Three for Two

It has been refreshing these past two mornings, with temperatures in the fifties and that first breath of autumn’s preview. The rivers continue to drop, and I write this morning wishing the overnight rainfall we were promised had given them a freshening as these two mornings have given me. Maybe today the promise will be fulfilled…

There is a special rod that was conceived for extreme low water conditions such as this, a rod I asked simply to do the impossible. My idea was an eight-foot three weight, a taper to fish fine and far off with my battery of summer flies with the greatest delicacy, a rod that could handle trophy fish without risk to the fairy light tips such delicacy of presentation requires. Who else but the Catskills’ master rodmaker Dennis Menscer could accomplish this feat?

When Dennis presented me with the finished rod last February I was shaking, and not from the cold wind whipping snowflakes from the skies. The anticipation built all through spring until summer and it’s most demanding fishing conditions arrived. The rod passed the test last summer, bringing browns of twenty and twenty-one inches to hand and I was ecstatic with it’s combination of grace and power.

Yesterday presented greater challenges. A cool breeze came intermittently, with gusts to challenge so light a rod. The Red Gods played their games, and I missed two good fish as I tensed watching wind shortened drifts. The sun finally made a full appearance as midday approached, and the water grew quiet.

A week ago, I had watched a few scattered rises, unable to find any trace of insect life on the surface. I glimpsed a brace of small mayflies flying above the river, too distant to even hope to identify. Later, at my tying bench, I considered the writings of the late Ed Van Put and his steadfast reliance upon the Adams dry fly any time he found trout rising over a miraculous angling career. I tied half a dozen of my poster style Adams dries, visible to my aging eyes at distance with the reflective properties of their pale gray Antron wing post. Standing in the river wishing for even one small rise in the diminished flow, I thought of Van Put and his Adams, and tied my little poster to my tippet. It seems Ed sent me a little of his Adams magic.

Cast near the bank I had been fishing without response, the tiny fly drifted perhaps a foot before the head of a large trout splashed up and devoured it! I was caught off guard, frantically wrangling loose line as the light rod assumed a deep, throbbing bend.

Oh, it was a wonderful show, that great brown running hard and pushing a bow wake in the shallow water once I turned him away from the deeper cover. Dennis’ perfect taper worked him hard yet protected the fine tips of the bamboo while the St. George regaled with it’s chorus!

So how does a three-weight bamboo fly rod handle two feet of wild Catskill brown trout? Perfectly if it’s Menscer’s masterpiece!