Listening To The Rain

I have laid awake for hours overnight, listening to the rain.

I fished in my rain jacket yesterday, ready to welcome that life giving elixir, but though the clouds gathered and the winds rose in gusts announcing the arrival of the front, the day remained dry. Like it the evening brought no relief, and a last look outside before bedtime still revealed a dry landscape.

It was after one in the morning before I awakened to the gentle patter on the rooftop.

We need several days of this, long, gentle soaking rains to replenish the rivers and the aquifers that feed the high springs from which the rivers are born. Once more, we will not get what we need.

Fishing has been, well, about as difficult as it can be. On a few days I have seen no signs of life at all. Bright sun and low water is neither friendly to the trout nor the angler. Others, like yesterday, have proven that trout still swim in these ribbons of dampened gravel that pass for our Catskill rivers.

There was an opportunity, and that gave me some heart as I count the last days of my season.

I carried an old friend, my Thomas & Thomas Hendrickson. It is a favored rod, and one that has not seen too many days upon the rivers this year. It’s casting refreshed my mood, as the line glided gently far across the water at my beck and call.

I saw no more than a handful of insects, perhaps a caddis or two, but I did find a random rise now and then to my delight. The breezes seemed the most likely bearer of the gifts those trout rose to meet, and my first choice of a caddisfly found replacement with a beetle. That fly would be the choice… but only once!

My casts were searching, prospecting for a moving trout after repeated drifts to his rise brought no response, when one brought a hard, nearly immediate take. My surprise was telegraphed through the cork by my hand too quickly, and I touched nothing. No fish would make such a mistake again.

I kept at it for several hours, changing flies and tippets, scanning the wind tossed surface whenever the gusts swirled across the river, but there would be no encore, no second chance. With each burst of wind through the trees I ached for the touch of the first rain droplets, dreaming of a misty rain and tiny olives mayflies drifting on the surface. Dreams can delight, and they can torment.

The rain seems to have stopped now, leaving only the dripping sound from the eaves.