Sixty Days

Sixty Days; the number seems to signify a familiar sentence does it not? We begin the second week of this February with another day of calm sunshine and hope to exceed fifty degrees. That is not the water temperature though, oh no, that hovered just above freezing at the nine o’clock hour.

The gamble is plain. Will the river respond to the sunlight as it has these past few cooler, sunny days and flirt with a temperature that proves sufficient to awaken a trout from winter’s slumber? They must eat from time to time, and this looks to be the best opportunity. A heavy snowfall could replace our unseasonably warm sunshine on Tuesday, with rain to follow. Doubtless winter will return; the sentence will be served.

The sun was welcome, shining on bright water, and I rejoiced as I waded into the clear flow of the Beaver Kill. The Kiley lofted my Copper Fox and sent it on to begin it’s search for that one trout. I worked on down the run and the pool, hopeful for that tug, but it was not to be, despite the full sunlight bathing the water.

I moved to another pool once I had worked through that first one. There I continued, taking in the fresh air and enjoying the warmth of the afternoon and the rhythm of the cast and swing.

My senses awakened at the jolt, and the slack line slipped through my fingers, just as planned. I raised the rod and tightened gradually, awash now in the grace of a good fish fighting the pull of the cane. I was fooled completely, certain that leviathan had come calling, but I would soon know the Red Gods’ deceit.

This was a good brown I scooped in the net, but my fly had found purchase amidships. I removed it carefully, and he shot away from the shallows with plenty of vigor. How that fly found the trout’s flank on a dead drift swing I will never know.

The stream gage at Cooks Falls topped thirty-eight degrees this afternoon, the pinnacle for the past couple of months. This should have been the kind of day to get me through that sixty-day sentence. Indeed, I treasured my time on the river, though I would have liked the excitement of that single tug to have lasted all the way to the net.