Back in Crooked Eddy, and that is a comfortable situation. I was just a couple of days away, as one counts the days, but in another sense I was very a long way from home. Lost for a time.
I met a lot of new people, too many I still have a hard time to sort them out and put the names on the faces, but they were very important to me, even some which passed through in a whirlwind. So thank you very from the bottom of my heart dear ladies and gentlemen.
Here has dawned the thirtieth day of my annual countdown, the last few turns along the path to a new dry fly season. Winter is fighting in and out while the new glimpses of spring tries to make a few inroads, between with a few warm, sunny days. There is still snow in front of my doorway, but there is finally some open water flowing along the rivers of my heart.
In a normal year, that last thirty days bring a fair number of soft days which draw me out on the rivers, previews, moments of wandering bright water and testing with a few flies cast and swung and getting to know the feel of the best half of the year. Two thousand twenty-six is going to be different, and there will be some serious challenges to meet along that lost stretch of the road.
I’ve been there before, though there are some new turns along the road. I don’t know anything about the mysteries that I will have to work my way around along the darker turns. I won’t be able to get my boots in even one step in shallow water, and I won’t be able to make even one early cast to prospect the currents, but my heart will wanting that caress of bright waters. I’ll keep that spirit, that dream of closing my hand, squeezing the cork and sending that first cast toward a soft subtle dimple in the surface.
Bright Waters Catskill 