November

Plenty of wind and yet, not nearly enough rain. Another major weather system has passed through the Catskills and remained stingy.

Tomorrow morning, I will take a ride over to Phoenicia for a special presentation at their library’s Jerry Bartlett Angling Collection and get a good look at the length and breadth of the Catskill Mountains as November settles in. I have not fished in a week, though I would still like to wander a bit to check up on my river haunts.

It is the time of year when any opportune visit to bright water will be focused upon swinging flies, to me a low impact way to scratch my itch without pressuring the trout working on their next generation. With the dry fly season passed, I am content to be fishing, and not worried about the catching side of the equation. In my mind, a trout interested in feeding just might accept a swung fly as an opportunistic meal. Water temperatures seem destined to continue to fall through the forties, well below the feeding range for trout, but then again Nature does display some true surprises now and then.

In past seasons, I have connected with a fish or two, even once winter’s upper thirties water dominates the flows in these rivers. Simply enough, there is a small chance of a take, so fishing isn’t an act of either desperation or lunacy.

Though there is a bit of hunting season still on the table for me, as an angler I see but two seasons in these mountains: dry fly season and winter. November falls in the class of the latter, but a walk along the river with eight feet of split bamboo is not unthinkable. I’ve got Partridge & Pheasant Tails and Copper Foxes to suit conditions as well as my mood. We shall see what November brings…