Finishing the steaks out on the grill, I felt that sun working it. I checked the thermometer: 99 degrees!

The afternoon to evening sun has a direct shot onto my porch, and that generally ramps up the porch sitting temperature another eight to ten degrees. Clear blue skies, not a breath of wind, and I could feel it getting into the century mark as I plated the last steak and retreated inside. I swear my initially ice-cold beer was warming noticeably while I was drinking it, despite the koozie!

The week looks a return to hot and dry, a good time to find deeper colder water to wade!

Yea, today’s task was to tie myself a supply of the new transitional dries for the summer sulfurs, boxing up a dozen and a half in sizes 16 and 18. I split my production between the CDC Duns and the Century Duns, so I can present the trout both looks. This design was a big part of my winter fly tying, so much so that I was truly excited to meet the spring hatches and give them a thorough trial. Obviously, that didn’t happen, so I hope some heavier sulfur hatches as the meager few I have seen this summer, will give me that chance.

The transitionals are intended to set down into the film, with just the thorax and wings forcing themselves into the air. Compromised hatching mayflies are vulnerable and should be very attractive to our wild, educated and wary browns and rainbows.

I wasn’t overjoyed to have to tie these on diminutive size 18 hooks, for they require more parts and manipulations than most of my usual dries, but they came out fine. The finned and spotted court of judges will of course have the final say.

Tuesday looks to be the hottest day of the week, with the high around 95 degrees. I have bountiful practical experience wading the deeper runs and pools of the 48-degree release water of the West Branch Delaware on such days. An ultralight sun hoody above and some insulation beneath fits the bill!

After a long winter and my stolen spring, the second week of July has been a very good week of fishing. I feel good, feel myself and with the endurance I expect. I finally have proven to myself that I am up to the challenge of a six or seven hour hot summer day wandering rivers.

When I retired early in 2018, I didn’t really know how many years I would have ahead of me. I have faced some unexpected challenges, but I have come through them, and I am enjoying my passions: wild trout, dry flies and classic tackle.

The fishing this past week was just what I enjoy the most: hunting bright waters for big, wild trout. There were a lot of hours put in on various pools and rivers, several miles of walking and a lot of casts. I caught five wild brownies measuring better than that coveted twenty-inch mark, one fully two feet and a couple others that missed that length just a little bit, all of them heavy, wise customers that took every bit of skill I had. Interestingly enough, the two largest took the smallest flies of the group, sizes 17 and 18. In my world, that’s a great week!

A good rain certainly didn’t hurt my luck, though it did give me a zero for the first day of the week. The cloudy, rainy conditions should have been good for fishing, but I found virtually no bugs on the water and no trout rising that day. Better flows followed though, once the rain passed on, refreshing the rivers.

I am hoping that rainy days won’t be too scarce as the summer winds along, and I hope that most of our weather falls in my favored Catskill Summer category.

I hope I see some hatches, and some good ones to match wits with educated, locked in, PhD feeding wild trout. I want to see some evidence that our mayfly and caddis hatches have rebounded after two difficult seasons. I can’t judge anything about that based upon spring, as I wasn’t to be able out there.

When late August and September come around, I want to find some big, beautiful claret bodied mayflies some call the White-Gloved Howdy, so I can walk the wide Delaware River after the rains and cooler weather offer a prelude to fall. That fall, come to think of it, will be welcome to show us just how beautiful and productive fly fishing can be that time of year.

Most of all, I simply wish to savor every moment I can find myself outdoors among the Catskill rivers and their trout, their wildlife, and their anglers for at least as many more years that I have been fortunate to live here. Wandering bright water has been my destiny… may it always flow cold, clean and ever downstream.

The humidity vanished and the day feels comfortable, a beautiful Catskill Summer day! Stalking early, but not quite at dawn today, there was no fog and I was searching for some movement. Very much a contrast to yesterday, when I could see little as I made my entry into the river.

Yesterday threw me a curve and I had to make do without the right fly. The river dealt an honest surprise: moths. These critters were vibrating while spread eagled onto the surface, making the damnedest fish call I have seen on a Catskill river. They appeared to be aquatic, emerging from below, but very few seemed capable of flight. I guessed that chilled fog was responsible. When a moth floated over a serious trout… kaboom!

I had nothing to match these things, not even close, so I dug out the few caddis flies I had in my vest. I took a small brownie, and missed a couple like sized fellows, but that was early before the show began. My Trout Bug took a nice fish early as well, but my best idea was to tie on a size 18 tan CDX caddis and twitch around one of the splash zones after a big boy ate his moth.

I twitched over a number of these guys, but that 18 wasn’t fooling fish busting moths with about a size 14 body and big, wide wings. I tried other flies, figuring excited fish would take a meaty terrestrial, but that wasn’t working either. It was the CDX or nothing.

Why a size 18 caddis? Well, this fly has taken many very large trout, and it doesn’t take a full blown caddis hatch. I am talking about trout well in excess of twenty inches. The fly is so good, I kept it a secret for more than fifteen years, sharing with just two friends who were sworn to secrecy.

