There have been hints of it this week, and then last evening I saw it clearly looking out my back window. Since boyhood I have noticed this change, this unique color to the light as afternoon nears evening, and it has always brought me pleasure.
There is no place to witness Nature’s spectrum like her waters, particularly her highland rivers where both that special light and mountain shadows play!
Nearly a month of summer remains, but I can feel the chill at daybreak. Trout have become even harder to find than they have been throughout the bulk of this difficult year. I saw a handful of flies the other day, larger mayflies which appeared grayish in the shadowy air… isonychia? Four or five of them lifted off from the soft, low water as I waded downstream to keep an appointment. No trout rose, though I know there must be a few along that reach… watching.
I had chosen a little rod to fish fine and far off, delighting in how handily seven feet of 50 year-old bamboo would send my fly 60 feet or more to my target. I had great fun with my fishing, amplified by the short rod, though it amplified mistakes in my timing as well! I rose two fine trout, touched neither one, as I tried to adjust my line handling and timing to the short rod.
Back in the Cumberland Valley, a seven-foot four weight was in my hand constantly, but fishing here upon the wide Catskill rivers I have become an eight-foot rod man. Does it make a difference? Why yes, more than you would think. That extra twelve inches moves a lot more slack line with a mend, or a hookset!
The cane rod I have spent the last eight months crafting is in between, at seven feet nine inches, a good length I think. A little more than seven-and-a-half. I have owned two rods of this length, though both have been traded – for eight-footers! This one will stay.
Ed Shenk taught me to love short fly rods. He loved the challenge of fishing with rods from five to seven feet, his favorite a six-foot one-piece bamboo Thomas & Thomas dubbed “The Gnat”. I have rods of 5’6″, 6′, 6’6″ and 7′, all of them up to the challenge of trophy trout, though seven feet is about as short as I will go on a larger river.
Today an eight-footer will get the call. I am leaning toward the three-weight, though there is some wind expected. They are saying five to ten m.p.h., but that’s what they said yesterday. Mother Nature doesn’t heed their predictions. A much cooler day with an afternoon sun to warm the air masses slowly might just bring some gusty shenanigans about the time a few of those gray mayflies could appear. Perhaps I will take the four…
Bright Waters Catskill 