Warming Trend

We have come through the cold snap for the week, a day in the forties with even a bit of snow flying as we drove home from a little dinner and acoustic blues in Norwich last night. The weather is looking up, remaining spring-like with a couple of days of sunshine then a good rain expected over the weekend. Now this doesn’t mean that there won’t be overnight frosts and howling winds in April, this is the Catskills after all, but it is good news.

I should be tying flies this morning, really I should. There’s a collection I began putting together as a donation to the Catskill Museum, and those flies will not tie themselves. Honestly though, there’s no rush, and after the longest, coldest, most consistently difficult winter of my retirement years, I figure I’m entitled to simply relax and enjoy a few nice days.

I am still enjoying a bit of reading in the early hours of the mornings, today caught me laughing at Sparse Grey Hackle, and I’m glad that those precious hours are so much more relaxed now that the grasp of winter has relaxed it’s hold. I received a good book recommendation out of the past last week, a plug from none other than the late Dana Lamb, and I’m awaiting that book’s arrival. It’s a classic salmon fishing tome, “Six Salmon Rivers and Another” by George Frederick Clarke, and the search enthused by Lamb’s words took me all the way north to Nova Scotia to locate a copy. I love reading about the classic age of salmon fishing, something I will never have the chance to explore first hand.

I am amazed at the prices some ask for angling books, any out-of-print books for that matter. Not long ago a friend mentioned a Hoagy Carmichael book that I enjoyed. He was looking for a copy but complained of the thousand-dollar price tag he had encountered. I told him I thought I could find him a brand new, slip cased copy for about $75, and I did. He was overjoyed, and I am still shaking my head at the gaul of some dealer somewhere that I expect is still holding out for a wealthy and uninformed buyer.

There’s a chance my book might arrive by the weekend, and I hope it does. The closer we get to the beginning of the dry fly season the busier my mornings will become!