So, with nothing to come anywhere near a match, I kept fishing that CDX. One big blast too many perhaps, but I stayed with the program… and it worked. The Leonard laid the little fly out fifty feet, just above the last blast blown in the quiet surface… twitch, twitch…kaboom!

That 55-year-old bamboo rod got a workout! The LRH screams, and then I crank, screams again, I crank again… and eventually twenty-four beautiful inches of wild Catskill brown trout resides in my net!

I spent a long day on the river trying to repeat that with my little caddis, but I guess lightning prefers singular strikes. When I got home, I set out to tie half a dozen flies to imitate those moths. I had no idea if that would be a one-time frenzy, or if I would walk out of the river this afternoon feeling like I was the greatest fly fisherman in the world. Those flies looked great, but Nature has her ways.

There were some moths around. Not as many, and the explosion rises did not come. Some trout ate moths, though usually with a normal riseform. I took a hard fighting 22-inch brownie on my moth pattern. My best brownie of the day was right between that one and yesterday’s, and he took a size 17 Grizzly Beetle after ignoring several casts with the moth. I do wonder if I had had those flies yesterday, when the trout were crazy for them. Maybe some other year in the future I will get to find out, at least if I remember to be certain a few are in one of my summer boxes.

This looks to be a good rainy day. Yesterday’s downpours hammered some of our rivers, while others showed little change. I happened to go out yesterday evening to fill up with gas when a terrific storm cell arrived in Hancock. Driving home I had to keep it at a crawl just to be able to see, but today looks like light rain, the kind that could create a truly nice fishing day.

I have my old friend, my ’77 vintage Thomas & Thomas Hendrickson, sitting against the armoire door ready and waiting. This is a particularly sweet taper, and this rod has their impregnated finish that protects the bamboo better than varnish. This old T&T is a perfect rainy-day wand, though it has been a rod I have turned to often, rain or shine.

I rebuilt the leader on an original Orvis CFO IV reel yesterday, so my tackle is ready to go. My rain jacket is right there in the car, and a long sleeve tee shirt will be just about right beneath it.

I will take some time this morning, its just past six, and tie a few olives to have them handy. I know I have hundreds of them in I don’t know how many fly boxes, but flies you tie the morning before fishing are always good luck!

There, half a dozen fresh from the vise: tiny size 20 T.P. Duns and size 18 100-Year Duns stored in a fly cup to stuff in my vest! Last evenings storms didn’t touch the West Branch, though this morning’s steady rain is adding a bit of additional flow. The expectation is the river will be imminently fishable, and trout, mayflies and old anglers will rejoice at the moisture and the welcome cool, cloudy conditions.

After last week’s threatening heat, a couple of cooler, rainy days will be more than welcome. It would be quite nice to have a couple of them every week or two. How nice the rivers would be!

There is still a little time this morning, a couple of hours to relax and daydream before gearing up and choosing the reach of river I will visit. I can lean back and consider twenty-five years of summers along the West Branch. I can picture when a bright day clouded up, and a misty drizzle appeared. It was my last day of the trip and I could have headed south, but I drove down river to a favorite bend in the river where I found myself alone. Olives were drifting and bobbing upon the currents, and soft rings replaced a number of them.

Size twenties were the dish du jour, at least early in the hatch, and I was catching some beauties. At one point though, my flies lost their favor. I stood and watched phalanxes of the naturals still coming. But hey, I thought, are they just a bit bigger now? Plucked one from the surface and sure enough the later flies were size eighteens! A fly swap put me back in heaven!

The three AM sojourns have taken a toll, and I am taking a forced withdrawal pause this morning. No, I found myself still awake at that hour, but the body needs a rest.

Still, I hate to miss the opportunity: the cool misty air at dawn, the unseen cues, the sounds of water out there cloaked in the cover of the mist. The rewards…

The heat has been oppressive here in the ordinarily pleasant Catskills. Two air conditioners, acquired the past few summers, are working overtime to keep the living room and bedroom tolerable. Barely so. While I hope this is a passing trend rather than a permanent change, our summers have been getting hotter.

There could be some blessed rain within the next few days, but all in the form of thunderstorms. Any rain is sorely needed, but hard, brief downpours produce mostly runoff which doesn’t do much for the vital groundwater which sources our river systems. We will have to wait and see.

I have some surgery to undertake on my promising new Trout Bug fly today. The wings which produce such wonderful visibility have been twisting my leader badly, even after downsizing the flies. I am rather surprised that it has taken so long to dawn upon me that I’m using too much material for those wings, but the three AM morning jump starts seem to have dulled some of my thinking. While I’m at it, I should take a quick inventory of my terrestrial hooks, just in case I should wander over to the fly shop or place an order. Today may be a rest day from fishing, but that makes it a work day for all of the other tasks that keep me out there.

There are always a couple of fly lines to clean, reels to lubricate, and leaders to inspect and return to full length and service. An angler’s work is never done!