Bright Waters Catskill

Another day at the Catskill Rodmakers Workshop has come to an end, and I wrap the finished strips of bamboo with tape and nestle them into the familiar hexagon shape that has been associated with the genre for more than 150 years. These six tapered strips form the middle section of my 3-piece bamboo rod, and join those of the butt section previously completed. I am some halfway through the planing process at this juncture.

Driving home from Livingston Manor the big, wet snowflakes are still flying, seeming almost suspended in front of my windshield; a lovely Catskill spring afternoon!

I was thinking this morning of the joys I have savored as my interests have wound along the historic path of split bamboo and great rodmakers. Ed loved his short rods, particularly a diminutive Thomas & Thomas dubbed The Gnat. His interest was piqued when I offered Tom Smithwick’s five-and-a-half-foot gem for him to cast many years ago. Tom would make one of those miraculous little rods for him some time later.

The first rod made for me came from the skilled hands of Wyatt Dietrich. Seven-and-a-half-feet, casting a number five line with dreamlike grace, the rod emblazoned the Sturtevant Dry Fly started me down this path in search of the beauty and history of angling.

These days I can easily count the handful of days each season when split bamboo does not grace my hand. The lovely reed has become a part of me, a key element in the essence of my angling passion. I might be found with any one of several Catskill classics: perhaps a rod from Dennis Menscer, whose works are the current class of those traditions, or a Leonard born as many years ago as I was.

Having the opportunity these past months to use my own hands to craft a rod has heightened my appreciation for such masters. I have spent many hours, working while learning the techniques required to produce a fishable fly rod, and there are still many tasks and many hours ahead. I sat back after breakfast today to watch one of my favorite films. Chasing The Taper chronicles a group of top rodmakers, many of whom I am pleased to know. In one scene Per Brandin speaks of pondering the amount of time and labor required to produce a single trout rod, “its daunting” he exclaims, and never have truer words been spoken. The film makes that point very clear, together with the overriding fact that it is, very much, a labor of love.

Though this fitful spring has allowed a few days for wandering bright waters, the gift of dry fly fishing has yet to be bestowed. This is the pinnacle of angling for which the classic Catskill bamboo rod was born, the magic time on legendary rivers for which the rods have been refined over a century and a half. That day is coming, and there is nothing to do but continue down the path to meet it upon arrival!

I came to the call Monday, ignoring my best judgement of the challenges the weather presented and welcoming the new season. In truth, I did see a couple of rises, the type anglers refer to as one timers, for they seem never to be repeated. I certainly didn’t expect better, for the surface of the cold river proved quite lifeless. Even a swinging fly was ignored.

One again, spring has begun with low water, a blessing during those warm, sunny days in mid-March, and a curse now that the calendar has increased my anticipation for the coming of the dry fly. Low flows warm quicker, but they also cool very rapidly, as witnessed by this morning’s river temperatures in the low thirties. Rain is forecast, but it has been forecast multiple times in recent weeks without falling in any meaningful amounts.

My thoughts are haunted by the memory of the long months of ice bound rivers just past. Judgment and experience tells me the hatches will be late, that my longing for the best of angling will endure. Science believes the nymphs crawling about the gravel require a certain number of days at a specific minimum temperature to mature. They speak of degree days, and it seems reasonable, but then again there is something of supposition about the idea. Anglers wise to the ways of Nature have learned to expect most anything!

Though I fished most of my life near home, in waters where sulfurs and terrestrials provided the bulk of the precious gift of dry fly fishing, I do believe that I have tied more flies to match the Hendricksons than any other insect. I have boxes filled with them, some I have not seen for several seasons, and when I think of springtime I reach for the wood duck flank and fox fur and a classic medium dun hackle cape. Such is their magic!

April 7th, Day Zero has arrived. The pre-dawn light reveals new snow dusting the ground here at Crooked Eddy. I stole out on the porch while the second cup of coffee brewed to check the thermometer: 32 degrees as the new dry fly season mathematically begins.

In truth I wandered bright rivers late last week, a Catskill Adams knotted to a long leader. I found the afternoon water temperature favorable, reaching 52, at last finding that first rise. A phantom, a rise for show, one to heighten my spirit as it awakens from the long sleep of winter. Surely not the mark of a certain feeding trout.

Saturday, as all of Roscoe celebrated the new season, the chill settled amid the winds and rain, though there were hopefuls encountered at the Catskill Brewery, as I tied dry flies, answered questions, and told snippets of the Catskill tradition. Sunday turned into a surprise day at the Catskill Rodmakers Workshop, where I not only completed finish planing the strips for my rod’s butt section, but whisked through an intermediate pass on the six strips selected for the mid-section. Perhaps the fire of spring and anticipation fueled me, for I worked on little sleep after a long day in Roscoe.

I felt the old energy returning even yesterday morning, quickly tying three of my black CDX caddisflies before leaving for the rod shop. Though I always encounter little black caddis about these rivers in those days before anticipation is finally transformed into the sublime glow of fishing the rise, I have never seen a trout take one, nor even rise to one. Later though, they can be the answer to an invisible question, as trout quickly jaded by the spring onslaught sip them from the drift between clusters of ignored Hendrickson duns. One rule of fishing: it is always best to have those patterns you know will not work, alongside all of those that you know will!

