The days have remained dreary of late, though there is a promise of sunlight today. With snow arriving for a weekend visit, I will make the most of the brief hours of warmth and cheer that December chooses to share.

I am still wandering in that lengthy period of seasonal adjustment. A few books have been read, a few flies tied, but there have been too many hours spent in limbo. I am yet to begin the necessary tasks of winter, sorting flies, polishing rods, taking stock of the hooks and materials required for winter’s creations.

The Translucence Series is planned for expansion, so a careful inventory of silk is necessary. Ordering must happen sooner rather than later, as delivery takes time. As I sort my supplies, I must consider my needs for new blends to mimic additional hatches. I have tended to blend very small amounts of dubbing, as I have always done for experimental flies. Once proven however, as several have been, it makes sense to blend a reasonable supply.

There may be room for another winter fly as well. After a few months of ideas dashing through my brain, the baitfish imitation that has teased my consciousness now lies in the fly box. The Dazed Dace has seen water for the first time and will continue it’s early trials today. Though I found no quality trout out and about at the beginning of the week, I was pleased with the new fly’s appearance in the water.

It is hard to avoid drifting back in memory at this time of year, a dalliance I allow and enjoy, for it permits me to recall moments of understanding, impressions, and the spur of the moment ideas that brightened many days and never found their way to fur, feathers and steel.

Fly fishers will leap at the chance to debate the merits of trout flies, some firmly convinced that they need no more than a handful of classic patterns to face every situation the stream provides. One will denounce the importance of color, convinced that form and visibility are paramount, others will swear all of it is rubbish, and presentation alone brings trout to their nets. Though I love the classics and their histories, I am long convinced that our trout are changing, and that one of the keys to successful fishing is to continue upon the paths of those historic anglers to improve our flies and our skills upon the water! Our angling history was peopled by seekers! It is my own appreciation of angling history that brought me here. I attempt to honor that history by my own humble efforts, and the quest keeps life fresh and invigorating!

Ah, there is warm light in the sky. Time for breakfast and assembling gear. Soon cane will flex and the Dace will be released to explore a December river…

Shivering in my boots, I cast the line far, out near the limits of the classically tapered bamboo rod’s range, watched the fly touch down gently despite it’s size and weight, and began the long, slow swing into the second season…

For the first time in a month, I sat down at my bench this morning, fixed a hook in the vise, and started the thread. These were not dry flies, the jewels of my passion. No, they were destined to sink and swing slowly through the cold winter rivers that I will call home for the next six months. The idea is to offer a fly that quivers with life, one that does not need twitches or a retrieve to speak to the trout of life, and vulnerability. One, the fly I named the Copper Fox, brought my largest Catskill brown trout to the net in the bowels of winter, and much is expected of it this year.

As the rain beat harder on my metal roof this afternoon, I poured myself a bit of bourbon to welcome winter and it’s helter-skelter, fish when the ice releases ways. It is a smooth Kentucky whiskey, a gift from one of my best friends two years ago, and a change from the single malt I reserve to toast high points of the season of the dry fly. I tied three more Copper Fox to finish my day’s production, and set my tools and materials aside.

My surrender to the inevitability of winter is complete. I ventured out yesterday, cheered by the bright sunshine and blue skies, taking just a reel with an intermediate line, and without a box of dry flies.

I thought I had donned enough insulation, but when the sun vanished after a few minutes of wading I quickly became cold. Most rivers remain high and colored from last week’s rain, and with today’s short burst and more to follow, I cannot say when I might wade and cast once more. Such is the nature of winter in these mountains. Opportunities come when they will, with days perhaps, or many weeks between. Eventually the ice will arrive and even this slow, swinging substitute for fishing will cease.

There is a new pattern flitting through my brain, though it has yet to take form. Snaps of concepts and ideas have been flirting since September, a dace with that wonderful movement, but such things cannot find life while the dry fly season reigns. I should sit down and work it out, now that winter is upon us. Soon…

The calendar has turned once again, and I have meandered about the house, taken a few river walks, read a few books acquired over the course of the season. The rivers call me now, as the morning begins to betray the day’s gift of sunshine, and I ponder the chance to wade strong current again for a few hours.

The warmer days have been wet, tired and gloomy, so the sunshine is not a gift to take lightly.

Other than within the world of my reading, I have thought little of fishing, still tearing myself away from the throes of season’s passing. This was always a gentler time during the Cumberland Valley years, for I knew that my fishing would continue through winter. There might be hiatuses, yes, when a series of cold fronts poured over the mountains there might be a week or two when the bare trees rattled with ice and wind, but the normal weather days still invited visits to the limestone springs.

Sunlight was always the key to winter thrills there, for it activated the water weeds and their oxygen spurred activity among the food chain. On any winter day a visit to the stream might reveal the soft ring of a rise. A quick adjustment to leader and tippet to offer a midge or tiny olive before opportunity evaporated in the sparkling winter air, this was the task of the winter angler in the limestone country. The reward might be a hefty brown or rainbow as eager to take advantage of the surface opportunities as I!

I brought the dream of winter dry flies north with me when I retired. I have learned that it may live only in memory amid the grand beauty of our Catskill rivers. I still cling to a vestige of hope, shunning logic and experience. All it takes is one rise! The closest I have come was an afternoon in the beginning of spring, the 27th of March, as I watched a handful of little olive duns bouncing down a Delaware pool. The rise came, I quickly knotted a fly, and my devotion was rewarded. That foot long brown trout ignited my season, though weeks would pass before I would find a second riseform on the surface of any Catskill river.

The sun has spread over the ridges to the southeast now, and there is a pleasant glow in the small windows in my tying den. My thoughts drift to the rivers, still high from this week’s rain. It is twenty degrees in Crooked Eddy.