It is cold and quiet here in Crooked Eddy, with a fresh dusting of snow. North, East and West of Hancock the rivers are receding after some three inches of rain. But for the gift of warmer air from this storm travelling from the south, we could be covered in a heavy white blanket destined to endure until spring.
The Beaver Kill crested eight and a half feet above it’s normal level yesterday, well into it’s official flood stage. It’s peak flow has been halved this morning, though it will take some days before the familiar gentleness of a trout river returns.
As the rains came, I sat and worked a beeswax polish along the subtle tapers of two bamboo fly rods, my fingers remembering their feel when ignited by Nature’s magic and electricity. Though it has been winter since November’s dawn here in the Catskills, the seasons of practicality and the calendar will coincide in just two days. Christmas will follow closely, and my annual 100-day countdown ’till a hoped for dry fly season will commence on New Year’s Eve.
With less than two weeks remaining in this 2023, my log totals one hundred eight dozen flies tied, short of my typical production. Then again, this is the time of year I often tie flies for distant friends, so that total should rise, though surely I will not log the more than twenty dozen required to reach my mark.
We had a little break on Saturday, taking advantage of welcome fifty-degree sunshine to drive north to listen to our friend Nate Gross play his incomparable guitar. A master of electric blues, rock and anything else one might want to hear when leading his band, he amazed alone with an acoustic guitar in the packed and cheery Norwich pub. It’s good to get some of that energy to help us through winter!
Today I’ll spend with Lamb and Schwiebert, and perhaps wrap a few hackles to begin to fill one of those boxes for my friends. I attempt to guess when they might arrive, that I might present them with the correct flies for that turn of the season. Quills and Hendricksons or March Browns and Sulfurs? Well, they don’t often come calling until well into May…
The two I am thinking of have the limestone waters at their doorsteps, though the fishing in that lovely valley has suffered over time. There is hope on the horizon, at least in the hearts of anglers, that the halcyon days on Falling Spring, Big Spring and the fair Letort might one day return. I hope it comes to pass!
Thoughts of limestone springs cannot help but invoke my longing for the promise of dry fly fishing which lurked there throughout the year. Winter midges, olives on the snow, and Ed Shenk’s smiling tales of fishing a sulfur hatch in every month of the year – such are the memories that tug at my emotions.
These days I winter here, and if the snow and ice fails to turn the mountain ridges hazardous too soon, I may walk there with a shotgun and a quick eye. After New Years, I begin to watch the parade of winter storms, seeking those faint promises of southerly flows and warming trends. If I catch one right, I hope to string up an old bamboo rod and swing a favorite fly along the rocky river bottom. Could this be the moment a big old warrior awakens to ease his hunger?
Bright Waters Catskill 