A Celebration

Indeed, yesterday was Memorial Day and a national celebration and remembrance of those who have served America and paid the ultimate price for our freedom. It became a personal day of celebration too, as it evolved.

I regularly tease my friend JA that he needs to do a better job of understanding retirement. True he does enjoy life, I mean he had an unbelievable week of fly fishing in Argentina this spring, but he seems often to have too many things to do. I give him some good natured grief for things like working at his cabin rather than going fishing! Yesterday, the finale of our spring dry fly season, he finally took the evening off to join me for some fishing. Green Drakes have been spotted here and there, and I truly wanted him to get a taste of our greatest thrill with a bamboo fly rod in hand.

The beginning of the Green Drake hatch is reason for celebration all by itself. They do not appear in their former multitudes, and they are truly ephemeral in their dance upon bright waters, yet they are still truly special to witness. Big Catskill trout like them too.

We met down by the river, each bearing a fine bamboo rod created to honor the memory of Jim Payne. JA’s was a creation of his own hands (see, I said he was too busy!) and mine a collaboration between Pittsburgh rod maker Tim Zietak and the late George Guba, and a veteran of the Drake Wars. It was a lovely, and very warm early evening, the water stroked by an occasional breeze. A few tiny flies flew from the surface, sulfurs we concluded, as we waded slowly to our chosen fishing grounds.

For the first couple of hours, a few scattered trout enjoyed teasing us with the occasional rise. Whenever one of these cruisers ventured within range, we flicked our flies out for their inspection. Though we never heard them laughing, we had clear evidence of their disdain. Gradually, a few large mayflies began to appear at a distance. When the first of those flies vanished in a swirl, we concluded our relaxing interlude for the evening and became deadly serious.

As the flies increased, they would never be numerous, I targeted casts to cover each scattered rise before me. With a sporadic hatch, our wild trout tend to reduce their cruising behavior to more of a local patrol scenario. They would not hold a station and rise with regularity. Long experience with these habits have led me to try earnestly to put my fly on each rise form in a matter of seconds, showing that trout another tasty mouthful before he moves on in his patrol.

I could see several Drakes pop to the surface in one particular area, wriggle a bit, and then drift quietly. My dun pattern drew no interest, so I switched it out for a crippled emerger pattern. I designed these with a very full, tri-color CDC wing, for movement and as a more realistic imitation of the insect’s heavily marked wings. The most recent incarnation is truly a special fly, with props owed to JA for his preeminent abilities in processing and dyeing natural fly-tying materials.

I cannot recall what momentarily distracted my eye, what stimulus caused me to glance away from my drifting fly. I glanced back, quickly enough it seems, to see my fly had vanished. When the dreaded look away happens, it is typical to stare for a second or two at the empty water, just enough time for that stealthy trout to spit out the fly and go on about his business. This time, my tired old casting arm reacted before my brain finished processing the scene. That was a blessing!

The rod arched heavily, menacingly, and the line cut rapidly upstream as I stripped to maintain tension, when that initial run stopped, I began to reel the slack line onto my old, classic Hardy Perfect, before he launched into another seething run, and collected the slack for me. The night air was rent by the screams of that 1950’s bit of British hand-made perfection. Have I ever mentioned that I love that sound?

This foe gave no quarter, and I forced myself to match him run for run and blow for blow. He would streak for some bankside boulder or hidden snag, and I would lay the rod down parallel to the water to apply pressure with the rod butt. When he turned, I would reel as fast as I could while he boiled and surged. I never got a look at him until I had my net in hand and the leader’s butt reeled almost onto the old Hardy’s drum. We were both tired then, and I led him close enough to bring the net up underneath him. He thrashed, boiled, and tumbled partially into the bag while I fought to raise it from the water. At last, it was done.

The fly was securely imbedded in the front of his lip, and I twisted it free far more easily than I expected. He was terribly heavy, and I braced the net against my legs and scrambled for my camera. I lifted him once, calling to JA upstream, and then laid him back down to kiss the river. He swirled unsteadily, and I netted him again, then held his face into the current until he swam out of my grasp and turned back toward the cover he had hunted. The largest wild brown trout I have ever been privileged to capture on the dry fly had me shaking as I returned the net to it’s holder and collected my leader and it’s slimed and soggy fly. A bull of a brown trout, twenty-six inches long, I estimated his weight at six and a half to seven pounds.

I would battle another leviathan before darkness overtook us, that battle ending when the fly pulled out. Our celebration was completed when JA hooked up on a bruiser of his own, a four pound fish pushing twenty inches, and so fat he could not get his hand around him, his best on that reach of bright water.

There was never a big, frenetic hatch. Just enough of the great Drakes to urge some of the largest brownies to play in the clear, shallow waters. Truly the most exciting technical dry fly fishing an angler may enjoy! I hope that our evening was indeed the beginning, that the hatch will appear for a few days that I might follow it and partake of the magic once more. There are flies to be tied after breakfast…