The sun was out when I reached the river, and the wind the forecast had warned of was still keeping time elsewhere. I had prepared for the rain that was said to come later, but I hoped the warmth and stillness would last.
I carried my old Orvis “99”, rigged with an upscale CFO and one of those modern half-heavy lines, a WF6.5F you could say. That line loads the old HCH rated “99” fully, and the combination will most certainly handle the wind.
I knew I was early for any fishing that might develop. Yes, the Catskills are still in that wishing stage of spring, with lovely sunny days in mid-March having bowed to cold, damp and windy during the first half of April. The only way to meet the first hatches of the season is to be there, to walk the rivers, stand in their currents and wait. I fished a little along a protected bank, feeling overly warm in the rain jacket I had worn in deference to the forecast, but nothing stirred. Strange thing I am sure from the trout’s perspective, a fine Gordon Quill perched on the surface, when there has been no sign of a mayfly for five and a half months.
Now all of the old literature will tell you to expect those Epeorus flies by eleven o’clock, but nearing one none of them had shown, so I ambled back to the water I had hopes of fishing to sit down and wait. Just as the hope was welling in my heart, the clouds began to move through over the mountains.
With that wonderful sun vanished, it felt cooler, and the breeze strengthened just a little with the first tiny shower of raindrops. I rose, stretched and sat again, passed some time with dreamy thoughts of days like that pictured above, dark skies, but with mayflies by the thousands in the drift!
After that first little shower the sun began to reappear, jousting with each new bank of clouds for mastery of the sky. The clouds proved more valiant, and the Red Gods claimed dominion over the angler’s best part of the afternoon. The squalls came in force for the next hour and a half, each one building on the former’s prelude. Standing in the river, hoping for a reason to cast during one little spell between them, the sudden wind came so hard it nearly knocked me off my feet!
I recalled one fly shop’s morning report had called for hail in the afternoon, and I laughed at the thought of being knocked silly by a hailstone while sitting on a downed tree in the river, waiting for a calm moment and a fish. I sat there laughing at each thundering gust of wind and rain for quite a while.
Bright Waters Catskill 