It is the sixteenth of October, and the last flies out of my vise were swinging flies. The reel sitting at my left hand this morning holds a just cleaned intermediate line and leader. Yes, I have little faith that I will find the usually reliable autumn hatch of olive mayflies and a rising trout or two, yet I will begin my search in a couple of hours despite these misgivings.
In the four previous seasons since my retirement, I have enjoyed a dry fly season lasting until the third or fourth week of October. My last opportunity for 2023 came on the fifth, with two missed fish sipping amid a scattering of tiny winged ants. I have witnessed nothing since that even the hope in my heart could guess to be a rise of trout.
I am not ready to retire the dry fly for the season, not in the least, but each day upon the river I am drawn closer to the conclusion that, for this year, the time has passed.
Here in the Catskills, the season’s finale is a hard reality, for try as I might, I have found no dry fly activity from late autumn through early spring. Thus, I cling to every moment as a season winds down. Five and a half months of winter await, and I will resist it until hope is extinguished!
...until spring at last returns with the Quill Gordons as it’s herald.
Bright Waters Catskill 