Seven Days On The River

I confess, I am tired! Straight out of winter, I embarked upon a fishing marathon with the expectation that last week’s soaring temperatures would usher me into mayfly Valhalla. I enjoyed the sunshine, even got a bit too much of it when I shortcut the sunscreen one afternoon, but those mayflies, well, seems they just ain’t ready.

During the course of my week, water temperature exploded from forty-seven degrees to just over sixty, and I expected hatching Quill Gordons every waking minute! That was the first fly I tied on last Sunday, and again on Monday, and it was the first fly I used to land my first dry fly trout of the season and the largest of the three taken that day. Did I actually see any Quill Gordon mayflies, well no. I guess it was late Thursday afternoon when I turned over a couple of rocks and found an Epeorus nymph that showed no visual signs of being close to emergence.

Late Friday, after two days of battling miserable winds, I saw a brief handful of mayflies, some small, some medium size, and none of them numerous enough to interest a trout. Of course, I decided I would have to break one of my rules and fish again on Saturday. I tried a different stretch of river and invited a friend from the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild to meet me on the river after our morning meeting concluded. Just before my friend Chuck arrived, I saw a couple of slight, sipping rises out in the river. I rose from my riverbank seat and waded out.

I guess I saw one little mayfly, and it looked like a Hendrickson. Luckily I had seen two or three the day before and tied half a dozen sixteens to add to my tremendous supply of Hendrickson patterns. I knotted one to my 5X tippet and cast to the location of the first sipper. No dice. I had the distinct impression that there was a cruising fish at work here, and I didn’t see more than one or two flies on the water. Finally there was a complete rise further out in the center of a flat glide – a ring with the tip of a nose in it!

Two or three casts later, that nose came up and took my little Hendrickson, and a hell of a fight ensued. That trout made a short, quick burst and jumped clear of the water! There was no doubt I had tied into a nice brownie. I had heard a car door, but Chuck had not materialized as I traded line with my fish, nor had he emerged from the roadside when I finally scooped a thick flanked brownie into the net.

I was fishing my vintage eight-foot Thomas & Thomas Hendrickson, a very light 3-3/8 ounce rod, that arches deeply and bucks wildly with a nice trout on the fly. Despite the light weight for a five line rod, it truly plays heavy fish very effectively. The rod is simply so alive in the hand! It’s action and response really adds to the excitement. Spring dry fly fishing with bamboo makes it worth struggling through the five months of winter!

I backed out into shallower water and waited for Chuck to join me. When he arrived at my side, I offered one of the little dries that had taken the brown. It took half an hour for the flat to calm down from the commotion, and I anticipated that the hatch was going to start every minute of that span. It wasn’t to be.

I saw fewer flies than the day before actually, though the few we did see came over a longer period of time. Eventually, another good fish began sipping something we couldn’t see from the tail of that glide, and Chuck went to work on him. Like his spotted brethren, a good cast brought him up for that little Hendrickson and Chuck got a good hookset and a strong pull before the trout sheared his tippet on a rock. We didn’t know it then, still expecting nirvana was a moment away, but we were done. Yes, another trout would sip something unseen a handful of times over our last hour, giving each of us a few casts and the chance to change flies, and talk of all we hoped the season would bring, but there would be no hatch on day seven.

We ended our day with good spirits, both of us with leaky waders, mine for the second day after less than two months of use. Does anyone make a decent, reliable wader anymore?

I told Chuck I would let him know if the hatch finally comes on, and I will; at least if I can survive enough continuous days of fishing to see it happen. Ah to be thirty years old again, but then again, I wouldn’t have the option of fishing straight through a week or two!