cold water to withstand our recent heat wave. West Branch wild trout are somewhat legendary, for they get more pressure than any river in these mountains, and those trout have evolved. The slightest mistake will cost you your catch, an unchecked knot, one cast too many or just a few inches too close.

I don’t fish the “best” spots, for they are overrun with wading anglers and steadily barraged by drift boats. I try to find a little peace for a few minutes at a time until the next boat comes through. Fishing secondary locations has given me some enjoyment, and a few nice fish, despite a continuing run of questionable luck.

The high heat of midafternoon takes its toll on one’s concentration and stamina. I have felt pretty good out there considering, but oh the price of those tiny little lapses!

There is a particular fish I have visited a few times recently. His lie looks inviting to the eye of the hunter, though most anglers would pass it right by. The water is shallow, and the location in question is off to the side of the main thread of current enough that it doesn’t look like a prime lie. It is.

I have seen at least one gentle rise there on each trip, no more. I have fished it each time, drawing blanks until yesterday. Presentation is paramount in this kind of lie, and finding the perfect tactic takes some study and some practice. I guess you could say that I have been practicing.

Yesterday afternoon I approached that spot with a few stray sulfurs on the water. Every once in a while, a dun would drift down through that lie on the secondary current, but there were no rises. I positioned myself slowly and carefully, doing whatever I could to avoid alerting the unseen resident. Bright sun and shallow water are not the stalking angler’s friends, so I stayed well off, leaving myself a long reach cast to offer my sulfur. The seven-foot rod I had chosen easily made the distance, dropping the fly gently, but the aerial mend wasn’t quite perfect.

The fly drifted down while I fed slack to extend the drift, but the old boy was deeper in the lie than my previous visits had revealed. He took, but by then I had an awful lot of slack line on the water, more it turned out than I could move with one sweep of that seven-foot rod. I hooked the trout, but very lightly, and he came toward me immediately, adding more slack while I feverishly tried to strip it in and keep contact with him. My mantra for 2022 came to pass once again – the hook pulled out, and another big fish that should have been caught, wasn’t.

As the day wore on, I fished elsewhere, catching a couple of trout, having a bigger one bend my small hook open and escape and yes, a couple more pull outs. As the off and on little sulfur hatch petered out for the last time, I reeled up and headed out, passing that old lie again on the way.

With a what the hell attitude, I began another slow, stealthy approach. It had been a couple of hours since I more or less hooked that fish, so I figured there was maybe a 1% chance he would be interested in one of the day’s last sulfurs.

I stalked closer this time, taking a better position to make my presentation. My first pitch came off fine, drifting through the pocket without a hint of drag, but there was no sign of a look see. I checked my little fly and removed the threads of the famous green slime the West Branch produces in copious amounts and sent it out again. Bulge, take, and this time a solid hookset! He charged out from his lie again, into the main current, my little arc of bamboo straining to keep the pressure on him. With a tight connection, this time I could fully appreciate his size and power, but not for long. Maybe I should just start chanting: the hook pulled out…

So, there are some pretty long odds against fooling and hooking the same big old brown trout twice in one afternoon, particularly when he wasn’t feeding. I managed it and managed to lose that connection both times. Did I mention that this has been a very tough season?

Yesterday I reached an annual milestone: one hundred dozen flies tied for the year. Now that isn’t a large number of flies for a commercial fly tier, but I am no longer a commercial fly tier. I closed out that vocation when I shuttered my fly shop twenty-three years ago.

I looked back in my logs to compare my production with previous years. Twenty-twenty was my biggest fly year, reaching the one hundred dozen milestone on June 6th, on the way to my standing record of 185 dozen flies for the year. In twenty-one, I reached the milepost on August 10th, so I seem to be right in the middle of my calendar this year. Considering that this has been a comparably slow fishing year, I was a little surprised.

A lot of my tying is driven by fly design and experimentation, coming up with new patterns and pattern variations to try to tempt our more difficult wild trout. I guess I find myself still full of ideas even when the trout aren’t rising.

