Bowhunting helped form the mentality, somewhat preparing me for my early excursions to the Letort and Falling Spring, but stalking trout was different. I will never forget my first vision of Letort Spring Run, thirty-two years ago. It was September, and I was fresh off a weekend of instruction from two angling legends: Ed Shenk and Joe Humphreys. I had purchased Ed’s book, “Fly Rod Trouting”, and read along during the evenings at Allenberry. I simply had to visit the stream that Sunday afternoon!

Shenk recounted the Bonny Brook meadow as his favorite reach since childhood, so there was little question where I would start my limestone spring education. I waded through the head high grass in the meadow until I came to flowing water. The stream was tiny, winding over and through lush weed beds and the intertwined trunks and branches of trees long fallen into the flow. The small, open rills of bright water sparkled as I crept near, gently enough I thought, quickly surprised as trout darted from bright gravel to weedy darkness. How in God’s name can I fish this?

The learning curve was steep, but I travelled to Carlisle as often as possible the following spring and summer. I fished at the hand of The Master and began to absorb the mindset of the hunter with rod and reel.

Those years were remarkable, and the lessons learned upon those gentle limestone streams have served me well throughout my fishing. I stalk trout as a matter of instinct now, whether angling in tight quarters, or wading wide expanses like the Delaware.

In summer, the hunter’s craft comes into its own. The great hatches of spring are diminished, and the wild trout are beset by low water and a blazing sun. They must eat, their metabolism demands it, so they hunt stealthily to take best advantage of what Nature provides.

I spent twenty minutes yesterday simply getting into the river to search for trout. Twenty minutes from first footstep off the bank to in position for the first cast, and I didn’t move either upstream or down. I have always admitted that fly fishing taught me patience.

Watching, making a few casts to test the known lies – is he there? Forty-five minutes, perhaps an hour, and I am twenty yards down river. The water quivers ahead of me and I tense my grip on the rod: there!

The cast drops lightly four or five feet upstream and I squint to watch the drift – yes, right there, six inches off the bank…

The ring is subtle, smallish, but the spotted warrior is betrayed by the morsel that attracted his attention! Surging, racing out into the flow, the rod has formed that lovely parabola as the line cuts through the water, and the reel spins with his power. He makes his runs at a distance, reacting each time I take a few turns on the reel handle, unwilling to surrender to the unseen pull affixed to his jaw.

The arch of the rod takes it’s toll on his strength at last, and he comes nearer, long and bronze, he turns when he sees me looming, but this run is shorter, more easily checked. At last, he makes the final turn before the net is submerged, but darts away when I draw him near. Once more he takes some line and then, he comes to me.

Two feet of glistening bronze and gold writhes as I twist the hook free, dip him beneath the surface, and grab my camera from the wader pocket. Released after the shot, he glides to the bottom nearby and rests. I give him a few minutes, then step closer so he darts away, and we both return to the hunt.

Monday brought some significant storms, pounding some watersheds in our region and skirting around others. It looked like no river was going to be fishable when this week began, for major storms were promised throughout. I lost one fishing day to that big lie and decided I wasn’t going to sacrifice another. If I got blown off the water by torrents of rain, so be it!

Look, I can only imagine the stress and handwringing the meteorologists go through, and they do a good job here in our Catskill region, though the truth is their batting average slumps in summer. Our weather gets more volatile every season, and in summer, we never know what we’re going to get.

Wednesday was a strange kind of day: threatening cloud masses, bouts of downright chilly breezes, even a couple of very brief peaks of sunlight. Today the forecast is smoke.

I visited a reach of river yesterday morning that I cannot usually fish in June. Water temperatures have responded favorably to the rainfall and cooler temperatures, but I still wondered if the trout had migrated out of this water during the extended hot dry spell earlier in the month. I had a plan, and I more or less executed it, tossing a couple of carefully chosen flies over some interesting water. I ended up with a couple of dramatic refusals and then a broken tippet, when something very large and silvery pounced on my innocent isonychia and kept it. Trout? I think so, but I missed out on the best parts of the engagement.

I drove on past several spots, expecting to see a few anglers at all of them and seeing none. When I did stop and wade into the river, I fished a particular bank pretty thoroughly without moving anything resembling a fish. Okay, so one good rain event and a cool down wasn’t enough to get those trout off the bottom of the deep holes I guess, but the water felt nice and cool. I can attest to that, for I ended up sitting in it as I tried to climb out!

