Old Friends

My first fishing day for autumn 2023, and so I reacquainted myself with and old friend. It has become my custom these past few years to begin and end my season along the Beaver Kill. It was my first Catskill river when I came to mecca thirty years ago, and there seems to always be more water to explore.

I carried the Leonard, appropriate for these environs – the most famous Catskill fly rod for the most celebrated Catskill river. A tiny olive 100-Year Dun, tied that morning, was knotted to the long, fine tippet, the little fly remarkably visible in the midday sunlight as it drifted down the glides.

There was a trout there, strange fellow, mostly sipping though jumping right out of the water once or twice. He looked to be around that foot-and-a-half range, a very respectable trout, and I wanted him. He came for the olive a couple of times, at least he seemed to, though I failed to touch him when I tightened. Micro drag perhaps. It is the rule of law on the glides.

Since he seemed so eager to leap for his dinner, I tried an Isonychia, and later a small hopper, but he eventually decided he didn’t care to be fished for. He was the only game in town on that pool, and so after waiting for a re-appearance that never came, I moved on.

The blue skies filled gradually with clouds, and by my last hour the transformation was complete, the deep gray afternoon had little resemblance to the brilliance of morning. I thought the heavy overcast ideal to produce a hatch, but nothing more than the occasional olive showed itself on the surface.

My little unnamed pool was quiet, save for a tiny dimple here and there, fingerlings that shunned the Isonychia that had found it’s place once more at the end of my leader. No choice but to return to the little olive I started the day with and hope.

Funny how a place can gather a bit of magic, and this little nothing of a pool has held more than expected for me these past five years. I was easing downstream a step at a time when I saw it, a single healthy rise a longish cast away. Two careful steps closer as I stripped more line from the old St. George and the cast was made.

It can be tough to pinpoint a trout in open water from a single rise. This fellow was no exception, so I added a foot or so to each cast until I felt I had the right line of drift. He came for it cleanly, and the old Leonard arched as he bore away to the cries of that classic Hardy, a good fish giving his best in the chilled and freshened current of autumn.

I was surprised at his slim profile and his length, just shy of twenty inches. While he seemed fit and strong, his slender form spoke of the challenge of a long hot summer of survival in the big river. “Go, fatten up” I thought as I slipped him back into the flow.