My interest in fly fishing’s history spawns a number of adventures at the fly vise. Acquiring some natural seal fur allowed me to set about blending the dubbings for the late John Atherton’s impressionistic dry fly patterns, referring to the instructions in his classic book “The Fly and The Fish” and reading his thoughts and reasoning for the designs. Re-reading another classic, Harry Darbee’s “Catskill Flytier” provided another diversion into history, with Harry’s pattern for the Dark Hendrickson and Ed Hewitt’s Beaverkill Red Fox.

For summer, well, of late my time at the bench has been spent crafting sulfurs, tying my 100-Year Duns in sizes I never anticipated. The concept of the design was a better imitation for large mayflies, and yet, I am finding the 16’s 18’s and 20’s to be very effective as well. This morning I added five classic sulfur versions for my chest pack. Hope I will attach a nice brownie or two to one of them in a couple of hours!

The forecasters, and my own sincere desire for the vital rainfall they promised, boondoggled me once again. I decided against fishing yesterday to avoid the severe thunderstorms they told me were threatening but never occurred. Not that I craved severe weather, I would trade any number of thunderstorms for a nice gentle all-night rain.

Hancock had a little shower in the morning and then a very brief wetting in early evening. Cannot bring myself to call that one a shower. I spent my day reading, writing, and casting a favorite rod with a three weight line, just to refamiliarize myself with it’s charms. Preparations: tying a handful of flies, checking reels, lines and leaders, and generally making ready for tomorrow.

I am set to try one of Cortland’s Sylk double taper lines on an old favorite rod today, my Dream Catcher Cumberland Queen, a lovely flamed eight foot four weight that is a deft summer weapon against the speed and energy of our outsized Catskill trout. The rod’s first debut was on the same West Branch Delaware, on a blustery September evening nearly a decade ago, casting a big size 10 Isonychia emerger. Now conventional angling wisdom would tell you that a four weight bamboo rod was not the tackle to toss such large dry flies in gusty, 20 mph winds, but the Queen excelled in meeting that challenge!

The old girl will have an easier time of it today. Not that there won’t be wind, but she won’t have to toss big size 10 dries against it. The Queen will be called upon for another of her considerable attributes – delicacy of presentation. I tied half a dozen primrose spiders this morning to be prepared should the trout shun the surface and look to the wiggling emergers just beneath the film. I have seen their moods change, one willing to sip the dun from the surface, another demurring and gently inhaling something unseen with the barest disturbance to the film.

The morning’s flies are nestled in a shirt pocket box along with yesterday’s and a few changeups, and I just tied a bit more than four feet of new 5X fluorocarbon tippet to the little Hardy’s leader. Time to shower and take care of some errands before driving out to the river to begin the hunt.

Summer fishing is more relaxed than the rush of springtime, trying to contain six months of pent-up energy and anticipation for the season’s first hatch. You feel like you know what you will find in summer, though the river gods can hatch surprises at any time. I’d love to find just enough of a breeze to ripple the surface and help the trout feel better about taking duns on a bright afternoon, and I would happily welcome more sulfurs and fewer midweek anglers. I’ll never turn down a chance for a little solitude on a summer river!

I caught up with one of my best friends last evening and spent much of the message telling him why I didn’t think it was worth his effort to drive up today for a little fishing. I do like for my friends to have good fishing when they visit, and I know that this one would be hoping for more than perhaps one shot at one very difficult trout, but in thinking about the conversation this morning I realize the irony. You see, I am unobligingly happy to be alive, retired, and fishing in the Catskills! What more could anyone ask to share?

I learned long ago that seasons and days on the water vary constantly. I learned to take what the river gave me and appreciate that, for every day spent astream is worthwhile, even sacred. Fly fishing is so much more than a fish on the line, or a few in the creel of our minds. Indeed, this season has not panned out the way I had hoped, nor the way countless other anglers had dreamed about. Our boundless fly hatches have clearly found their bounds and, for the second year in a row, rising trout have been at a premium. That makes those few we encounter all that much more precious!

As a confirmed dry fly man, I choose not to try sunken flies and other methods simply to see if I could catch a few more trout. I love the challenge as much as the method, and a year like 2022 presents a great deal of daily challenges on our Catskill rivers. I do not offer apology for my passions, I simply state the truth.