I changed from two wet shirts to a dry one and checked some other river gages on my phone, deciding that a change of locale was in order.

I found another deserted access when I rolled up, smiling at my good fortune. The middle of the week has not been the balm for the solitary angler that it once was this season, and I appreciated the chance of a little solitude. Once more, I set about executing my plan.

I fished all of the prime water the elevated flow would allow, hooking one little fellow that shook off the hook when I tried to ski him in on the surface. I saw a few little rises over the course of a couple of hours, noting a stray olive or sulfur drifting past once or twice, but nothing else showed any interest in my flies. As the afternoon drew on though, I began to see a couple of larger mayflies at a distance. They weren’t yellow, so I reached for the box with my Isonychia patterns and knotted on a fresh 100-Year Dun. Soon, good things began to happen.

Scanning the surface, I watched an absolute goliath leap out of the water, just because he could it seems! Of course, I peppered the entire area with casts to no avail, but then I saw a trout swipe at a bug further out. I shot a long cast out to cover him and he ate my Iso like he was waiting for it to float by. This was a nice brownie, and he fought hard in the heavier flow of the rain swollen river. Not long after I released him, another drew my attention and a pair of casts and showed his mettle all the way to the net.

The active fish were spread out over a wide expanse of water, and none of them seemed to rise more than once to a bug, and then once to my fly. Number three gave me his worst for a good while, after I waited out a few minutes when the cold wind kicked up and had the water trying to reverse it’s direction of flow that is. He settled into the net at the nineteen-inch marks and brought a smile. Not bad for a crazy weather day…

The wind blew some more, but then it settled and the surface calmed. It was after five o’clock, and I had to wait for another rise. I wasn’t seeing any more big mayflies out there. There hadn’t been many of them, but the trout had certainly reacted to their appearance. I was wondering if that little flurry of activity was finished when I spotted a wide soft ring along the far bank. I saw one or two small, yellow flies, sulfurs I presumed, but the Iso had been so hot I started working that bank feeder with it. I gave him a lot of opportunities, but he showed no interest in the larger meal.

That fish may have risen two or three times I guess, but he appeared to stop after I had fished over him with the larger fly. Too late I thought, but I dug out a well-used little 100-Year Dun sulfur and replaced my faithful Isonychia.

I was getting cold from the water and that come and go chilly wind, and was about to head for the car when I saw another soft rise further up the bank. Did my fish move? I didn’t know, but as I worked into position to cast to that rise, I noted it was further out, closer to the main current line. I shot my cast above it and dropped plenty of slack to extend the drift. It was about my third or fourth drift when the soft ring enveloped my little fly.

After tossing his head back and forth while digging toward the bank, that fish shot out into the current and started my reel to spinning. He felt solid and strong, and kept using the current by making good runs downriver then turning his side into the force of the flow. There was no quit in this fellow, and he made run after run each time I worked him back and retrieved some line. Even at the end, thrashing in the shallow water close to my bank, he refused to let me turn his head around to bring him to the net. I think that fresh current felt good to him after weeks of skulking in low, nearly still water.

A heavy bodied twenty-two inch brown trout can put up a hell of a fight when he is feeling his oats, but the four weight Thomas & Thomas and I won out at last. Released quickly, he settled down to the bottom nearby, and I decided to see if I could get an underwater shot. The water was still a bit cloudy from runoff, and the light wasn’t good, but I could see him clearly there sulking. Damn those 100-year Duns, I think I heard him say, or perhaps it was just the sound of that cold breeze beckoning me home.

After a genuine stormy day yesterday, our Catskill rivers finally have some relief! I stole a couple of hours on the river until the thunder rolls chased me around Noon. The previous night’s rain had raised the flow only slightly, but the change did awaken a relatively dormant trout or two.

I guess that my actual fishing time clocked in at just about an hour, with the last fifteen minutes heightened by paying close attention to the distant thunder on the back side of the mountains. I quickened my pace when I saw an impromptu explosion downstream, as I was already taking furtive glances at the dark skies and working my way back in the direction of the car.

