Afternoon Winds

I have kept an eye on the water temperatures, looking for that eventual trend when daily peaks drop into the ideal range for trout. The seventy-degree sunshine offers a very pleasant afternoon on the river, at least if the Catskill Mountain winds lie down.

It is forty-five degrees here in Crooked Eddy, perhaps an hour past sunrise. The wind forecast smiles with that enticing “5 to 10 miles per hour” tale that tends to draw me eagerly to the big river, but forecasts here often deceive. Local weather forecasters have a nice track record for temperatures and rainfall, though mountain winds seem to be their Achilles heel. Days are often a few degrees warmer than the forecast during clear weather, and that warming gets the air moving unpredictably, I guess.

There are plenty of Isonychia dries in my fly boxes, along with some Hebes, olives and ants. Any of those can appear this time of the year and tempt a good trout to the surface. Our Delaware rainbows love the isos and will come through the fast-moving water of the deep riffles to eat one, so there is always a chance for a surprise jolt even on the days I find no rises on the rivers’ wide expanse.

My eight-and-a-half foot pentagonal fly rod sits ready in it’s tube. It tends to find it’s way to the Delaware this time of year. Pittsburgh rodmaker Tim Zietak made this rod to order for me some years ago, with the big Delaware in mind. It seems happy casting either a five or six weight line, depending upon my mood and that pesky wind forecast. There is an early CFO IV reel nearby, spooled with one of Wulff’s Bamboo Special fly lines. This line carries a WF6F moniker, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. The front taper is extra-long and fine, taken from Lee Wulff’s Triangle Taper, which blends into a longer middle section before quickly tapering down to a very small diameter running line. In casting, I find they feel like a cross between a typical weight-forward and a classic double tapered line. They are very much a caster’s line.

The big pent really shined with that Bamboo Special on a windy afternoon on the lawn recently, laying out a long leader to 75 feet with little influence from that gusty wind, and I am anxious to try it on the water.

It is just about the right time to change over from my summer chest pack to my vest, but I may delay that until these final days of summer pass gently into memory. I mean, why change a good thing? I do need to change out the leader on that bamboo line though, something I should be doing rather than thinking about. There is time though, for the afternoon is hours away.

The pace of an angler’s seasons changes as do the hatches and rivers, winds and weather. In spring the urgency of our release from winter’s clutches drives us to be out early and stay late, even though spring hatches tend to be midday affairs. Summer can go either way, as early mornings call during certain weather patterns and afternoons in others. Many still remain committed to fishing that last hour of daylight on into summer, but I am more of a daytime angler these days. I enjoy the natural beauty of the rivers and their sheltering mountains in daylight and searching for subtle clues which sometimes lead me to fine, old trout hunting stealthily. Late summer and early autumn is definitely an afternoon situation for me. That is when the seasonal mayflies are active, and I simply love the golden character of afternoon sunlight at this season, as it brings fire to the changing foliage. Retirement is a blissful thing, and I give thanks every day for it!