I read a beautiful sentiment this morning. It got me to thinking about those passions, some stimulated by it’s author. I met Jerry Girard a number of years ago through the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum Association. He is a long time angling historian, collector and author, and one of many who formed the seed of my encompassing interest in classic fly fishing tackle. Jerry recently published a book entitled Casting About (The Whitefish Press, 2022) that contains the fifty columns he wrote for the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum’s Castabout newsletter between 2010 and 2016. The words that inspired me are found in column number 27, Winter Rambling Thoughts, Perhaps Even Rants:

“Fly fishing is not just a physical journey, but a spiritual one as well. It is a blend of art, literature, science, history, philosophy and camaraderie. These are the things that lift our spirits and add to our joys when we cast a fly and maybe catch a fish.” Beautifully said Jerry! The book is available at the CFFCM gift shop and should be required reading for anyone who fly fishes. As the author laments, too few of the many fly fishers encountered today have any knowledge of those who came before and all that fly fishing entails, and that diminishes their enjoyment whether they know it or not.

During my working life, I was drawn to live in Pennsylvania’s Cumberland Valley, one of the two greatest nexuses of American fly fishing. The history there drew me as well as the lure of difficult trout, the desire for beauty and art and challenge! In retirement I sought life amid the other great nexus, the seed of American fly fishing and birthplace of our own traditions of dry fly fishing, the Catskills. The challenges are sweet!

It is a rainy and potentially stormy day here in the Catskills. I was looking forward to fishing, having polished up a favorite bamboo rod yesterday morning after casting it with a variety of fly lines and reels. The weather has decided this will not be a fishing day, and I am thankful, more than willing to offer up a cherished day for the gift of rainfall our mountains, fields and especially our rivers so desperately need. There are always a few fly lines that could be cleaned, and I could certainly tie a fly or two…

I have no problem fishing in the rain, though I take a practical approach. Experience has revealed that light, intermittent rainfall can bring an excellent afternoon of fishing. These conditions seem to encourage daytime hatches even in summer, bringing olives and sulfurs to the surface with trout close behind.

Heavy rain is not a recipe for good fishing in my experience. I have seen it shut down trout rising to a hatch time and time again. There are exceptions to every rule, but I have not found many such instances in more than three decades on the water. It has always seemed to me that trout cease surface feeding whenever there is a lot of surface disturbance, whether heavy rainfall or high wind and wave action, and I expect that occurs when conditions begin to hamper their vision of their prey. Wild trout grow and survive by feeding efficiently. If they cannot target surface insects amid a maelstrom, they simply either stop feeding or seek an underwater alternative.

Yesterday afternoon was a case in point. With a cold front passing through leading a line of thunderstorms, the winds quickly became untenable. Swirling and gusting just after my arrival, the trout I found running sneak attacks on a few bobbing sulfur duns quickly abandoned the wind tossed surface. I kept watching the leeward areas close to shore, but no rises were displayed there. There were a few more sulfurs than my last visit, but they were being blown around on the surface when the gusts and wave action increased. I saw virtually none drifting through those protected bankside environs.

The short, but vital break from all of this came with the advance of the first evil looking thunderheads, deep blue black, towering masses which warned me it was just about time to get off the river. With the winds calmed momentarily, and those sulfurs still drifting through, I began to see a rise or two. Glancing over my shoulder, I was keeping tabs on those advancing thunderheads, ready to flee at the first little flash or crack of thunder.

The wind was still strong enough to challenge casting, but it was possible to present a dry fly at close range, which I did repeatedly when a good trout showed. The duns on the water were quite yellow this time, and my phantom trout ignored my orange bodied dun that had been the choice the past couple of weeks. Checking the thunderhead’s progress, I switched out that fly for a yellow silk Translucense 100-Year Dun. The storm clouds were overtaking the far bank as I flicked my wrist and put the fly in the path of my moving target.

He took and the fun began, heightened by the perceived danger of the storm front which was now right on top of me. I fought that trout as quickly as his size and vigor allowed, telling myself there had been no lightning and no thunder and I wasn’t going to get electrocuted as penance for catching this trout. He swung past my net on the first jab, but I brought him around again and made the second swipe a success. I twisted the fly free, lined him up on the graduated centerline of the net, then said goodbye as I slipped him back in the river.

