A little reading while darkness began it’s decline, and then, a murmur of gray in the sky; morning at last. True, my angler’s spring is fifty-four days out this dawn, and yet, this is a fishing day. That declaration brings along a touch of excitement, for hope has sprung forth upon the coattails of another spell of mild weather.
I know deep in my soul that the snows will come once more, I heard it in the wind’s rattle just yesterday, lying awake and…wondering.
The urge materialized a short time ago, an itch to tie something besides the Dace crafted yesterday after my perusal of the weather. Dreams of the early winter stoneflies that enticed the Cumberland Valley rainbows at Big Spring each February had me wishing, so I quickly wrapped these little Grouse & Herls, something not a dry for we know these Catskill trout are not yet ready to rise to the dry fly.
Better today that my concentration should stay fixed upon the swing of the Dace as the water temperature nudges it’s daily peak. My staple of winter fishing, at least the little of it that comes, the small streamer fly, with a twist!
I refer to them as movement flies, for their design I contrive for those rare winter stirrings of our older, more stately spotted warriors. These fish feed rarely in winter’s chill waters, but they do feed. I have not found them interested in the chase, thus my movement flies are not twitched and stripped about the rivers like some active streamer. No, their forte is offering that image of life, awakened just barely, stunned by their cold environs and easy prey. May the Red Gods grant me the gift of the slow swing… at the right moment in the right line of drift!
That first profusion of hen pheasant feathers elicited nudges, caught some good fish in cool waters, but proved somewhat sterile in winter. More bulk was needed, and still more motion on a slow swing. The Copper Fox provided it, more attractor than imitation, was it a sculpin, a baby trout, a crayfish? It is alive! Food for The One. The Dazed Dace carries the theme forward into the realm of imitation. It’s story is still being written.
I shall bow beneath a February sun; cast and mend and follow, taking in the somber beauty of the quiet season, inhaling the freshness of the new air, here in the mountains where my heart lies; until spring invites me to the dance!
Bright Waters Catskill 