March

At last, the punishment of February lies behind us; though Nature and her Red Gods have their tongues thrust deeply into their cheeks. It is twenty-six degrees with snow falling here in Crooked Eddy.

Driving back from Flyfest in yesterday afternoon’s bright sunshine, I read fifty-seven degrees on my old Jeep’s thermometer. Driving into town with the windows rolled down was exquisite: kids running along Front Street in shorts and tee shirts, snowmelt everywhere. Everyone felt the release, that sense of freedom with the outdoors at last beginning to be unlocked!

Yes, there is hope once again, despite the falling snow. Thirty-six days lie between this moment and the beginning of the new dry fly season.

Last year I was freed from my icy prison on the tenth of March, walking in sunshine and swinging flies upon the hallowed Beaver Kill. Another week had passed before those slow arcs of swinging fly line found resistance and the season’s first brace of wild trout came to hand.

The dry fly season flirted shyly and teased for another month, until at last my Maxwell Leonard settled a Dark Red Quill 100-Year Dun upon the surface to be taken by a beautiful brown of twenty inches!

March’s first few days are bound to revisit winter memories, though warmer and wetter days are ahead. Perhaps the great thaw will open the rivers, and they will clear and fall to wadable levels before too many more days have passed behind. It is time to stretch my aching indoor muscles, to build back some strength and flexibility sacrificed to January and February’s deep freeze; for fishing is coming!