Hot weather has dominated these Catskills for the first half of July, there is no question about that. There is a little relief in the forecast, but for the most part the heat will continue.
Usually, July’s hot weather brings good fishing, but this first half for 2025 has been hit or miss. The summer heat is good for my style of fishing, stalking trout out hunting for a good meal, but just when things started to pick up in that regard, those trout seemed to vanish. When the fish change habits, the old angler has to change his tactics. I did that yesterday, though I probably should have tried it a week ago.
I went deep into stealth mode, dressing for the afternoon heat, wading deep, and downsizing flies. I worked some water that looked more than simply inviting but offered no signs of life. I kept at it of course, moving with agonizing slowness and placing long, delicate casts where my instincts said they should go.
Wild trout play their part in tune with the Red Gods of course, and they couldn’t resist taking a few jabs at my psyche. Fifty yards into my deep-water creep, I heard a little plop back upstream. Ah, so there is life up there… This wasn’t the situation which allowed me to back track, so I kept working, sticking with my plan.
I was a couple of hours into my hunt and made several casts to an old favorite haunt. No sign of life once more. My mind wandered back to the early years of my retirement, when this place was red hot. I took some great fish during the hatch season and even more when summer arrived! There seemed to always be a big old brownie in this location. I didn’t always catch one there, but there was almost always one there to match wits with. The spot had gone cold a few years ago, and I mean ice cold. I had not seen any evidence of a trout using that hide for something like five seasons. I often wondered if there had been some bit of unseen cover that had washed away in high water, some way that Nature had changed that lie to make it unattractive to trout.
All of this history ran through my mind as I creeped along and worked my casts around the edges and then deep into the hole. Nothing. No surprise. One cast drifted my fly along the edge very tight to the bank as I squinted in the high sunshine to follow it’s drift. I never saw a take, but slowly saw the long leader start to bow as if the fly was no longer floating free. Tightening gently, I felt resistance and raised the rod to a boil in the calm surface.
This was a big fish, and I got him started toward me. When he bulled against my pressure, I made the fatal mistake. I held my ground and reeled up the slack line to get him on the reel, and he used that moment of stalemate to wrap me around something. I felt the tippet break and the line go slack.
I do like to play big fish from the reel. Loose fly line has a knack for tangling on anything available, even itself. Line management is one of the little difficulties of fishing fine and far off. Getting that slack line back onto the reel and out of trouble is important. Did I break a Cardinal rule? Well, everything in fishing has some flux depending upon the situation, but it usually pays to keep a fish coming away from any cover you hooked him in. I thought I had him in a safe spot, but I didn’t.
I have never given up on that particular trout lie, despite five seasons of wondering why the fish seemed to have abandoned it. Maybe time has let me take a few things for granted, and maybe I wasn’t giving my fishing the full concentration required in the moment. I will be looking for that cagey old fellow the next time I fish that reach of river though! You can bet on it.
Bright Waters Catskill 