January

Nature has once more pulled her white coverlet over Crooked Eddy, and I am tying flies with dreams of May…

Caddisflies have my concentration this morning, specifically the little CDX I designed years ago for the prolific Shadflies. Unfamiliar? Well, the name depends upon which valley of the Catskills, in which watershed you find them.

They were the first insects I encountered on the storied Beaver Kill more than three decades ago. Shadflies, named for the timing of their hatching, those weeks which usually brought the first shad migrations into the Delaware River system. The entomologists know the species as Brachycentrus appalachia, and if you’re wandering the West Branch or Mainstem of the Delaware you’ll find Apple caddis.

Up on the Beaver Kill all those years ago, I had found patterns for light shadflies and dark shadflies in the bins in the Dette’s front parlor. One of those lovely flies fooled my very first big Beaver Kill brown, but I wasn’t up to the task of landing him on my introduction to Barnhart’s Pool.

On the front porch of the bed and breakfast inn that housed me that very first trip, I blended a touch of dubbing with the bright green and caramel undertones, crafting a pair of Gary LaFontaine’s Emergent Sparkle Pupas before the rising breeze sought to blow my little store of materials away. Those two flies were the key to an epic day on the Acid Factory Run, and thus began my love affair with Catskill rivers and the Shadflies!

The memories come flooding back which each turn of the thread, and shudders run up my spine with every wrap of hackle…

It’s a May morning, sunny, and I decided almost too late to visit a deserted reach of the Beaver Kill. The river here is a beautiful mix of bright, bubbling currents and mirror scape. As if destined to greet me, a good trout rises out where those currents blend. An eighteen CDX Shadfly has already been knotted to my tippet.

The fish takes on my second cast, shows his mettle with powerful runs and a signature leap. Gorgeous and strong when I release him and begin my walk upstream, the river quiet once more.

Along the flat border current of an edge seam, I find a soft and dainty ring! Shaking with anticipation, I work my way into deeper flows, and the cane flexes to propel the fly to Valhalla…

The gentle sipping rise becomes an eruption, and the forty-five year old bamboo arches heavily, bringing the Hardy to full chorus! For long moments we battle – the trout with incredible power, and I with careful leverage and finesse, until at last he is mine. Burnished bronze, gold and pearlescent white, made by God with the grace of Nature’s spotted palette, deep flanks heaving in the net, and I bow as I realize her flanks are better than two feet long…

Such are the memories of the shadflies.