Though the forecast promised a calm, lovely 67-degree day, sunshine wasn’t expected. That gave me concerns about water temperatures, one of the frustrating things we fly fishers cannot control, and which have so great a bearing on the outcome of our precious spring fishing days.
As soon as I arrived at riverside, the blue sky and brilliant sunshine already had the upper hand, the remaining clouds retreating rapidly into a gorgeous spring day. I was smiling as I found a seat on the riverbank and pulled the line through the guides of my eight foot Dennis Menscer Hollowbuilt bamboo rod. I checked the leader thoroughly and decided the tippet needed replacement, so I knotted a long, fresh piece of 5X fluorocarbon in place. I started with a Blue Quill pattern, then sat back to watch for signs of life.
I wasn’t there very long when a nice trout glided up from the river bottom, showing his head and half his body as he found an early winged morsel to his liking. By the time I stood up from my seat, he was up again.
That brownie was what I think of as a teaser, a fish that rises once or twice like that, then vanishes. After easing over into a casting position, I waited for him to rise again. Failing that, I began to cast over the general area where that teaser had showed himself. There really weren’t any flies visible yet, so I figured he could still be down there and just might take a liking to my little fly. That approach works about once in a thousand tries I guess, and it did allow me to limber up my casting muscles. Nine hundred ninety-nine tries to go…
I had resigned myself to simply standing in the river and searching for some quiver of movement within the classic taking areas this reach of river presents, and I spent a considerable amount of time doing that. There are days when you don’t see a lot of rises, even when the mayflies or caddis are abundant, and such days are very suitable to my style of hunting trout.
Eventually I saw him, one soft ring between a rock and the bank, just the one, and I began to work my way in that direction. You move with purpose in these situations, glancing at the bottom in front of your feet, then back to the target area, all the while assessing the current between you and that trout. Roll a rock with an idle step and you may end the game before it really begins or slip and stumble into a very cold and unexpected bath.
By the time I reached my initial casting position, the trout had moved to my side of the rock where the current could bring him enough nourishment. There were small and smaller mayflies that I took to be Blue Quills and Olives, and a very occasional early Hendrickson. Just about the time I started to cast, the breeze picked up out of nowhere. “Winds light and variable” something else the forecasters got wrong it seems. They would tell you that the “unexpected sunshine warmed the air more rapidly than expected thus increasing surface winds” or something like that, and they would be technically correct. Anglers simply smile at the impeccably bad timing and know that it is the work of the Red Gods, doing what they do.
Dealing with the upstream wind, the multitude of mayflies present in the drift, and that old trout’s sliding up and down and in and out to different taking spots provided me with something like three quarters of an hour of gamesmanship; changing flies and casting positions, ever aware of just how easily it is to spook a feeding fish in these situations.
I finally had a little bit of a revelation and dug around in my vest for one of the first little Olive 100-Year Duns I had tied last fall. One of those size 18 dry flies had landed the last beautiful big brownie of my 2022 dry fly season in late October. I made three or four presentations with that fly before it was replaced by a soft, wide ring in the surface.
Oh, that flamed bamboo felt good with the heavy arch as I battled that trout in the broiling currents! As soon as I felt him, I got concerned about the small, light wire hook and 5X tippet. He was boring down into very rocky bottom, and there were severe limits to my tackle’s ability to change his mind and keep my fragile tippet away from the rocks. The Hollowbuilt did a wonderful job as always and kept enough pressure on the trout to keep him a little off balance. I just did my best to respond to his tactics and listen to the Hardy music!
Netting that fish in the deeper, faster water took a few passes. Every time I tried to bring him around, he found new energy to dive away and back toward that snaggy river bottom. I backed out just a little shallower for my last try, swung the rod in a big upstream arc, got his nose over the bag and lifted! The weight felt wonderful as he writhed in the mesh and showered me with icy cold water.
I kept the net bag in the water as I eased back toward the riverbank, where I slipped the little fly from the point of his upper lip. I got the camera out of it’s case with one hand while I laid the Menscer very gently on the rocks, then positioned the brown in the shallow water and snapped two quick photos.
I carried the trout into the current and slid him back and forth a couple of times, enough to satisfy him he had water under his belly and shoot back toward midriver.
No sooner had I released that trout than I heard two guys clattering down the trail to the river. One of them spoke to me while I rinsed my hands in the river, and I recognized the voice. It was Galen and a friend of his that looked somewhat familiar, both ready for the day with classic bamboo fly rods of their own. They headed upriver after our greeting and I picked up my rod and turned back toward the water, going back to the searching part of fishing as the flies began to change.
There would be more Hendricksons, and more anglers as the afternoon progressed toward evening. I found one more good fish feeding, there weren’t many despite a pretty nice hatch of flies. That guy sucked the fly down without a ring and dove down around one of those rocks before I could even set the hook. I got back my fly with the hook bend opened up wide.
Before long, another angler wandered into the pool below me. The sun’s reflections showed me he was fishing bamboo as well. I was looking for a third riser when I heard a loud voice shouting my name. I turned and waved to Kevan as he waded in with his favorite Granger. His friend Forrest joined him shortly. I had fished to and landed a magnificent brownie in total solitude, and then found myself in the middle of a bamboo party, realizing I knew all of these guys.
There would be a sporadic rise here and there, and I waded into position a few times, but there would be no more feeding fish to play the game with. I waded out when Galen and Vinny came walking down the bank, Galen with his 8-1/2′ Dennis Menscer rod, and Vinny with a golden hued Don Schroeder 3-piece he had just used to land a big brownie upstream. We walked down to say hello to Kevan and congratulate him on the big fish we had seen him land.
The four of us talked for that last half an hour, catching up on the offseason and the early events of this very young one, while Kevan’s buddies Forrest and Brooks stayed far out in the river, hoping to clash swords with a rising trout. The chill got to me quickly as the sun retired behind the mountainside and left us in shadow. I bade them well as the first spinners circled overhead and headed up the path.
Bright Waters Catskill 