Between watching the snowflakes fall and shoveling our way to freedom, my annual milepost has slipped behind me. One hundred days represents the long down slide from winter to the angler’s spring, the beginning, or at least the fervent, daily hope for it, of another dry fly season on these beloved Catskill rivers. Today is day ninety-nine…
Though this run of winter days will be more than three months long, it is a season of hope for the snowbound angler. There will be more snow to be sure, but we will greet it as replenishment for the rivers born on these mountains. No doubt many of these days will be frigid, days when we gather close to fireplace, stove or heater, but we will tie our flies and oil our reels and think of sunshine!
It will be less than two weeks from today when the Catskill Museum will reopen for fly tyers to gather on Saturdays. Our Catskill Fly Tyers Guild will be well represented, and tyers of all skill levels are welcome to join us to share and learn and socialize.
Looking further ahead, the Guild will soon be planning our featured winter event: Fly Fest 2026!
We shall all be watching the weather during the countdown, eager for a chance to cheat winter and slip out to bright water and feel the comfort of vintage cork between our fingers.
My own river legs get restless by March, when I will begin to head astream each day that Nature allows. There will always be dry flies in my vest, though only once in seven years has a trout risen during that third and often teasing month of the year!
If nothing else, March days are for watching river gages and water temperatures as I pray for those fifty magic degrees that signal the first spring mayflies. I’ll wander riverbanks when those gages surpass forty nevertheless, as the fever builds until that first cast to a rising trout!
Truth is, the Red Gods do not offer a steady rise in temperatures, no matter how badly we crave them. Waters will rise past forty-five under weak spring sunshine, only to drop with a fast-moving cold front back into the thirties. Sometimes the rivers spend weeks in that holding pattern of the mid-forties, and these are the times that madness seems near for the dedicated dry fly angler!
Spring comes in it’s own time: 100, 99, 98…
Bright Waters Catskill 