So here we are, more or less walking down that last hallway toward spring and, well, we’re having one of those little cold snaps that feels like spring isn’t closer, but farther away. A couple of smaller winter storms have passed through the Catskills and another is on it’s way. The story sounds the same: we might get some accumulated snowfall, but maybe not.
We had most of our allotment of frigid cold and snow in December, an effective way for Mother Nature to beat us down and scold us that it is winter, and we need to forget about that fishing nonsense. Once we got through December though, there were a lot of warmer days, some nice enough to get out upon a river and wet a line. February found us wandering through a number of days in the forties, the kind that almost tempted me out to the water but fell short more often than not. That had the desired effect, for with March beginning I got that old anticipatory feeling again, the craving for an early spring.
I remember the last truly, early spring, back in 2011. There was a long run of sixty and seventy degree March weather down in the Cumberland Valley, and we heard stories about the trend spreading north.
There were Grannoms and Hendricksons on Penns Creek that March and some Blue Quills and Quill Gordons reported in the Catskills. I came up fairly early in April that year and found some Hendricksons here and there. The result of the seasonal change coming several weeks ahead of schedule was a boom or bust season, with the accent on the bust. Hatches dribbled off over a month or more without anything more than a few isolated heavier emergences. Rising trout were not a common sight. If you happened upon more than one or two of those, you were in the minority, and the same theme continued right on through the entire season.
As much as I long for the commencement of the dry fly season, I cannot say that I would be willing to trade that truly early start for a generally substandard year again.
The ideal early spring to me is for things to get going during my target week and build from there. There are seasons when the water temperatures have remained cold and the spring bugs have not hatched until May, the dreaded late spring scenario. When that happens, the rest of the hatches seem to come on top of one another until we reach the finale one short month after the beginning. I have fished through a number of those seasons here, and I always end up feeling like I have missed something, no matter how fast and furious and good the fishing has been.
If I get my wish this year, I have at least a month to weather the cold snaps and dream about fly fishing. I don’t want to think about the possibility of waiting longer than that.
Its fly tying night again tonight, as our little band of Guild members tackles the Bradley Special. I have tied a few this week already, so I may do more watching and talking than tying tonight. These cold snaps tend to distract my concentration a bit, making for a few days of reading and fidgeting and sort of milling around going nowhere.
I did have an idea for a light version of my Catskill Adams yesterday, so I blended some dubbing and tied half a dozen of those flies. I have to make room in the main early season box for them so they get a chance when spring does come.
For now I guess, its just another chance to hunker down for the duration of this cold snap!
Bright Waters Catskill 