It seems time to concede the dry fly season, for it has been too many days since I last encountered an opportunity to take a trophy fish on the surface. It is something I am loathe to do, but, wading rivers in the forties amid thirty mile per hour gusts yesterday seems to have battered that realization into my brain.
I swung a fly yesterday, the only presentation anywhere close to practical with the wind blowing upriver against the weak currents low water creates. I spent a good bit of my time laughing at the worst of the gusts the Red Gods hurled at me. Any observer would have thought they watched a crazy man, bracing against the wind and cackling as he leaned into the wind simply to stand there and laugh. This was not the first time I have laughed in the faces of those Red Gods.
I have seen fishers cursing and stomping, some kicking the water when things failed to go the way they wanted. Though I feel the loss of an opportunity when a hard-won take is missed, I do not curse the river or its gods. Fishing does not put me in the mind of curses or destruction. Fishing is my light and my salvation.
This was the kind of day that comes along through every season; a day where I simply needed to find myself amid the glory of bright water. Such days are not about any expectation for catching trout, they are about a balm for the soul. As it turned out, an unexpected reward appeared amid my fits of laughter in the wind storm.
The gusts were blowing the old Orvis bamboo rod upstream in my hand as I attempted to swing it gently down and across. I had just regained control of rod and line when a quick tug slipped the loop of loose line from my fingers, and I raised the rod to feel it throbbing with life! For a time, I could not tell what fish I had hooked, for it darted and splashed, disguising its form and color as I worked it closer, only to give line and let it dart away.
Finally, I drew it to hand, a lovely wild rainbow trout perhaps fifteen inches long, brilliantly colored and showing no signs of the stress of our long summer drought. I removed the fly and smiled to watch him dart away in the clear, wind tossed flow. I think I even smiled at those Red Gods briefly…
Bright Waters Catskill 