Those towering thunderheads were flying overhead, still silent thankfully, as I reeled in the rest of my line, unfolded my wading staff, and headed for the bank.

Sitting in the car, I let the first few raindrops splash in through the open windows. I had landed a real nice brownie, a big fish by most angler’s standards, and avoided a wetting by the skin of my teeth. That first wave of storm clouds never brought any thunder or lightning, but I began to hear the first few rolls off to the west after sitting there for several minutes. Driving home, I could see the storm passing north of Hancock, though another would come around after supper.

I wish I could say that that front had given us some substantial rains, though sadly it didn’t. The Catskills are in a run of hot weather and little or no rainfall that seems to have some staying power. Most of the passing thunder showers have left us dry for the past three weeks. Rivers and anglers would welcome a day long gentle, soaking rain. I’d just get out my rain jacket and go fishing!

Have you ever come across a trout that was so secure in his lair that he basically ignored you and your puny attempts at angling for him? Generally, these guys are taking advantage of nearly impenetrable cover, some depth, obstructions, and the perfect flow of current to bring them their daily fare. I am talking about the ideal lie and feeding station here, and they come and go in the lives of rivers. Flood waters giveth, and flood waters taketh away, so you may run into one of these scenarios only once, or on a repeating basis for several seasons.

I started early yesterday morning, hoping to recapture some of the great summer fishing I have enjoyed over the years. I enjoyed the cool morning air and the solitude of the river, and by the time I reached my fishing location, I enjoyed the thrill of watching a big fish sip something tiny from the film. This is 2022 though, and there still are not very many bugs on the water, day in and day out. By the time I reached that early riser, he was gone.

There were a couple of cruisers that attracted my attention, though the odds seemed to be stacked against me this day. I recall mornings when I had great fun with those cruisers. The daybreak fare was somewhat consistent and, there were enough of those little flies around that I could spot one and choose a matching fly. This was not one of those mornings.

It took me a couple of hours to amass a bank of information regarding just what kind of trout food was in the drift. It wasn’t consistent, in fact changing throughout the day, and it seems that it changed frequently. I found two sizes of tiny rusty spinners, two sizes of small sulfur spinners, the occasional sulfur dun, two sizes of dead sulfur duns, yellow jackets, another unidentified tiny spinner, a few mayfly duns so minute that I could not imitate them even with the pack of size 32 hooks that has lived, unopened in my store of fly tying materials for a couple of decades. Just to be accurate, there were also a couple of things I simply could not identify, that may have been mangled insects of some kind.

So, after chasing the very occasional cruisers and changing, changing and changing flies for those couple of hours, I came upon the only consistently feeding trout I would encounter. He was ensconced in an impressive array of cover, with his own little conveyor belt carrying all of those sporadically appearing and disappearing menu items. This guy was secure in that lie let me tell you, just how secure I would learn during the course of our association.

I expect the progression is familiar to most of you that angle for selective trout. I began with a small beetle which was summarily ignored. I tried one of those little size 20 sulfurs; also ignored. I stared at the surface to see what else was drifting by at that moment, then dug out an imitation and tried it. Sulfur spinners in 18 and 20, an ant, a different beetle, a perfect little size 22 parachute olive, a size 20 olive comparadun. After another hour or two I spotted one of the rusty spinners in the film. Aha!

The size 18 rusty that was lurking in my fly box was larger than I wanted. I had not looked closely when I grabbed that box, satisfied that it was my summer box with various little spinners, olives, even tricos. I knew there were size 20 rusty spinners in there, but there weren’t. The 18 though did tell me something about that trout. It told me just how smug and secure he was in his super lie, and that he had nothing to fear from any angler. I believed he had sipped in my rusty you see, and I lifted the bamboo rod to set the hook. The trout flipped his nose in the air and splashed when the fly departed right on top of him! I expected that our interview was concluded, but it wasn’t sixty seconds later that he sipped something again.

As the afternoon warmed, the breeze rose a bit, and I tried a run of terrestrials again. Then I went back through the sulfurs and spinners to no avail. Ring, dimple, ring…hello I’m feeding here! You can’t touch me! I changed to 6x tippet early in this game, then back to 5X (longer), and finally to 6X fluorocarbon. I never fish 6X in heavy cover, but hey, this was the only trout in town and the game had become personal.

