It finally looks like winter this morning, more than two months into the great void. So far, this much talked about first winter storm has not hit Crooked Eddy too hard. It is still snowing though.

The Weather Channel was all abuzz about double digit snowfall in New York and Pennsylvania, but we have nothing like that here. I was missing the snow as Christmas came and went, but I don’t need a foot of it to bring a smile.

The specter that is still hovering involves storm number two, expected to bring more snow to begin the week and then rain and warmer temperatures midweek. Catskill anglers, and all who love these rivers would heartily prefer a flood-free season.

I would like to see a couple of little warming trends each month now until spring. Ideally, that would give me a day or two during each of winter’s remaining months to get out and wander along a riverbank, with a little hope that something spotted might intercept the swing of my fly. Time to keep working with the movement flies I have designed, and perhaps even devise another.

Right now, I am in the midst of the annual lull in my fly tying. I finished out the year 2023 with a few ideas, and now I am taking it easy for a while and enjoying my winter reading.

I missed the first winter fly tying session at the Museum yesterday, and I hear that quite a few of our Guild tyers showed up, despite the snowstorm bearing down upon us. I really didn’t feel up to it and didn’t want to spend the afternoon coughing at my fellow fly tyers. I’m on my doctor’s third suggestion to beat this bronchitis, and I really hope it works before the next little gathering in two weeks.

The books are keeping me connected to bright waters for now, although most of the best ones are older volumes which speak of days long gone. I do tend to smile at the fact that our Catskill rivers have continued, something not expected in many of the angling writings penned after WWII. Despite our environmental progress, there are still great challenges ahead, lest the current generation be the last to experience the wonder of wild trout rising to a mayfly hatch.

For my morning reading today, I savored an old classic penned by the late Eugene V. Connett. The little book entitled “Magic Hours” held a pair of tales, the titled story and one called “Secret Waters”. He told of a Long Island meadow stream, spring fed, and briskly cold in August, and the wonderful wild brook trout he caught there.

Small streams fed by limestone springs have a magical allure, and I wandered along many of them during the years I lived in Southcentral Pennsylvania. There was always that hope of discovering something special!

Sadly, I never found a real pot-of-gold at the end of any of those limestone rainbows. Man’s talent for polluting, bulldozing, and generally destroying such treasures is no secret, and yet I strive to retain just a bit of hope in my heart.

There is another classic old volume on my bookshelf that tells of a forgotten region of limestone fed streams, and that leads me toward dreaming once more. The area is still farm country, and I cannot help but wonder if a few of those forgotten waters still run clear and cold, the homes of precious forgotten strains of wild trout. If man has not seen fit to bring the ruination he so often has, perhaps a tour with a light cane rod and a stream thermometer could reveal at least a hint of the magic revealed in the words of a gentle, long departed angler scribe.

Oh how I would love to find a secret gem, where an old man might cast a dry fly in January, February and March! Too much to ask in these times I am certain. Secret waters are a myth in these days of rabid information… or are they?

I tallied up my fly-tying log this morning to see exactly what I accomplished this past year. The total, as titled above, came out somewhat below my average retirement production. Perhaps I’m getting old.

It is true that I did log one hundred thirteen days on the water in 2023, though since it is my custom to tie a few flies in the mornings before heading out to the river, that cannot be used as an excuse. One hundred ten dozen is a significant number of flies in any case, particularly for one who no longer ties commercially.

Experimentation and a bit of inventiveness is certainly a factor, as is my interest in the history of trout flies, both leading to the production of a good quantity of patterns. Of course, something on the order of 98 percent of the flies born in my vise are dry flies, for that is squarely where my passions lie.

As far as my winter goals, the Davidson Special is certainly a priority. Mahlon Davidson’s classic, dubbed with fox dyed with willow bark, strikes me as an excellent imitation for the Green Drake. It’s delicacy should be a primary trigger for the most heavily pressured trout of the season. I hope I find enough of those cherished flies upon the water this spring to fish the pattern with confidence!

I have already prepared the various dubbing blends and tied samples for the expansion of my A.I. series, flies inspired by the late John Atherton, so that winter project has been slated as complete. The Translucence Series may receive some adjustment in shade, just to see if I can improve upon their initial effectiveness.

There is another idea lurking in my thoughts, a cross between a 100-Year Dun and a twenty-some year-old pattern I called the CDC Outrigger Dun. Perhaps I should play with that a bit since it has come to mind…

It seems I have whiled away another winter’s morning, savoring the last volume of my cherished Dana Lamb library, beginning a pair of Gordon Quills, and putting down these thoughts. Only ninety-seven more to go…

Welcome to a New Year! January is teasing with the barest dusting of snow at daybreak, just a trace upon the grass, though Point Mountain’s eastern flank brings a smile to the boy still deep inside me.

In truth, there was a glimpse of white up high when I drove over to the rod shop on Saturday, but our village remains in somber grays and muted greens. I miss the snow! December has passed and still the dreary landscape greets my eyes each day. That inner boy is calling, recalling days when schools were closed and sledding made spirits bright!

Mountain snowfall brings more than smiles at their glistening beauty, for they supply the groundwater that charges the springs which feed the rills that become the brooks that nurse the trout waters from which old anglers such as I draw life itself!

The late autumn and winter rains have oft been gentle, and thus good for the rivers, but there is no substitute for the slow drip of a mountain snowpack tight to the bosom of Mother Earth.

I long to walk along the genesis of bright waters, to watch the ice dripping close to the earth, just as I long to wade these rivers of my heart and cast a fly. If it must be winter, then let it be.