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I was fishing yesterday evening, hoping for a taste of the kind of action that has been largely missing from this spring season. The air was warm, the river still a bit higher than ideal for fishing effectively, there were even a few insects showing at a distance. I saw one very hard rise. Now I peppered that entire area of faster water with accurate casts and good drifts, but the fish that had wanted something so bad didn’t want anything more; at least, not what I was offering. As I conceded and wound the fly line back onto my reel, I saw it. Out there, beyond my reach with my chosen tackle at this level of river flow. God, I know what lives there…

We, and I mean a very large area of New York’s Southern Tier covering all of these Catskill Mountains and more, are under a serious flood watch as I write this. More rain. More, with the Delaware reservoirs still spilling from last week’s downpours, and most rivers still high for ideal wading. Well, it’s a hell of a lot better than a continuation of the drought.

I’m wavering, half determined to rise and grab my waders to try to get in a few hours on the river before the storms begin. Though these past two days have been hot and summer-like, it is still spring, so I don’t truly have that summer itch for early morning fishing. I know my luck too. I am far more likely to find no activity and get drenched with a sudden storm. You gotta have that itch, that sixth sense that says yeah, today. Go now!

This may be the toughest spring season I have had since I retired to these Catskills. We all have dry spells, but this one has staying power, and another band of drenching rains might just push my count of too much river to fish days right through to the beginning of summer. There are a lot of things good about this season though.

Foremost, there’s the fact that I am still alive and well and out there fishing when the rivers allow. I didn’t have a long expectation when I turned my back on the grind in 2018. Stress will kill you, and it had done a damned good job of killing me. Ever stumble over a stone and find yourself off balance at the edge of a precipice? Well, that was me. I regained my balance, walked away from the stress and the crazy. Cathy and I built a new little life here in these mountains that I love so deeply. I fish, you see.

Despite the slim pickings with my beloved Hendricksons, there have been a few special moments this spring. Every cast doesn’t end with a trophy fish brought to hand. I’d get tired of it quickly if that was the case. Sometimes the best experiences don’t end in victory. I spent a lot of time working on one supremely difficult fish this spring. Perhaps the epitome of those encounters was the last day I saw more than a handful of Hendricksons. It wasn’t a heavy hatch by any means, thin might be the best adjective. My foe was feeding in the middle of a very gnarly bit of cover. The wind was ridiculous, blowing whitecaps upstream and right into this trout’s lie. The few duns that drifted through the spot got bounced around and tossed back upstream a time or two by all of this, but that old warrior would just wait for one to recover from a wave and then suck it down with a smile! I did everything I could do with a fly rod, a sweet old Leonard, to put my Hendrickson in his face with a good drift, but nothing was good enough. There can be a lot of satisfaction in a dissatisfying experience like that.

I expect this dry spell will find it’s end eventually. I mean, this entire wild and wet spring has been about Nature healing these rivers. She heals them so they may heal us, the travelers who find solace amid the caress of their currents.

I’ll keep a favorite cane rod handy, and there are always plenty of trout flies around this place. I can slip out and be knee deep in a Catskill river in ten minutes, and I’m pretty darned happy about that state of affairs.