Fishing amid the quiet of evening is something I don’t do much anymore. Oh yes, during my traveling days I was out there until after dark night after night, squeezing every minute out of the handful of days I might be allotted upon bright water. Since retirement, I have each day at my disposal, or at least the vast majority of them. I get to stalk wild trout when I can take full advantage of the feast for the eyes this game provides on our beautiful Catskill rivers.
My photo files are full of scenery shots. I have always been captivated by natural light, and it’s interplay with water and sky and all the interesting features of the landscape.
Daylight provides the ultimate scenario for surveying all of the subtle clues that Nature offers the angler. I recall one afternoon last September, the season was drawing to a close, and it was bright and as still as a whisper. I was walking wide water, when I noticed the smallest little glint of light a hundred yards downstream, a single little pluck in the surface tight to the far riverbank. I stalked that tiny glint of light and, half an hour later, offered my little olive dun to that particular stone upon the shore.
Thirty years ago, when I haunted the limestone meadows of the hallowed Letort and the sparkling little Falling Spring Branch amid Pennsylvania’s Cumberland Valley, the evening sulfur hatch was my favorite event. Part of what made those times so special was the ephemeral nature of those few critical moments where fine wild trout could be tempted by soft yellow dry flies! The hatch generally came late, within the last hour of light on a generous evening, or more commonly within the last half hour or less. The hatch and the rises began and intensified quickly, leaving only moments to make that perfect cast and reap the reward of battle with a worthy foe. I touched that magic again last night.
I shared the river with three like-minded gentlemen, Kevan Best and his buddies Forrest and Kenny, all of us bearing fine bamboo fly rods that glowed amber in the lowering sunlight. The trout were playing a familiar game, too familiar during such hot, low water spells. Brownies were cruising, some of the smaller ones rising to an invisible wiggling tidbit where they found it, others boiling the water as they charged one of the sparse Green Drake nymphs swimming toward the light. Up and down the river, we all fought impatience, casting to the boils within range, knowing that our dry flies were not the choice du jour. We waited for the edge of darkness, hoping for enough of the big duns to bring the one to the surface.
Low, clear water and placid current fails to make a champion of most any cunning dry fly; our finest art shows starkly lifeless when compared to the twitching wings and wiggling abdomens of the aquatic prime rib we call Ephemera guttulata. Sixteen-foot leaders, undersized 5X fluorocarbon tippet and a realistic CDC fly seem at times to be the only solution, though they need help from the lengthening shadows on nights such as this one.
And so, to that last half hour. A rise covered, a heavy boil, and the lithe shaft of split bamboo comes suddenly to life! He’s big, angry and splashing and thrashing everything in his domain; and then, the line goes slack and silence returns. The moments seem like fleeting seconds then as I check the fly, feel the sharp prick of the hook and quickly powder that feathered wing back to life.
Darkness falls as the last light retreats beneath the mountains, and there, a white spritz catches the dying light where a dun has fallen. The cast is away, the fly just visible in it’s drift… How far has it floated, a mile? Just a few feet it seems, until that boil in the surface of the still water meets it.
The shrill cry of the vintage Hardy echoes in the darkness, as the cane bucks and arches with his energy! Power I can feel, time suspended as he rushes toward every unseen bit of cover: “Fight him as hard as the tackle allows, this is the evening’s last chance!”
I hear Kevan’s approach as the game becomes a duel of slow pressure and quick reflexes. This fish tires slowly, and I can see his length in the dark water, close, but not close enough! At last, he lets me lead him grudgingly within arm’s reach, the mesh slips below his bulk and the game is won!
I feel for the fly, twist it free and Kevan wades near to take a look. The brown is twenty-three inches, wide flanked and heavy, a five-pound trout I guess. Slipping him free of the net he darts away, still with that vigor and defiance of the wild, and the two of us wade slowly toward shore.
Bright Waters Catskill 