Classically Catskills

Ah the simple joy of a summer day on a Catskill river with a classic Catskill rod in hand! Leonard’s 50 DF is certainly one of the all-time classic rods crafted by gentlemen who began the lineage. From Hiram Leonard’s shop sprang the fountain of talent that would define Catskill rodmaking and inspire all of those who came afterwards. The 50 DF is smoothness personified! Even cloaked in the workaday garb of the Mills Standard, the taper that some feel defined the classic Catskill dry fly rod is perfection on the water.

I had fished the rod with a five-weight line, the more typical choice, despite the advice from rodmaker extraordinaire Dennis Menscer that this model 50 was a four weight. Yes, an eight-footer for a number four line is my quintessential summer dry fly rod, so it is only fitting that I explore the master’s recommendation. Dennis knew this rod and it’s eight decades old bamboo, as only it’s restorer could. I should have followed his sage advice from the beginning.

Outfitted with a lovely little 3″ Bougle` and a new 406 weight forward fly line, the smooth and capable old Leonard became pure magic!

With temperatures climbing during this second week of July, our summer fishing remains dependent upon Nature’s gifts of rainfall, and hatches of fly have been meager to say the least. True to my roots, I knotted a little modified Grizzly Beetle to 6X tippet and took to hunting.

As I began to cast with that four-weight line, the smile on my face broadened into what my Dad might have called a shit eating grin.

I prospected the cover surgically, giving the fifty a smooth, delicate touch to ensure the little fly alighted gently on the flat water. One perfect cast in the shade would make my day. The beetle touched softly, and I tracked it’s drift by the subtle glint of it’s two turns of grizzly hackle. The bulge in the surface met it softly and I slowly brought the old rod up to engage my foe.

He was heavy, and irritated that the sweet little snack he had so quietly selected had bitten back! The lithe arch of bamboo urged him out from his sanctuary, just enough that his turn and initial run came clear of disaster. One does not force twenty-inch wild brownies from cover on 6X tippet!

This was the first time fishing the 3″ Bougle`, so I had not been treated to the timbre of it’s voice. Mr. Beetle-eater remedied that in grand style, with half a dozen searingly musical runs to the cusp of my backing. That wonderful old Leonard taper protected the tippet beautifully!

It is important to play my trout hard, to use my tackle to it’s limits, and there is great satisfaction when vintage tackle that has served anglers for more years than I have drawn breath does so with such aplomb. I snapped my photo as that fellow recovered on the bottom of the cold, bright water, and thanked him for his spirit!