I am not one of those guys who gets philosophical to take the edge off defeat. I don’t sigh “fooling them is the primary goal, the real victory” when a tough customer breaks my leader or opens up my hook and escapes. You either catch a trout or you don’t. I knew that using 6X in this lie, with this trout, was courting failure, but I also knew that he wasn’t going to be seduced by anything but a perfect drift of the right fly at the right moment, whatever that was.

After another dig through the bowels of my chest pack, I found a single, disheveled size 20 rusty spinner in a gob of flies and managed to dislodge it without spearing my fingers on any of those intertwined hooks. Allright damn you, here you go!

Fishing classic bamboo fly rods is a game of pluses and minuses, just like everything else. Bamboo is the best rod to give you a flawless presentation, but it is not the tool you want to horse a big fish out of cover. Fly fishing isn’t about horsing fish anyway, it is about finesse and beauty and art. I think that, sometimes, the softer, more natural flex of cane lets you control a fish where the harsh reflex of graphite just pisses them off more than the hook already has.

I made another series of casts, vying with the breeze for the perfect drift. The trout would shift around in his little enclave, taking in four quadrants: sometimes up, sometimes back, sometimes tight to a log on the bank, and sometimes out a bit, closer to me. Everything finally came together when he shifted out and I sent that tiny spinner on its way for the last time.

I think he was shocked that he had been fooled and hooked, at least for a second, and I used every bit of that second to let the pull of the late George Maurer’s beautifully flamed bamboo begin to bring him my way, and out from that maze of cover. He thrashed and shook his head, and I kept stripping line and coaxing him out, six inches at a time. I didn’t use the reel; I simply kept stripping and kept the line tight and in control with my hands. The click of a reel often seems to irritate a fighting trout, to energize him even more. That’s a beautiful thing when a fish is making a long musical run into your backing, but it is not the tactic that is beneficial to getting a sizeable trout out of heavy cover. I did let him spin my old Hardy a bit once he was clear of disaster!

That brownie measured nineteen inches, not the biggest trout I have landed this season, but he does get the prize for being in the most difficult lie. I invested the major part of my fishing day in angling for that fellow, with very short odds, and I felt a little glow of appreciation and satisfaction when I released him back to the cool river. I noticed that the sun had grown hot, and the wind had increased to an honest gusty summer blow. Hmmm, maybe now I can tempt one with terrestrials…

I was going to take a ride to the Eastern Catskills today, but then one thing led to another, and I admitted to myself that I really didn’t have a high level of confidence of finding good fishing. I decided to head nearby to the West Branch and try to get a little distance between myself and the crowd.

There were two guys planted in the Farm Pool… OK I’ve said it, it’s a run not a pool, but I’m not the guy who named it! Anyway, two guys there, and one was of course in “the spot”. Must have been the first one there, for the second guy was well upstream in the riffle. Another pair parked next to me while I was getting ready to fish. The driver recognized me from my many years at West Branch Angler, Tom he said, and told me he had always seen people fishing there but never had waded out himself. He asked me if fishing was good there and I answered him honestly “not really”.

I explained that a lot of people seem to fish there out of habit, that there was once a lot of trout in that water and tons of bugs hatching, but that the City’s dewatering and two winters of anchor ice had really done a number on those mayflies, and insane fishing pressure had done a number on the trout. I left Tom with the thought that, though there would not be a substantial hatch, they should see a few rising fish.

I waded away from the growing gathering of anglers until I was alone in the middle of the river, and I spent an hour or more walking no more than 100 feet further while studying the river on both sides. Eventually, I spotted a quick little ring in the shallow flat.

I had tied on one of my new size 18 Dorothea 100-Year Duns and set out to stalk within a long cast of that ring. I spent more than an hour making just a few casts every time one of those ghost trout sipped a sulfur. Not one displayed any interest, so I walked, and I waited.

The hatch was even thinner than it had been a few days ago, and you can’t expect trout to get too interested in almost nothing to eat. At intervals, there would be a brief little flurry, and maybe a dozen flies would drift past within the sixty-foot casting range I considered comfortable for my three-weight. I can throw more line with it, but power casting kind of defeats the entire purpose of fishing a three-weight outfit.

