Weather

I cringed somewhat when I observed today’s forecast. It is a day before Memorial Day Weekend begins, boasting it’s temperatures in the forties with a side of wind and rain. Cringe-worthy for a fly angler in the prime of the season, though it triggered a memory… and a smile.

It was very close to this date, and easily fifteen years ago. The word had gone out regarding the progression of the hatches so far that spring, and I had set my vacation and travelled North to West Branch Angler. The Drakes were due! I was then fully entranced by that spectacle, a card-carrying member of the Cult of the Green Drake, and I had arrived when the mystics predicted the miracle. An unseasonable cold, wet front then descended upon the Catskills, and tore my heart out!

I remember wading the river on a day that would barely touch forty-five degrees, sunless and damp, wishing for an extra layer of insulation. My friend stopped to check in on my progress, and I worked to muster a little cheer in my voice as I answered his greeting. Very little.

Sometime in mid-afternoon I blinked twice as I stared at one particular thread of upstream current, for there was a tall-winged creature riding through the mist – the first Green Drake! Mother Nature had commanded that it was their time, and the mayflies seemed powerless to refuse her orders, forty-five degrees and be damned.

That was a fine and amazing fishing day, the flies coming in sparse waves as they were wont to do in those years, on and off throughout the afternoon. There was no one save I on that reach of river, no one to witness the event. The great flies struggled to the surface to be quelled by the cold, damp air, so they drifted a few hundred feet when not interrupted.

The wild brown trout likewise ignored the dour day and stationed themselves throughout the river, each in it’s favorite subtle thread of current, and partook of the feast. More than a few found their menu interrupted by a tasty looking mayfly with a bite of it’s own!

I do not recall the minute details of that day, nor those of the next, quite similar day of cold, clammy angling perfection. Both brought a number of trophy size brownies to hand. They ran long and jumped high those trout, giving more than just reward for suffering the cold through my dreams of May sunshine. The weather improved later in that trip; the fishing could not have.

Of course, my memory recalls any number of cold, wet days upon the water, days when my perseverance received only the reward of solitude, of playing the game well. Such is the nature of angling, for it is always a challenge, not the least of which tends to be proffered by weather!