Well, the last week of August is winding down, and my last fishing day for the week has been concluded. I felt the air change more than an hour before the thunderstorm came knocking and was snug with my gear stowed and driving toward home when the first drops were falling. There was some good news all around today.

I started late, heading out after nine after publishing the chronicle of my day on the Neversink, so it was a leisurely summer morning for me. I made the long walk along the river, watching the remnant of the mist come alive in the warming air, rousting some deer on the shoreline. One of them sounded like it was touching close when it bounded out of it’s fully greenery screened bed after ignoring it’s companions’ alarm snorts. That one got my heart pumping!

As soon as I stopped to get ready to fish the now famous tree where there are never any trout around, I heard a rise upstream. Watching for a few moments, I saw a rise just above me near the far bank. I tossed my Grizzly Beetle his way several times, but he paid no heed, so I went to work fishing to my fishless spot.

I admit, I was nearly convinced that there wasn’t another big brownie tucked into that cover. But I drifted that fly over every inch of that lie and, sure enough, the Grizzly Beetle was irresistible, conjuring a trout where none really are! The twenty-one incher gave me a good ride particularly when I tried to shoot the proof that he was really there.

Another warm, sunny day, and I had arrived just in time to fish the remaining shade on that tree. The air was very calm, the pool glassy, so I cast that beetle out to any signs of subsurface movement. Once I got a hard grab as I started to retrieve for another cast, making me wonder if another aggressive rainbow was out there, but all of my spot casts amounted to two young brown trout, each some six or seven inches long.

Those two little fish amounted to good news though too. As the river, and that favorite pool as a nursery looks to be in very good shape. Walking down, and feeling the air pressure continue to slowly drop, I thought about the fishing might be three or four years hence. I hope to be there to cast a fly and find out!

Time to change up I thought; time to venture to the eastern side of the Catskills and visit the storied Neversink! The thought came late, but I sent an early message to my friend Kevan Best as he haunts that river frequently. We missed the connection it seemed, as I had grabbed Dennis Menscer’s sweet little 7’6″ four weight and an old Featherweight and pointed east soon after six o’clock.

I was watching the fog dance along the riverscape and heard the phone ring, tapped the circle and heard his voice… “coming over the mountains and I’ll be there in half an hour”. Kevan was searching for tricos, our most diminutive widely spread mayflies, and we strained our eyes into that dancing mist for clues as to their swarm as we talked.

Kevan decided to watch the warming air for the hope to find a cloud of those tiny spinners over the riffle, but soon the pull of a couple of favorite memories drew me upriver rod in hand.

The cool morning air greeted me as the sun tried it’s best to work its way between the fog and early clouds. The river was low and sparkling as I stepped into the faster braids and carefully worked my way toward a little run which always brings a smile to my face! My casts there were gently placed, but no one sampled my fare, this time.

I cast my eyes upon the Victory Pool and felt it had been too long without a reunion with this interesting piece of Catskill water. So named in honor of my first trophy sized brown trout taken on vintage bamboo, a Granger Victory 8642.

I eased upstream, step by step, letting the soft current dissolve my presence from dwellers upstream. Memory drew the first casts.

When I saw the tiniest disturbance and it’s minimal rings, I imagined some fingerling perhaps finding one of those minute tricorythodes my friend waited for patiently downstream, though I know the eyes and the impressions formed in the mind may deceive. I made a cast, then another, laying gently down my chunky, distinctly un-minute dry offering, while those tiny wrinkles in the surface repeated. The cast that turned the moment was lofted closer to the riverbank, letting the drift bring it nearer to those innocent motions of the water fairies.

The soft plop of the rise was answered, and the smooth but heavy arch of the little bamboo proved once again that others but tiny fish may wrinkle the surface. He wanted loose of that reign immediately, though I determined to arrest his heavy rush to the rocks and branches littered along the waters along the shore. Twisting and darting, I judged his size with each flash of his white belly, his back camouflaged by the tannin tinged water.

The battle was close quarters, a series of rushes toward cover and more of the twisting, wrenching efforts he sought to free the hold of what was a moment ago too tempting to ignore. Each time I turned him short of tippet wrecking country and finally brought him to net. The colors were breathtaking, a wild sheen of greens amid a backlit bronze with hints of old gold and bold carmine spots, a gorgeous tableau. I ached for my interrupted morning rush, hurrying my departure sans camera. That picture can now only be reserved in memory.

As morning slipped toward afternoon, Kevan and I toured a few spots, kindly sharing his wider experience with the Neversink I visit too rarely, ending along a quiet, weedy reach teasing us with a few sulfur mayflies as we watched from the shade of the trees. He urged me to try one of the fish who had quietly announced his presence, and I walked well below before entering the water.

It was slow going, fearing a slip on the weed-covered rocks would end the game for both of us, but I managed it. I worked the lower half of that shaded edge of riverbank, failing to interest the downstream resident, convinced no doubt that his lie was suitably impenetrable. I certainly proved his belief.

