The Clouds Have It

There are clouds at daybreak this morning and, as much as I have enjoyed these last calm, sunlit days of summer, they are welcome. It is fifty degrees here in Crooked Eddy.

I hope the clouds will urge the late season mayflies to play out their life cycles this afternoon, to ascend toward that leaden sky and tempt the wild trout of the Delaware to feed. There have been too few such dramas of late!

I traced a new path yesterday, walking a wide lovely pool along the lower East Branch Delaware. The afternoon sun was warm once more, the surroundings beautiful with a tinge of color hinting at autumn in the golden glow of that sunlight. I had searched upriver and down, finding nothing to draw further interest, and had taken a stance near mid-pool to survey and wait. Another angler joined me, cordial and considerate, and we spoke briefly about the lack of any activity. He asked if I was headed downriver, and I replied that I had just come from there, so he nodded and headed down.

I saw him cast a few times in a couple of areas, but from the distance I could see no rises. Trying spots where memory held a trout? Eventually he returned and I asked him. He reported a handful of trout had risen and related that he felt his casting had kept them out of reach. As we spoke, he told me that two or three were still rising, and suggested I have a try at them, volunteering to show me just where they were holding. I was a bit stunned at his act of kindness.

We walked down and, sure enough, just beyond a ripple of current swelled from a submerged boulder which I had earlier scouted, there was now a trout picking tiny morsels from the glide. A few Cahills had appeared during the past half hour, and I had knotted a 100-Year Dun to my tippet accordingly. Rather than change to a tiny olive, I offered the Cahill once, the smooth power of my Delaware Pent laying it gently on the edge of that glide. The trout rose, I paused, then lifted it free of current and trout!

Analysis can be the bane of the angler, but after trying a couple of other flies once that trout resurfaced, I fell headlong into that trap. My conclusion in the end was that I had misjudged a refusal as a clean take, thus taking the fly away while the trout was visibly beneath it. He had resumed feeding within a few minutes, though clearly alerted I felt. I would never come close to touching him again.

I kept at it for perhaps an hour, there being nothing else to draw my attention, while my impromptu host worked his way upstream. We nodded goodbye to the river and walked out together. He remarked he was recently retired, and I saluted retirement as a wonderful condition that allowed anglers such as ourselves to fish all week! The one thing we neglected was a formal introduction.

Thanks to this stranger, I had an enjoyable interlude with a worthy opponent. I had thanked him for sharing his fish as we exited, but I regret that neither of us dropped our names.

I confess I have become too accustomed to rude, boorish behavior from my fellow fly fishers, to the point that I tend to shun conversation and contact. It seems I forgot how to act in the presence of a gentleman angler. I hope we cross paths again.