Another milestone passed on the journey through the anglers off-season. January has brought our first snowstorms, plenty of cold rain, but also it’s share of milder days; enough to make us think that winter is letting us off easy. February though, brings it’s own set of challenges.
Though the turning of the calendar bring us closer to the promise of spring, this the shortest month, tends to bring us the largest share of winter’s wrath. But then, there are sometimes compensations.
Admittedly, my memories of so many wonderful little episodes are burgeoned by decades living south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and even my more than two decades in Southcentral Pennsylvania have added more.
In my mind, the February warmup is an actual event, generally coming when my tolerance for, my very survival through another winter hangs in the balance. Though the second month never guaranteed this respite, there are cherished memories from the times that a small handful of days rescued me from despair.
There remains a special picture of the Little J, where one of those late February events lasted into the first days of March. I found a nice cabin to rent to take advantage of the peak before winter weather returned with a vengeance, living three days close to bright water. Blue skies, sunshine, even air temperatures reaching the sixties called me to the river I had not visited since summer. There were no more than two or three trout actually caught, but ah the treasure of fishing!
There was another February day on that river, a very brief respite from winter’s grasp. A single day lingers in memory, my legs chilled deeply from hours of wading cold water, a spare serving of sunlight in the afternoon hours, and the still air touching sixty for a moment. Walking upriver toward the path that would lead me home, I saw the impossible, dimples in the tail of the upstream pool. Instead of heading home and warming my legs with the truck’s heater, I warmed the heart inside with a lovely and challenging interlude of dry fly magic.
As I have moved ever north, I have unwillingly surrendered such cherished gifts from Februarys past. The glories of the Catskill rivers are not displayed in winter. This is my sixth winter here in Crooked Eddy, and though I have watched the ice flowing on to the Delaware day after day, there has been one magical moment, a singular gift from all of those Februarys of my past: a fifty-one degree day, sunshine to caress my check though tempered by a twenty mile-per-hour wind. I found rewards both tangible and spiritual that February day, and it’s memory carries me through!
Bright Waters Catskill 