I was armed with one of my rainy-day rods. The vintage five weight Thomas & Thomas Paradigm earned that moniker for it’s impregnated finish, something offered as an option back in ’79 as one of the great rod companies marked their tenth anniversary. The Paradigm was known as the favorite taper of founder Thomas Dorsey. Some think it qualifies as parabolic, though T&T never described it that way. They called it a caster’s taper. I heartily agree!

Chasing that trout, I appreciated the Paradigm’s ability to reach out effortlessly, as I was trying to avoid wading too far out into the river channel. Half of my attention was focused on a quick getaway should those thunderheads make their way over the mountain.

I was fighting for visibility, wearing polarized glasses under those dark skies, and my low floating fly was difficult to track. I was straining hard to see it tight along the bank when my sixth sense told me it was no longer floating. I quickly tightened into a firm pull.

The trout objected immediately to his lunch biting him back, darting to and froe and turning those little underwater somersaults so effective in leveraging a hook out of the mouth. I had no chance to get him on the reel, instead playing him by hand with lots of fast stripping followed by some measured fingertip line control. Of course, that was the time the Red Gods picked to increase the volume of those now less distant thunder rolls. They were obviously getting closer to my mountain.

I pressured that brown into the net, wiggled him in line with the measurement scale, then let him return to search for a less belligerent meal. I reeled up my line and made tracks downstream, no longer concerned with stealth. The rain came about halfway back, though there was no lightning along for the ride. By the time I stowed my assembled rod in the back and started down the road, the rain beat down with some real ferocity.

Watching the storms come one after another from my nice, dry angler’s den, I felt satisfied. I had stolen an hour and a fine brown trout, and my rivers were finally getting the rainfall they so desperately needed. Can’t help but call that a good day!

I was sitting at my bench just now, tying a couple of variations on my standard beetles, when I let a thought find it’s way to the vise. At first, I palmered a hackle tightly up the hook shank and tried to put a flat piece of foam over the top. Uninspiring to say the least, and then the right concept crystallized, and a new fly design was born.

Though a little rainfall has given our rivers a breath once again, they dropped quickly, soon to return to the slow flows and low water clarity that has dictated the rules of the game in recent weeks. Our trout have been slow in recovering from the mad onslaught of our peak fishing season, these low, still conditions keeping them moody and loathe to feed in daylight. I wanted a dry fly that might just perk one up now and then, at least when the approach and presentation challenges of these conditions could be surmounted.

A good dry fly needs a strong image of life and, at times I think imitating life can be more crucial than closely imitating any specific species of insect. This morning’s idea may indeed fulfill that promise!

I liked the palmered and clipped hackle, for it allows the fly to fall lightly and to be twitched gently if needed to attract the attention of a resting trout. Rather than try to add some opaque body silhouette, I thought of allowing light reflections to pass through the hackle fibers intermittently. I had a short piece of Kreinik braid on the desktop near my vise, and I unwound the fibers to fray roughly 1/4 inch of it’s end. This would be my wing.

With light and dark versions, this fly may be presented as an imitation of some of the pale aquatic and terrestrial moths that appear during the summer, as well as any number of dark beetles and assorted terrestrial flying food.

Of course, like any fly, these moths could be an utter flop, but I have a good feeling about the design. The trout will tell me whether any modifications are necessary. In his masterwork Selectivity (Stackpole Books 2014) my friend Matt Supinski described the three phases of trout behavior intertwined in the mystery of selective feeding. He named these trout moods “Aggressive/Active”, “Selective/Reflective” and “Passive/Dormant”. As trout move from one mood to another in this order, fishing becomes far more difficult, as trout feed less and with greater care and discretion. “Passive/Dormant” fish may not feed at all until extreme fishing pressure or unfavorable environmental conditions change. The flies conceived this morning are squarely targeted toward trout stuck in Matt’s S/R and P/D moods.

I think a certain amount of attraction can be helpful in a trout fly, but it shouldn’t be too blatant. Thus, my idea of allowing a bit of flash to peek through the palmered hackle fibers for a glimpse of movement. I’ll let you know just how it fares…

The first day of summer and a chance to fish a couple of days with one of my best friends in the world: time for celebration! Yes, we are in a run of low water with little in the way of insect activity, but there have been a few, spare opportunities of late. Earned with stealth and perseverance, there were a few good trout that could be located and seduced, and I felt certain that we would find them.

One of the hard lessons about trout rivers having a case of the blues is the fact that fishing is going to get worse before it gets better. Of course, words like “worse” have a much lighter meaning when you’re talking about stalking wild trout in the gorgeous realm of the Catskills.

