I have tied a few dry flies recently, now that we are past Christmas and coasting through the last week of the year. Yes, I am still putting off the sorting of the primary fly boxes, something that needs to be done before I get seriously into my winter tying. I started yesterday with a trio of Coffin Flies, my quill bodied 100-Year Duns that brought me success last June. The two-foot brown that gulped that fly lives vividly in my memory, as I enjoyed a gorgeous evening capped off by an involuntary chill running down my spine from the howls of gathering coyotes from the surrounding ridges, just as I waded out of the river at dark.
This morning I decided to add a couple of the Translucence 100-Year Duns I tie to imitate the Quill Gordons that often begin my season. It was just past mid-April last year when I waded into the high, cold waters of the Beaver Kill hours before a major storm. I had welcomed the first Quill Gordon’s of the season three days earlier, a ten-minute hatch that produced two rises, and I hoped there might be a decent flurry of activity in that same run on the eve of another shutdown weather event.
The winds were rising, as were a few good trout, and I managed a 16″ brown early in the hatch. Two better fish had begun to rise later in the hour long emergence, but they resisted each pattern I hurled through the gusts. Seeking to expand upon my Translucence formula, I had blended a small envelope of silk dubbing over the winter, a dark yellow and gray concoction to match the Quill Gordon duns captured from the Beaver Kill. I selected one of these new patterns from the Wheatley and tied it fast.
It didn’t take more than a few drifts to completely fool both of those brownies, well colored fish of 18 and 19 inches. Both provided thrilling runs and bullish head shakes, using the fast current to their best advantage. The hatch had all but subsided when I slipped my net beneath the larger trout, unhooked with storm clouds pressing in on my windy reach of river. It was a perfect afternoon, the tension of angling the first real hatch of the season heightened by the impending storm.
Bright Waters Catskill 