I’ve been reclining in front of the heater with Dana Lamb’s first volume “On Trout Streams and Salmon Rivers”, sipping coffee and wandering along the rivers of my own memory. It is cold and snowy outdoors where those memories lead, though the day might just peek above the freezing mark they say.
As the new light enters the sky my gaze welcomes the mountains to the North and East – a simple pleasure my retirement here has granted me. The price is five months of winter; the treasure seven months of angling with the dry fly.
Spring often comes fitfully, teasing with a few early sunlit days, feelings of actual warmth that penetrate my jacket and cap; even the sight of flies buzzing above the river! Such days are meant solely to increase the longing it seems, for the spirit they awaken never finds the true solace of the rise of a trout to the fly. When that moment does come, it often steals upon the scene when least expected.
Picture a swollen river and legs shivering from both current and cold, the day dark with howling winds. The looked-for hour comes, then passes, the angler’s reward for hope and endurance – more waiting. The aching want struggles to outlast the elements and dwindling possibilities and then… The first glimpse of wings fluttering amidst the roiling waters, the heartbeat quickens, and at last a subtle ring appears where the current lessens along the far riverbank. Now, a step deeper into the icy flow, the rod flexing stiffly in the air, and the line loosed toward the new beginning!
Once that blissful day arrives, it is too often followed by a return to deepening cold, growling winds and hazardous flows, though every few seasons the progression of spring continues with smiling days. Two rises tomorrow, a significant hatch the day after, and suddenly the fishing becomes expected. Pray that this year the Red Gods will smile with that rare benevolence!
Bright Waters Catskill 