The weather was completely pleasant that first day, some sunlight, some clouds, the odd gentle breeze, and a temperature around 75 degrees. If you painted the perfect summer day for fishing, this summer’s premier would be your subject matter. We stalked a glassy pool slowly that morning, working our way toward one of a handful of widespread sipping rises. As we pass the peak spring season on these beautiful and very, very popular rivers, the trout finally get to take a breath after the onslaught of anglers. They are skittish, reserved; and low water like we have in abundance right now accentuates that mood. Often there is a lull in insect activity that coincides with these conditions, just like the lull we are mired in right now. Despite our greatest care, our longest and gentlest casts, none of those trout would even consider taking our flies.

We gave it time, hoping for a change, as just a small hatch of flies can bring an opening, but there was none forthcoming. We took a break in early afternoon, enjoyed the fine tailgate lunch my friend had supplied and talked of fishing remembered. With mid-afternoon looming, I suggested we try a pool I had passed by all season. Expectations weren’t high, but hey, we were enjoying the day nonetheless.

We found a lone angler, wading right through the water we had wanted to fish. He called to us upon our arrival, letting us know that he had only fished about 100 yards of river, leaving all of the further reaches of that grand old pool for our undisturbed pleasure. A nice gesture certainly, as John observed. I feel certain that he couldn’t have known that he had covered the same reach we had planned to fish, any more than he realized he was ruining his own chances with his wading.

We walked on upriver after thanking him for his courtesy and made a grand effort to will a trout to materialize out of the slow, clear belly of the pool. There were a few youngsters that consented to play with JA’s fly, enough to make him smile and joke about it, but each new cast felt as if our slim chances were diminishing.

That cheery fellow downstream made short work of the lower reaches, wading rapidly right out of sight and vanishing. We took our time, the conditions demanded it, for even slight body movements accompanying our casting strokes sent deadly ripples across the pool.

I had pointed out a place just behind that fellow when John and I arrived, mentioning that it had been a good holding lie in past seasons. Though we had fished down through all of the other places with stories to tell with no signs of life apparent, and as I resigned to suggest we head to the bank and home for supper, I decided to make one last cast to that lifeless old lie for, I don’t know, the sake of good memories I guess.

The Sweetgrass pent delivered a long, downstream cast perfectly as it had all day to no avail, and the fly drifted slowly into the shade. There was the slightest little murmur of a bulge, and I raised the rod to touch off an explosion! With nothing but shallow water all around him, Mr. Brown seemed to have come unglued, racing out and around, up and down while I stripped frantically trying to keep a tight line. I still don’t know how I managed to keep all of that rapidly stripped fly line from tangling on my vest, staff or other body parts, but I did. When I got him on the reel at last, he struck up the band! JA was fast on his phone, so I will let his photos tell the rest of the tale:

Welcome to Summer Solstice and the beginning of that grand old season of long, lazy days and soft, warm evenings. I am more than pleased to be here to enjoy it! This is actually my sixth summer here in Crooked Eddy, though 2018 was the year without fishing. I think of the milestone more appropriately as my fifth summer of stalking wild trout as a Catskill resident. I had no clear idea how long I would be around when I retired and am grateful for each of these little mileposts I pass. Living amid these mountains and their rivers and fishing and hunting has proven to be far better for my health than working ever was.

I was at my tying bench come half past four this morning. The flies have been tied and the tackle has been prepared for the day ahead. Just about now, one of my best friends is making sure his truck is loaded before turning the key and heading north to our meeting on the river. It looks to be another beautiful 75-degree day, the winds blessedly down: a fine day for stalking trout and sharing memories!

The rod I have chosen for this first day of summer is all Catskill, by way of Maryland and Montana. During the lockdown of 2020, I corresponded with Jerry Kustich about a couple of ideas I had for the perfect summer fly rod. We both have a fondness for pents, five strip bamboo rods that have a somewhat unique casting action. Jerry is just the man to put those thoughts into action. One of the founders of Sweetgrass Rods with Glenn Brackett, Jerry has been designing five strip fly rods for a couple of decades. He told me that a great eight-foot four weight taper was an admirable goal and accepted the challenge of designing a pent to fit my casting and fishing preferences. He did an admirable job! Glenn finished the rod at the shop in Butte, Montana and I have enjoyed the fruits of their labors thoroughly for the past two summers.

