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:
Bright Waters Catskill 