Day one of the 2023 Catskill Dry Fly Season has arrived at last! Yes, I pushed the envelope a bit on Sunday, though since I failed to remove my fly from the hook keeper, failed to make a cast, perhaps it wasn’t really a fishing day.
Monday April 10th has been my target date since I began my countdown back there in the bowels of winter. I think of Mondays as the beginning of my fishing week, as I rarely venture out on weekends, enjoying what little solitude I can find on our popular rivers. This second Monday in April turned out to be quite perfect.
By half past noon I was settled in on the same stretch of riverbank I had occupied on Sunday; waiting with that same Gordon’s Quill resting in the Leonard’s hook keeper. The river flowed past a little slower, and the sunshine warmed my shoulders even better. As I watched the afternoon drift past, I noted the black caddis and early stoneflies on the water and in the air. There were fewer of them than there were the day before, and I hoped Nature was making room for the first mayflies.
It was nearing two o’clock when I saw that first soft rise in the distance, rose, and began a slow, careful stalk. Of course, it wouldn’t be quite the same if the breeze hadn’t come up at just the moment I readied to make the first cast. I knew then this was truly a day of fishing.
That breeze complicated my casting, and required a move or two before I reached the right position to allow the presentation I needed. The Quill Gordon sailed out on a smooth loop of line, the leader unfurled, and that fly dropped right in the bankside line of drift with lovely curls of slack in the tippet. That first surface feeding brown trout of the season simply couldn’t help himself.
There is a different feel to fighting a good trout on a dry fly rod than with the heavier tackle I had carried during those long months of winter, a light, joyous feeling. I thanked him in the net as I retrieved my Quill and sent him back to ponder whether taking Quill Gordons before the hatch appears is a sound decision.
Before long I spied a second rise and repositioned myself for the engagement. This fish was sipping something small from the slow glide formed by the obstructions along the riverbank. He wasn’t even slightly inclined to take that big Quill Gordon. I clipped it and the 4X tippet, added three and a half feet of 5X, and offered him a little black caddis. He answered with a definitive No.
I studied that line of drift, then watched the nearby current flowing past me for an answer. Whatever that fish was sipping, there was no sign of it in the flow near at hand. From my distant vantage, I thought I saw tiny upright wings, but only tight along that edge. Digging out an ubiquitous size 20 olive T.P. Dun, I went back to work on making the ideal presentation.
That second nice brownie really put a flourish on my day. I had heard some good news just as I was assembling my tackle, the kind that lifts worries from my thoughts and brightens my spirit such that I can take in all of the beauty of the rivers and the mountains that feed them. That pair of trout seemed to be the only ones moved to some surface feeding, so I decided to finish this gloriously bright afternoon at another favorite pool.
I tend to choose less traveled reaches of rivers, sidestepping the crowds that each new season brings to the Catskills. I was surprised to find a lone angler there before me, so I waded slowly along the edge and perched on a comfortable piece of bank to wait and watch. The fisherman before me seemed to be wandering the river, and it took only a few minutes until he had passed my bankside seat and moved well down the river. We spoke our greetings briefly as he passed.
Patience can be a learned skill, something I know from experience. I certainly wasn’t born with it. I have told many that fly fishing taught me patience. I recall that first lesson clearly, wading briskly into the Patapsco River with my rubber bottomed hip boots, too eager to begin casting to a likely looking run. The rush of frigid water made a significant impression as those boots betrayed me to the slick, rocky stream bed!
I waited quietly, looking downstream curiously to watch the other continue his wanderings. It took half an hour before I saw what I was looking for, that quiet evidence of life out there in the current. I waded slowly against the pull of that current, even as a second rise came stronger to a flutter of movement on the surface.
When I reached a casting position, I took that friendly old Quill Gordon from the hook keeper and pulled the line first from the reel and then out through the rod tip. Glancing away, I saw that wandering angler climbing the bank 150 yards down river.
There was another flutter on the surface, one that looked like a mayfly, and that trout slapped hungrily once more. The old eight-foot Leonard, casts with a smoothness that belies its power, a classic Catskill rod to begin a beautiful Catskill season. For this trout, I needed only a single cast.
A solid take, a firm hookset after the perfect pause, and a heavy trout battling in fast water; sheer perfection! That trout took some time to bring to hand, enough that I heard the car door up along the road, then the sound of the wanderer starting his engine and pulling away. That brown was still pulling line.
Bright Waters Catskill 