I trust that JA will be carrying his own eight-foot four weight, another amazing rod split, planed, glued, and wrapped by his own talented hands. The brownies don’t have a chance!

We are hoping that a few mayflies will make their appearance during the course of our foray to bright water. Bugs seem to have been pretty scarce on some of our rivers here of late. If they don’t oblige, we both have a bit of Cumberland Valley experience to fall back on.

Maybe I will tie a few more flies just to be sure…

Spring is drawing to a close. It’s fishing already has passed into memory as I prepare to embark upon another Catskill Summer. It is my favorite season, though I miss the big hatches of spring mayflies, solitude becomes much easier to enjoy, and that special thrill of hunting big brown trout with light tackle makes every moment special.

An eight-foot bamboo rod casting a four weight line has become my summer standard, but there are options. I look forward to this season and reliving my days of trout hunting amid the water meadows of the Cumberland Valley. A seven-foot rod was a constant companion there, and the Shenk Tribute Rod was conceived to celebrate the gifts of my departed friend, to welcome him here to my Catskill rivers in spirit, that we might once more share the beauty of bright water.

The mayflies the late Charlie Fox dubbed sulfurs all those decades ago are a veritable constant on the Catskill tailwaters. Varying in size from sixteen to twenty, and displaying several shades of color, the summer sulfurs provide the warmest season’s counterpoint to spring’s Hendricksons.

I tied some of those lovely little duns just yesterday, gathered with fellow members of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild amid the historic backdrop of the Catskill Museum’s Wulff Gallery, we laughed and spoke of patterns and places as we wrapped silks and hackles to fashion our own summer dreams.

Terrestrials have already entered my thinking as well. When the sulfurs are not in play, a hot summer wind can urge the trout to action, adding morsels to the drift that pass some anglers unseen. The trout know them you can be sure, and find just the perfect hidden lines of drift to partake of the land born feast in secret.

In truth I have already taken to fishing summer patterns, the solstice lurking just three days hence. Soon I will carry all of summer’s choices: sulfurs, Isonychia, tiny olives and spinners, and beetles, ants, and crickets galore. The vest will be set aside, replaced by the comfort of a small chest pack that I might enjoy the soft summer breezes!

Conditions have forced my hand, it is that simple. I am used to a gradual transition from the peak of the spring hatch season to the spare times of summer. There are hatches still as June winds toward July, though the bulk of them are encountered toward evening. Daylight fishing requires more patience and concentration, the mindset of the hunter.

With low water settling in during those glorious last days of May, I quickly found myself fishing to trout that had become immune to dry flies. The fishing pressure during the peak season becomes ridiculously heavy, and the wild denizens of our Catskill rivers respond with a heightening of their learned avoidance behavior. The days fished during June’s premiere showed clearly what the larger trout were up to: they took only natural flies that were moving, demanding proof positive that their meal was an actual mayfly, and not another of those biting frauds!

And so, as the first full week of June welcomed me to the rivers, I transitioned to my hunting mode. The big game hunter knows he will not find game every day he chooses to be afield. He waits, watches, learns how his quarry has changed it’s habits. The hunter considers all that he sees and makes a plan to intercept opportunity.

Back in the Cumberland Valley, in the early days of my fly fishing obsession, I learned to hunt the conditions. In the weed choked environs of the Letort, that meant a long drive from central Maryland to find myself creeping through the water meadows at first light. The largest of the Letort browns would sometimes tarry at the end of their nocturnal hunts, offering a rare opportunity to make a cast to them. With all of the impediments to success that accompany a lone fly fisher in these quests, there were some exciting moments that ended, not with a net triumphantly raised; but I learned!

With a little rain finally gracing the Catskills, I tried the tactics that produced a week ago. I found one riser, a ten inch brown in a couple of hours of work. My plan for the day said it was time to change the water, the tactics and the approach. Though the rainfall was light, it did bring a freshening of the flow and a little color to the river, and I felt the chances were good to find a good brown hunting for what the new conditions might offer.

I found what I was looking for in a small area, and George Maurer’s Queen of The Waters was soon bucking hard with a fine hunting brownie by the jaw. He tolerated my company in the net, though his partner managed to separate my fly from the tippet before we could meet face to face.

