Seasonal Remembrances

Thinking this morning about seasons and the gradual waning of another Catskill Summer. Just about a month remains until the autumnal equinox arrives on September 22nd. Long range forecasts seem to give us a 50-50 chance as far as September being either wetter or drier than normal with temperatures like to be a little on the warmer side. If the Red Gods gave me a vote, I would favor wetter and cooler for the benefit to our rivers and their wild trout.

During the decades when I haunted Pennsylvania’s Cumberland Valley, late summer was hopper time. On any given afternoon I could tie on a Letort Hopper and wander the meadow of my choice, with my chances of fishing success being pretty good. A warm wind blowing through the meadow raised my expectations!

I recall a shaded nook in the Quarry Meadow on my home water of Falling Spring. I had designed a new hopper pattern, one that I would later send with a friend to Montana for trials during his summer guiding season on the Ruby River, and I knew there was a good fish frequenting that little nook. The approach and casting were difficult as expected. Big limestone spring trout don’t just rise out in the middle of the stream after all. No, fish like that one had to be earned, and I was anxious to try my new hopper on him if I found him at home.

It was a hot, still afternoon, and I didn’t see a rise back up under that old boy’s hidey hole. Picture a collection of fallen tree limbs and rocks deep back under the shade of a leaning old willow, with drooping limbs that demanded a low cast to shoot the fly beneath and far up into the cover, a one cast situation.

I scanned the streambed before entering the water. Scaring an unseen 6″ trout on my approach would be enough to eliminate any chance at the fish I wanted. On the way, a little whisper of breeze passed through the willow, something dropped, and a soft rise appeared way back in there! I took my time and worked my way into position for my one shot. Taking a breath to calm my nerves, I worked out enough line with my 7-foot fly rod and shot that hopper up under the willow limbs and deep into the hot zone. One solid plop later I tightened and immediately laid the rod down close to the surface to extricate that brownie from the rocks and limbs before he knew what was coming.

He found himself out in the sunlight and proceeded to tear up the weed beds while I switched angles to fight him over clean gravel. On this day, the good guy won. That brown was close to 20 inches long when I laid him along the length of my net. I think my grin was at least that wide!

Fishing early in the mornings and late in the evenings was typical during spring, summer and fall during the years I operated Falling Spring Outfitters. Winter was a morning fishing situation as darkness fell before I closed the shop at six each evening. On the edges of darkness, crickets were active, and a Letort Cricket often found itself tied to my leader. One summer evening stands out in memory.

I was working up through an upper meadow, carrying the 6’6″ three-weight rod I had built at Ed Shenk’s urging. A size 16 Letort Cricket was knotted to my 5X tippet. Late in the summer, the water weeds were everywhere, often so thick it was hard to tell the meadow from the stream along the edges trout loved to haunt. The weeds lined the channel except for one place where there was a small pocket of open water about the size of a dinner plate. I spotted a soft rise in that pocket in the twilight and sent my cricket in to do battle. When the soft rise came, I tightened, and the tiny rod doubled over as the water erupted!

I don’t know how I managed it, waist deep in the center of the channel, but I switched the fully loaded rod back and forth rapidly as the brown charged from one bank of weeds to the other, keeping him more or less in the open water of the channel. If you can imagine that channel being no more than ten feet wide and boiling like a cauldron with the trout’s frantic battling, you get the picture. The brown I finally brought to net was touching two feet long!

Twenty-five years along those limestone springs taught me to be a hunter and stalker of trout, and summertime was the perfect time for the game. It is no wonder that I still love stalking the mists of early morning!