Six Days… and More

So here we go, down to the last few days of the dry fly angler’s purgatory, or maybe the next to the last week, or…

I awakened to rainfall, and I soon discovered that the Red Gods had invited the forecasters to throw their science to the winds of fate once more. An inch and a half of rain in 36 hours is the current prediction, followed by a chance at two to six inches of snow as we work our way to the weekend. Yes sir, an early spring to be sure!

Dennis Menscer called me yesterday after a drive to Roscoe and back. He told me he counted fishermen in the Beaver Kill all the way from Roscoe to the stacked roadways. I had thought of giving it a try until I heard his report, confident that the cloudy day wasn’t going to boost the water temperature enough to matter. It was good in some way to hear that there were still enough of the faithful out to celebrate the tradition of Opening Day, and the sun did finally make an appearance; just before it set below the mountains to our west.

I had spent the morning sitting across from my cardiologist telling me that my recent passing chest pains carried no concerns for my heart, and that he was retiring this year and going fishing himself. I should have asked him if any of the other doctors in his group were fly fishermen. I have a tradition of my own to keep up.

I have always liked for my doctors to share the passion to some extent, if for no other reason than to allow me to feel they understand what my lifestyle and passion demands. You’ve gotta keep me wading and casting guys, that is a given.

The rain was kind enough to pause for me to go out and hook up the drift boat this morning, as I had to take it for the annual trailer inspection. The ways things are looking, I am going to get more use out of it this year.

Though it doesn’t look like a good weekend for fishing, there is the late Mike Canazon’s Catskill Cane Revival gathering in Roscoe Saturday morning. Bamboo aficionados, whether seasoned veterans or curious newcomers, will get together to cast some rods, whetting our appetites for the season we must continue to so patiently await. In the past, this little event has allowed opportunities to cast rods by all manner of makers, including some classics. Dennis and I talked about the selection of rods he plans to bring along, and I suggested that his hollowbuilt 8-foot five weight simply had to be among them. That model is the quintessential Catskill fly rod in my book, capable of the performance to fish all of our rivers effectively. We will be casting in the Roscoe Central School’s gymnasium from nine until Noon. The address is 6 Academy Street, Roscoe, NY.

Despite the weather, something keeps tugging at me to tie a few flies. I have thousands by now, perhaps tens of thousands. I know there are too many to count. There is one big storage box with older flies dating from my first efforts as a fly tyer. They haven’t been fished in decades of course, not since my skills improved and I wandered into the fascination of fly design. There was a brief period when I tied patterns out of books, sometimes substituting materials for those I didn’t have and perhaps failed to find at the little fly shops I frequented. We all more or less start out that way.

It did not take long for me to start picking up bugs from the streams I fished and noticing that having the perfect color dubbing and hackle for a sulfur pattern in this or that fly tying book did not necessarily lead to my flies matching those bugs. The wonder of Nature and all of her variety of life taught me from the beginning to use my eyes and mingle the furs and feathers in my growing store of fly-tying materials to get closer to what I saw when I plucked a freshly hatched mayfly from the surface of Gunpowder Falls or the Yellow Breeches.

As a student of flyfishing history, there are times that I want to replicate a classic fly pattern, to tie it exactly like the famous dead guy that created it a century or more ago. There is a satisfaction in learning where we came from as anglers, as well as a little special rush when a good trout takes a classic Catskill dry fly and reaches for the sky. It is a bit sad that, with the fantastic growth of our best loved sport, fewer people are even aware of it’s beginnings, and the accomplishments of the generations of anglers who came before them.

Even when I design a “new” fly for my own fishing, I pay homage to the past, and I look to those pioneers of angling for inspiration. It is often said that there is nothing new in fly tying, and there is great truth in that. Though any of us can have an original idea and follow through with it, the chances always favor the fact that someone else has had that same thought and put thread to hook to see what they could do with it.

Appreciating the history of flyfishing is what led me here to the Catskills, and I am fortunate to honor that history every time I cast a fly with a bamboo fly rod or hear the ringing song of a trout spinning the arbor of a classic spring and pawl reel! Honoring and appreciating that history is a large part of the passion for me.