Now is the time for stealth beyond all reason, a lithe four weight cane rod, and a long finely tapered leader. The fare offered will vary, for it is a product of observation. When to offer the casual sipper a big fly as opposed to some tiny bit of feather and fur? Part of that decision is instinct, the rest is a quick accounting of the flies of the season, the lie of the trout, and the constantly varying conditions encountered. I have taken six-pound browns on tiny flies and 6X tippet, but I try to avoid it.

If I find myself in a situation that demands the lightest terminal tackle, I still fight the trout as hard as I can. I believe more trophies are lost by anglers afraid to use their equipment to it’s limits. Bamboo excels at the magical combination of finesse and strength that wins these battles. I would rather lose the battle than lose the trout to exhaustion.

A few years ago I enjoyed a resurgence in trico fishing, with more opportunities than I have enjoyed since the best days in the Cumberland Valley. I landed a couple of big brownies on the finest tackle, personal bests. That was a fine summer for flying ants too! I can laugh now at the bruiser brown that broke the bend from my size 28 dry fly hook, while I gave him all the pressure my 7X tippet could handle. An eight-foot three weight bamboo scepter lurks in the mind of it’s maker; the ultimate weapon!

Another day in the smoke; certainly such conditions would bear the blame for anything unsettling that might happen, now wouldn’t they? I admit there was a different feeling than I usually get out on a beautiful Catskill river. I slept just fine overnight, but awakened feeling tired from a long day under that strange orange glow on Tuesday.

It was chilly for June, though that is not a complaint, particularly with the rain starved condition of our freestone rivers and streams. I wore a long sleeved sun shirt and a fleeced hoodie, yet turned back to the car when I began my walk toward the river for the jacket I had left inside. If the smoky haze contributed to my slight feeling of malaise, the lack of sunshine added to it.

From a fishing perspective, the day began wonderfully. I was standing in the edge of the river when a good trout smashed something buggy in a windblown bubble line several feet off the far bank. I eased out to provide some clearance for a full backcast, while tying on a juicy Green Drake comparadun. I knew the tall CDC wing would move enticingly from the influence of the rippled water and wind. I made my first cast short, an old habit sustained since it allows me to check the drift of my fly before placing it on target. The smooth Hendrickson taper turned over all fifteen feet of leader pleasantly, and the long undersized 5X tippet let the big fly drift and bounce naturally. The money cast alighted right in the middle of that bubble line and the fly danced atop the wavelets. I relaxed a bit as it passed the location of the rise, though thankfully I didn’t give up on that extended drift.

He came for it like it was the only fly in the river, with a tremendous geyser of white water, then bore down with his prize. I didn’t so much as raise the rod as simply hold onto it, and the trout was hooked firmly. The little Adams reel sang playfully as it’s serpentine handle spun with his energy and my rod bowed deeply. This guy was energetic, leaping high above the windswept surface three times! He switched directions manically, bored for the bottom of the deeper portion of the pool, and put his focus into ravaging my light tackle. The rocky bottom offering no release, he vaulted into the air again, streaked straight away and then leaped once more.

The living arch of the cane won out. I had him close for several frantic switchback turns before he tired enough to be led into the net. With gorgeously bright golden and burnished yellow flanks, heavily spotted with black and red, nineteen inches of wild Catskill brown trout finally surrendered my sodden fly. I could not have asked for a better start to the day.

That memorable encounter should have let me shed the negative energy and made the most of my day, but the worn feeling returned and I let it affect my fishing.

There are days when we all reap the liabilities of our own humanity, our imperfections. When it comes to fly fishing, the Red Gods smile and gladly help us endure the trials of such days. I think of them as foible days.

I traded offerings with one intermittent riser over the course of a couple of hours, sitting on a log between sessions, then rising, wading over and making a few casts. This trout appeared to be moving, though it wasn’t clear whether he was making a little circuit along a small reach of riverbank, or swimming about the pool on a wide ranging hunt. There would be two rises, generally soft, and then he would demure for fifteen minutes or more. As the afternoon passed, there came a time when he seemed to have settled down to a single lie, sipping choice tidbits. I rose, approached again and worked him thoroughly this time, only to finally have him take my fly with an unexpectedly solid plunk. The pent-up tension of this long engagement gave way to a classic overreaction by way of a rapid, overzealous hookset that whisked the fly from his vicinity before he could eat it.