I called the fish ghost trout for a reason. Mature wild fish aren’t comfortable in very shallow water, particularly in bright sunshine. When there was a little flurry of mayflies, a trout or two would sip and move a couple of times, then vanish. They were edgy, but they wanted the handful of flies that they could get, so they hung around in that shallow water, but drew the line at holding to a feeding station. I had played this game a couple of times during the past week or two, thus the three-weight Thomas & Thomas with my nice dull gray Airflo Delta Taper fly line. My casts were going to be as unobtrusive as possible, since the odds were already stacked against me.

As the afternoon got on with itself, a little flurry of the larger size 16 sulfurs drifted by. These were the flies that had interested the ghost trout in the past, so I knotted a sixteen 100-Year Dun to a brand new tippet. The first one I stalked was the best one, but he didn’t hang around long enough for me to get that one perfect cast over him. I would have to wait for another.

The second sipper treated me better, coming up well in range, at least as soon as I removed the balls of green slime my leader had collected while I waited for him. A good float and that natural profile did him in, and we got to play jump and run in the shallows. That eighteen-inch brownie may have been the most brilliantly butter yellow and golden hued trout I have ever brought to hand. I should have snapped a photo, but I had already spotted another ghost nearby.

“Too good to be true”, I told myself, as that one vanished before I could extend my line enough to make the cast. I had to cool my heels until another little wave of sulfurs came through to see a trout no more than fifteen feet upstream. He took the fly confidently, but my timing was too quick for his proximity, and I pulled the fly away before he could turn back upstream with it.

Another flurry of mayflies, another little ghost ring, and this time my cast and my hookset played just right. He came out of the water three or four times right where I had hooked him, then decided to try to make a run for it. We had a good time standing there in the middle of the river, a little musical accompaniment from my Hardy Duchess, some more leaps and bounds, and a meeting of the minds snug in my net. This aerialist was an inch longer and a bit heavier than his golden companion, and I thanked him for his energy.

All in all, an interesting afternoon on the river. I would strike too quickly and miss a fourth ghost, this one barely ten feet from my rod tip. Must be the camo waders convince the trout I am just another rock draped in green slime! The truth is I had been completely still for several minutes both times that a trout rose very close by. Stillness is stealth after all.

I think that the three-weight outfit was the right choice, though I do still have my old Orvis 8’4″ two weight. That rod has seen service on the West Branch before when fishing small flies to skittish trout in shallow summer flows.

I have tied and fished 100-Year Duns now for something like fifteen seasons. With retirement comes the time to experiment, both on the river and at the vise, and I have paid a lot of attention to the virtues of this design. To date I have found success with Quill Gordon’s, Hendricksons, March Browns, larger Sulfurs, Cahills and Coffin Flies in addition to the original Green Drakes. There are a few Isonychia in my boxes still waiting for me to run into some naturals.

The sulfurs were tied down to size 16 last year and proved their worth immediately, so it was only natural that I follow the diminishing size of these lovely little mayflies down the rabbit hole. I thought that eighteens might be stretching things but managed to scrounge a few tiny woodduck feathers from my supply and give them a try. I expect I will have to craft a few olives next, standing at this new threshold of diminution.

Half a dozen size 18 duns have been bouncing around in my fly box for a couple of days, waiting for me to encounter a fishable sulfur hatch. The few nice trout I have found surfacing have been picking off the odd size 16 sulfurs, so the sixteen 100-year Duns have been employed in those instances. Those sixteens should have brought a pair of larger brownies to hand but for my recent bout with bad luck.

I had stalked across a shallow, windswept river last week when I spied a couple of suspicious dimples in a very shallow flat. A big trout was sliding around in water he wouldn’t ordinarily inhabit, gently sipping a few of the sparse, larger sulfurs toward the end of a mediocre hatch. Playing the game with a moving target is always difficult. Wind adds another negative in the angler’s column. I had a lock it seemed, until a gust blew my leader at delivery and set my fly down some five feet closer to the fish than I had planned. He was on it the instant it touched the water, catching me with my line hand out of position with no good way to set the hook. I flailed hurriedly with both rod and line hands and managed to leave the fly in the fish!

