The early morning sunlight casts distinct shadows along land and riverscapes. Showcased by the extreme brilliance of winter sunlight upon snow, these stark pictures of the angler’s world inspire hope and trigger memory.
I recall those first moments when the thoughts of trout I could not catch inspired me: my first walk through Trego’s Meadow on the hallowed Letort, that first trip along the Falling Spring Branch, creeping low and slow while watching the bright flashes of her wild rainbows flee before me! These places were different from the waters I had fished in those early days as a bon-fide fly fisher, magical, impossibly difficult, the paths walked by the saints and giants of the sport.
The legends of the Catskills called to me, even as I began to study those limestone streams, and here I found a new kind of difficulty. The rivers were wide and expansive, one moment lifeless, and the next alive with thousands of insects in the air above their currents. Those first hours upon the Beaver Kill, the most famous trout river in America, were impressive as well as mystifying. I found the answer on my last day of my inaugural trip, at least an answer to that moment on that particular run, and felt charged with discovery.
I would live near, fish and study Pennsylvania’s limestone springs for twenty-six years, learning solutions to many of their mysteries, yet still discovering new challenges each season. My visits to these Catskill Mountains were occasional at first, my list of rivers growing over time as my days here expanded. Three decades have passed in a whirlwind, yet there are impressions of all of these bright waters which remain etched into my soul.
There are common threads between these two regions which shaped my journey as an angler, for both are historical monuments in the history of fly fishing, particularly dry fly fishing, here in America. I have angled here throughout a modern resurgence and expansion of fly fishing. The young would say that there have been great advancements in knowledge, tackle and techniques during this age, though those of us with a greater store of years on the water know these to be the revelations of younger, inexperienced eyes, new pilgrims rediscovering the same truths.
Technology will not dispel the magic and the mysteries of trout and fly, though it convinces many that the answer to Nature’s puzzles as they confront them lie in some gadget in the palm of their hand. Those answers are there to discover, but they are as fleeting as the myriad questions which blossom in a day astream.
May it always be so!
Bright Waters Catskill 