Slipping downstream and out, I rejoined Kevan back in the trees, happily at least I avoided disturbing the upper resident trout he had patiently observed. We talked for a while until I was ready to hike back to the road. My friend stayed on, wanting I think wished as much just to see a nice parade of sulfurs as a chance at the old fish dining on them before the offered thunderstorms chased him away.

Rainfall and high water in August, fancy that, so my first August fishing had to wait a day. Solitude and a sense of wonder, as after each substantial rain event I perceive the rivers are renewed.

I chose a more standard morning start time, experience telling me a dawn patrol wasn’t needed for this new water. I carried an old Leonard 50 DF, one of the early Hunt versions, wearing a 3″ St. George and the experience of years. I never really know when I visit a rain-washed river, my hopes are high invariably, but experience tells me to expect nothing. Thus, verily, I found that same.

Four hours of stalking, working some good lies and straining my eyes to dissect every inch of that water, lifeless completely for the first couple of hours. Flows change, and trout with them, and the first evidence led me to suspect the few trout training on an eye with the surface were roaming everywhere, though finding little of interest.

Eventually, I had waded all the way and found myself near the scene of the crimes. I had found that fish in mid-July, felt powerful head shakes that have become his trademark, and bemoaned when he fought to get into the snags and straightened out a not too fine wire dry fly hook. Power, and nothing.

Five days after our rude introduction, I tossed him a Cross Special when I caught a sip to a pale little mayfly. Once more, he insisted to take me to his woodshed, and my leader knot broke when I did my best to stop him. Head Shaker two, beaten angler nothing.

I came knocking on other days, even catching a couple of fine other fish, but Head Shaker failed to show. Had he left the county? Changed his hideout? No answers as July passed on. No answers until the first sojourn of August. So, after half a day of fruitless stalking, I peek around his corner once more…

There seems a quiver of movement, and I freeze and let my tired eyes continue the search, but nothing certain is found. A few casts nearby draw no attention, so I stand and wait. Seventy feet away the surface opens up with a terrible detonation and my heart jumps up in my throat. Should I put my innocent little size 16 dry fly in that? So be it.

I let the long line unroll and set the 100-Year Dun at sixty, flipping the rod tip gently to shake out some slack to extend the drift. As that canted little wing slips into a deeper shadow I lose sight, and then divine intervention urges me to lift the rod and the explosion rocks me! Head Shaker!

He is not close enough to his woodshed this time, and I strip the line heading him in my direction. Miraculously, he keeps on coming until I have forty feet of fly line piled on the water, all the while shaking that big head left then right. He dashes from side to side in front of me, flipping and somersaulting to smash the leader with his tail. All I can do is to react, parry his thrusts, until I start to worry about all of that fly line splayed out on the water.

I cannot take my fingers away from the rod grip while he is thrashing, but my right hand begins to wind. The line is loose on the reel spool, and trouble is coming, but I have no choice. If the line tangles, it is over before it starts.

When he takes a breath between dashes and thrashes, I back up a step or two. Eventually, he tries to go around me when I am backing, but I lead him that way, out into shallower water, clean bottomed shallower water.

In mid-river now I watch him flashing in full sunlight, fighting him with the line controlled in my fingers. All of that slack has all but jammed the reel, so I pull a few turns off the spool in case he runs beyond my precarious tether. The fight will be won or lost hand to hand now.

The thrust with the net brings a deep exhale, as he threatens to leap right out of it! Rod tucked under my arm, I clutch the net with both hands, then pop the fly out. It comes free quite easily. Then the camera, aligning him over the graduated scale… all twenty-five inches of him! Lastly a solemn nod to a noble foe, then slip him back into the cold, clear water. We both feel that release.

It has been showery today, and it appears that theme will find it’s way at least part way through Monday. Driving out of Livingston Manor yesterday at the close of Summerfest, the storm clouds were massing along the southern ridges of the mountains. Despite that long, black line all the way west back to Hancock, the evening proved dry. Our rivers don’t seem to have received enough to be affected, but we’ll still take the gamble on storms overnight and in the morning. I for one am hoping for a fishing day.

There is no doubt that, after spending the day of talking about and thinking about fishing, I nearly threatened to head out today. One of the best things about Summerfest is the talk with like-minded anglers blessed to spend their hours with a bamboo fly rod in their hands and a deep contentment in their hearts!

I’ve been sitting here polishing a lovely old Leonard and dreaming about a long, smooth loop of line sailing gently through the morning air, and the wise old brownie whose waiting for my fly to drift nearby…

A vintage English reel crackles to life in the misty summer air, and the droplets fly from the line as a fine trout accelerates away! This is what is supposed to be, surrounded by the solitude of Nature and folded close to her breast. There’s a good dose of Catskill Summer yet before us, and I plan to relish every moment of it!