And so the day continued in similar vein: wind rippled waters, impinged drifts from casting in those gusty winds, and missed opportunities whenever my concentration lagged. There was a light hatch of sulfurs, and several roving trout took advantage of it. The currents were tricky by the nature of the river muses, and the breeze made them more so. I missed takes, snatched flies away, watched the refusals pile up when the wind behind me lengthened my casts more than intended and compromised my drifts. Whenever I sought to take a break and tie on a new tippet, the gusts would intensify and bow the tag ends of the fine material from my fingers and tangle my fly line around the gear on my vest. Each event became a little insult to my usual careful angling technique.

Suffice to say that I was more than tired of the game by the time it ended. That first wonderful sky arching trout was the highlight of the day, and I spent the rest of it paying my dues a hundredfold for those moments of enjoyment. If the smoke clears though, I’ll be back to it again today with a smile!

The day didn’t start the way I preferred. Awake before three AM, my aching back made sure that my sleep was finished for the night. We both had to rise early anyway, since my cardiologist had scheduled me for an echocardiogram in Binghamton at eight. I would have rather luxuriated in bed until my customary five o’clock, risen to my two cups of Starbucks coffee, and then tied a few flies while planning the day’s fishing.

The trip and the tests went smoothly, and I was back home and got a few errands taken care of by lunchtime. I changed into fishing clothes and decided to get a sandwich in town to take on the road. Lunch is always better by a river.

It was on the way home from Binghamton that I remarked that it looked like it was going to be a very hazy day. Within an hour, the skies looked like they were filled with thin fog hugging the mountainsides. The haze increased as I readied my tackle, and Cathy mentioned that she had smelled some smoke. The recollection that I had seen something on The Weather Channel a few days back about smoke from wildfires in Canada blowing southeast into the US had yet to surface, and I began to wonder if there was a forest fire somewhere in our Catskill Mountains.

I saw no signs of fire on my drive to the river, and I was finished with my lunch and wading the shallows when I finally remembered that newscast. By that point the skies were truly smoky, and the scent unmistakable. The sky conditions would create an eerie atmosphere throughout the afternoon and evening. At one point, around four or five o’clock, it became so dark I was having trouble tracking my flies. As the sun worked its way to the southwest, the smoky air took on an orange glow, strange but beautiful.

The fishing was as quiet as the scene for a while, until a few odd sulfurs appeared in the drift. I knotted up an eighteen 100-Year Dun and went to work, though my concentration was anything but sharp. My three o’clock wakeup was taking it’s toll. There were a couple of trout holding station in the low, clear water, each taking a fly in a nonchalant manner. I wasn’t seeing them eat duns most of the time, and they certainly didn’t show any interest in mine. Of course, I went through a few patterns and sizes: a small sparkle dun, a larger sulfur (I saw a couple), then back down to a sixteen 100-Year Dun. Nothing seemed to happen until my focus lapsed on one cast and I simply stopped watching the fly. Every angler reading this knows what happened then.

I rebuked myself and started casting earnestly with that fly. Of course, no trout touched it. Most of the few flies I was seeing looked to be size eighteen, so I tried a fresh 100-Year Dun in that size, the one I call the Classic Sulfur with the light orange thorax. That one got eaten before I zoned out again, and the nice eighteen-inch brownie cavorted all over that shallow flat.

I knew I would have to stand still and wait to see if the trout disturbed by that fish’s struggles would return to their stations. Unfortunately, that little break allowed my senses to dull once more. The fish came back one by one, and I zoned out and missed takes from three of them, wasn’t even looking at my fly when each took it in turn, and I was cussing myself for allowing my weariness to take control. I just kept looking at those smoky orange skies and hearing Charlie Daniels singing and fiddling in my head: fire on the mountain run boys run, the Devils got a date with the rising sun! It was a strange afternoon.

Recovering from my unwanted reverie, I worked at my concentration as evening approached. The trout were sly and extremely choosy, the handful of bugs on the water changing every few minutes. I took the best fish of the day on that same 18 sulfur, a golden flanked 21-inch brown, the second best on one of those green flies. You know the drill – observe and adapt. I finished my unusually vivid day with four good trout landed, and I felt better for my sleep deprived foibles early on. The report from the cardiologist was all good, so it looks like I get to go fishing again!