Pardon the frost on my typing this morning. Our friends at the Weather Channel gave minus ten degrees as Hancock’s temperature at six this morning. I did not venture out to the porch to check my actual reading here at Crooked Eddy. Shivering in my 54 degree kitchen, I fetched coffee and sat down to confer with Arnold Gingrich, wrapped securely in a blanket. As a great man once said “I am getting too old for this shit”.
Luckily the living room was decidedly warmer: 57. “The Joys of Trout” got me through my coffee, fighting the urge to immerse myself in the deliciously warm liquid, and here I sit waiting for the sun to do what it may to make The Rest more livable. Eventually I muddled through the kitchen snow drifts and scrambled some ham and eggs, returning to my blanket to enjoy my repast.
I found a friend’s message this morning asking about that 100-Year Dun. I answered with a quick history of my design, noting that nearly all of the mayflies I fish these days are either 100-Year Duns or their CDC partners. When I originally conceived this fly it was a Green Drake, many variations of one in fact. After a decade and a half, I’ve tied and fished them down to size 20 for the olives, summer sulfurs and the like. With this winter’s new Translucence versions, I have both silver Wheatley’s stuffed with them, with only the early season hatches represented.
Ah, the joy of a fly tyer!
I still have to excavate some of my other spring fly boxes, to sort and manage them to be sure I have the alternative patterns at hand, once that countdown reaches single digits. The beginnings of our dry fly fishing most often come in high water, a time when the classic Catskill style fly comes very much to the fore. Yes, I fish the 100-Year and CDC duns in the high flows, but there are times when a well tied Catskill dry bouncing down the current is just what a Beaver Kill brown is looking for.
Bright Waters Catskill 