Springish

Spring at last, by the calendar anyway, though there is still plenty of snow clinging to northerly and easterly facing slopes and hiding in the higher mountain forests. Monday was less than astonishing, but Tuesday and the best part of Wednesday were beautiful, with bright sunshine and warm afternoon temperatures. I recorded 64 degrees Wednesday afternoon!

Rivers flowed clear with water temperatures peaking in the forty degree range, at least until all of that warmth and sunshine had it’s way with the snow. This morning is damp and chilly and the rivers are all running high. Some are still rising. The forecasters are talking about wintry mix for tomorrow, and the Weather Channel has the snow icons turned on for Tuesday and Wednesday, with rain following later in the week. In short, while it looked like an early spring might be blossoming to the angler’s perspective, that seems to have vanished amid the reality of Catskill Mountain weather. There was a good tease on Wednesday afternoon though.

I had stowed the winter chest pack, and donned the fishing vest, complete with the dry fly boxes containing the early stoneflies and a legion of blue-winged olives. The bamboo rod I strung up was still the eight-foot Kiley, and it was the intermediate line I threaded through the guides to start the day, for what I hoped might be the last of the winter swinging with a sunken fly. There was no response to the swung fly, not the Dazed Dace, nor even the tiny Grouse & Peacock I offered once a few little black caddis appeared.

Tiring of these winter methods, I decided to take a break and run a useless errand that ate up nearly two hours of the early afternoon. I figured that the sun would continue warming the water and, if there was to be any fishy activity, it would come later on.

When I returned, I was invigorated by the climbing air temperature and sat down on the bank to watch the river. There was a different reel in the reel seat, one with a floating line, dry fly leader, and a little stonefly pattern. It was closing in on three o’clock, when I saw a miraculous vision: there on the far bank a trout rose to take some morsel from the surface. I blinked a time or two, decided I hadn’t dozed off in the sunshine, and thus had really seen a trout’s rise on March 22nd.

A few seasons ago I had seen a rise on the 27th of March, when a handful of blue-winged olives bobbed along the surface of the Delaware River. I caught the foot-long brown that had risen there, my earliest dry fly trout in Catskill waters to date. I did not see a second rise for two more weeks.

Resolute to make the most of this rare opportunity, I rose myself, and carefully crossed the river. In the fifteen minutes it took me to arrive at a casting position, the sky had clouded up and a cool wind had started to blow downstream. Adjusting my position to deal with the wind on my casting shoulder took another couple of minutes in the deep, strong current, and as I started to cast there was a second rise, and moments later, a third. I offered the stonefly a number of times, then changed to a twenty olive, seeing an occasional pair of tiny wings drifting along the windblown surface. By this point, gray clouds had fully replaced the earlier sunshine and that breeze had gained a bit more chill and strength, hindering my presentation.

I eased further across the deep water, hoping that a shorter cast might salvage enough slack in the tippet to drift the fly more perfectly, hoping that trout would accept my challenge. It was not to be. Three rises are more than I have ever seen at this time in March, and I could not help but wonder that if the sun had continued warming the river just a little longer, might the result have been gloriously different.

Those three rises had come at different locations, so they may have been the single trials of three different trout. I have known some very fine browns to cruise that particular reach of riverbank though, particularly when Nature’s larder was exceptionally thin…

This brief foray is recorded as a personal record, the earliest actual dry fly fishing I have experienced here in my new Catskill home, more than a fortnight before experience tells me it is time to prowl the rivers with the dry fly.

Doubtless, some time will pass before conditions improve, and I hold little hope that the traditional April First festivities in Roscoe will be held under warm sunshine along clear, sparkling water. Next week’s rain will likely raise the rivers and melt any remaining snow up high. Chances are their flows will be cold and colored, a typical beginning to what for so many years was the Catskill angler’s brand new trout season.

For now, I am grateful for the gift bestowed, the early chance to touch the magic that enthralls me. Nature will have her way, smiling upon us when she deems us worthy.