The Cree hackle catches light as I wind it round the base of the canted wing, bringing a smile and remembrances of moments on the water. Another pair of flies completed for a Christmas fly box.
I cannot tell when my friend will travel north; he never comes when I tell him the time is right. This year I am working my way through the seasonal hatches to cover all the bases. First came a pair of delicate Catskill ties, the first ones, Gordon Quills. My A.I. Hendrickson 100-Year Duns joined them, and this morning Translucence March Brown 100-Year Duns – those of the smiling Cree hackles! This box might have been filled by now, had I not continued to struggle with the cough.
December has been relatively mild, our only snow coming in little dustings windblown from the Great Lakes. If not for my bad reaction when chilled air enters my lungs, I would have hunted many days this month. Coughing fits would scare any deer within half a mile though, and I dare not risk it getting worse.
March Browns have made me think of May, when the forests have that first blush of brilliant green, and the heavy hatches of the quills and the Hendricksons have passed. These big pale yellow flies are fine fare for a hunting trout, making for joyful days for this stalking angler. It is great fun to tie a big dry fly on and stalk from run to pool. Once the hatch has started one needn’t look for the flies bouncing on the current, watching instead for boils or rises amid the tumult.
Many a fine brown, with wide shoulders and spotted flanks has come to net courtesy of these sporadic mayflies! I can see the action before me, the sun warming away the morning chill, and there where a rock or fallen limb breaks the faster current I turn when I hear the plunk of a rise nearby. The sound provides direction and my eyes, and decades of May days astream, pick out the locations. Often the first cast to land true brings a heavy bow in the rod, though sometimes a fish requires more seduction.
If the dun fails to excite him to the surface, there’s a wiggling CDC emergent morsel to turn his attention which follows.
My thoughts return to one old heavyweight who situated himself beside a sunken ball of broken branches, piled along a deep bank by spring floodwaters. He was careful in his perusal of the drifting fare, and I had to trim away half the wing of my emerger to suit his tastes. He bored down into that mass of wood and we found stalemate for a few moments! Luckily the tippet held and I turned his head at last to open water.
I hope these flies make memories like that for my dear friend!
Bright Waters Catskill 