On the Fourth I spotted another good one in that same vicinity, falling victim to a suddenly weak tippet knot. That trout kept my fly and four feet of tippet, and I barely felt him. I felt only partially redeemed when I presented another size 16 fly to a late comer, a fat seventeen incher who did his best to collect as much green slime on my leader as possible.

Perhaps today will finally provide the opportunity to trot out one of those brand spanking new eighteens!

I am planning to take a day to investigate a new reach of water this week, one where I have a little hope for debuting another fly. Back in the Cumberland Valley, I didn’t wait until August to fish grasshoppers. I tied and fished a baby hopper pattern that was simple but effective when the immature hoppers showed up in the limestone meadows in late June. The Catskill rivers of my heart don’t exhibit a lot of hopper habitat. Where there are substantial grassy banks, they are most often on the shallow side of the river. It may not be impossible to find a sizeable trout lurking with his dorsal getting a sunburn, but it’s damned close.

Just thinking about summertime hopper fishing gets me longing for the good old days on the limestoners, back before those fisheries declined. I have only made two trips West in my life, and neither coincided with any hopper activity. Perhaps one of these days…

I called it my Summer Jam, and it was most often my final big road trip for the fly fishing season. The tradition began some twenty years ago. Memory gets a bit foggy, but my July Fourth wanderings to West Branch Angler were tied to the more stable summer releases of cold water from Cannonsville Reservoir. Back then, the summer sulfur hatch on the West Branch Delaware was truly legendary.

The trout were difficult even then, but the little yellow-orange mayflies came wriggling to the surface and got them excited. There were thousands of mayflies, day after day, and usually plenty of rising trout. The trick was to pick out the larger fish among the throng and concentrate efforts on them. On the best days, a windblown cast might land two feet off course, with the fly being taken by a different trout than the one I was casting to. Sometimes the eager neighbor was a good fish, a wild brown in that 17″ to 19″ range, a trout that would test your tackle. Landing these guys on 6X and 7X tippets and size 20 dry flies depended a lot upon the weeds on the river bottom. If the trout got you down deep in those weeds, you were done for.

I landed some beauties over those trips, and I had my heart broken too. My first two-foot-long brownie was taken on the first afternoon of Summer Jam 2005, on a borrowed rod; Matt Batschelet’s 8’6″ Winston. That was quite a sales booster, and I purchased my own 8’6″ Winston five weight from Matt and Sam at West Branch Angler the next morning.

Those were wonderful years, and I grew a lot as an angler. I haunted different pools on the West Branch and encountered just a handful of anglers. Sure, there were popular places where you could find half a dozen or more guys lined up through the pool, but there were spots where finding anyone else was honestly a surprise on a weekday. Ah, how I wish I could return to those days!

A couple of terribly cold winters with below normal flows, to say nothing of the October 2020 dewatering of the river for maintenance work, seem to have effectively humbled the once prolific insect population of this great river. I have wandered over to the West Branch thrice in recent weeks and seen very few sulfurs, or anything else, on the water. There are plenty of anglers, plenty of boats, but not many bugs or rising trout these days.

According to my recollection, the Stilesville gage recorded a low flow of approximately 36 cfs during that time. The plan was to shut down release flow completely, zero for three full days, before the community of anglers, guides, resort owners and conservation groups cried foul loud enough to make New York City curtail their murder of the West Branch Delaware. Something was saved by our community’s reaction, but we are living the legacy of lesser hatches. Summer Jam no more.

Summer has offered many gifts, from visions of mist wraiths retreating from the sunrise to big, bold wild trout racing away to the accompaniment of the celebrated Hardy click pawl chorus. This summer is brand new, and I hope it will share it’s bounty too in time. It seems clear that this will be another summer offering little in the way of mayflies. Anglers must remain ready to grasp whatever fleeting moments of dry fly bliss that come to pass.

I stood in the river yesterday afternoon, bamboo rod at my side, my waders open and rolled down to my waist in deference to the heat. For about an hour, a very few of those little yellow-orange mayflies appeared. Two trout found time to rise, perhaps a dozen times. The first shook the hook in a wink, the second gave a fine account of himself before resting a moment in my net: he was eleven inches long. The tenacity of that small wild trout was heartening, giving me hope for a return to the plenty of an earlier time.