The forecast tells me to expect twenty-six degrees tonight, and a high tomorrow at freezing, milestones that will not tempt our water temperatures in the right direction. I may have to dedicate time to the tying vise to keep the internal fires smoldering. It will not be an early spring this year, looking more like the hatches will unfold slowly and later than I had hoped. Still, such seasons can provide brief yet wonderful opportunities to the faithful. The angler endures the damp, cold days, walking and wading in search of the light. Should providence smile, it will be a shy smile, one easy to miss during the long, silent hours of the day.

Here we are at last, April First. The gathering was much smaller than remembered last night, at the twenty-sixth Angler’s Reunion, and I thought that somewhat sad. Tommy Roseo and family once more blessed our palates with the Rockland House’s wonderful prime rib, toasted with single malt, friendship and dessert. Thank you, Tom, for all the wonderful meals you have hosted for our humble gatherings of anglers and fly tyers!

By now the faithful have gathered in the cold fog at Junction Pool, eager for that first cast. May they find whatever they seek along the bright waters of the Beaver Kill and the Willowemoc!

I am a week away from my own reclamation, though I have wandered bright water and may do so again before it is truly time.

Our weather remains fitful, as is the norm for a Catskill spring, though in truth we fare better than our neighbors to the north. There is talk of ice and snow upstate and into new England, while we look to a mix with cooler, then warmer days and, we hope, the rainfall our rivers so genuinely need. By the time the day dawns, our rivers should have been blessed with an inch and a half of rain, though the sunlight needed to warm them is expected to be lacking. So be it: rain first, warmth thereafter.

I’ll be busy as this last week of anticipation closes, tying flies and teaching a few tricks and patterns amid the season opening reveries at the Catskill Brewery. I offer thanks for the fly tyers of the Guild who have helped me fill two boxes with excellent spring patterns for the brewery’s charity raffle: John Apgar, Nuno Figueiredo, John Kavanaugh, Tyler Morehouse, Christina Muller, David Seifritz and Chris Takacs. A couple of ticket holding anglers are going to be catching some very fine trout this spring!

Just yesterday I packed a few more Gordon Quills and Catskill Adams in my new shirt pocket fly box. They will attend whatever forays I make during this last disheveled week of waiting. I’ve cleaned the floating line on the CFO that accompanies my old Orvis 99, freshened the leader and made it ready to fish wet or dry. It is still the season of the swing, though I will always be prepared for the miracle of an early rise!

Finishing the yearly paperwork at last, I looked up from my desk to find the window full of snowflakes falling. The sun had been bright when I sat down, and the change was surprising. After lunch I headed out for a riverwalk with the sky sullenly gray and snow still blowing about. Three layers made the walk comfortable and, by the time I neared my driveway, the sun was making a comeback.

My vest lies nearby, it’s pockets filled with the three Wheatley boxes that hold my spring dry flies. The new patterns have been added, the tippet tender replenished, and now the last of the waiting remains. A dozen days remain on my calendar, though I fully expect to wander a river before zero hour arrives. The weather has turned too fickle not to have some hope!

I felt the first real sense of accomplishment Saturday, as the caliper revealed the final dimensions of my first rod strip to be finished planed. I would plane three strips for the butt section during that day’s work, half a rod section, and I finally felt some confidence that my rod project would come to fruition. If all goes well, perhaps I will be able to fish it sometime this summer.

I have yet to decide which bamboo rod will accompany me as I search for that first rising trout of the new season. Chances are a classic Leonard will get the call. Why not open the Catskill season with a rod with a Catskill heritage?

Gordon’s Quill will be tied to the leader, regardless of the rod chosen, though it might not be the first fly cast when I find that rise. Epeorus pleuralis is the mayfly most likely to appear first, but Mother Nature has been known to bring one of the olives or a small spring Blue Quill. Of course I could look to a more general pattern. My Catskill Adams is a prudent choice, particularly if tied in a standard size 16. It can imitate any of these mayflies well enough to seize a hungry trout just shaking off the river’s early spring chill!

March has been quite kind these first three weeks, the last days of winter, offering a warm handshake and a few precious early days upon bright water. Her winds awakened me early this morning, ripping and howling about my little house, convincing me to arise and check my hanging waders on the porch.

Next week will sober things up just a bit. Temperatures in the forties and low fifties will curtail the slow warming of the rivers and quell those inevitably awakened expectations for an early arrival of the dry fly season. There’s even a little snow in the forecast, as soon as Monday!

Checking my own calendar of experience, there’s about two and a half weeks to wait, hope, wander and really get the tackle fully readied for the true coming of the angler’s spring. It will be a busy fortnight of activity.

The drift boat emerged from it’s winter tent this week, the lights have been checked and the oarlocks attached. Cleaning remains, and inspection, and of course I have to get the boat bags properly outfitted with fly boxes, leaders, tippet, and the full range of clothing required to suit a Catskill Spring. My spring fly boxes have made it from storage to my tying bench, though the newly tied quills and Hendricksons are yet to be sorted into their proper compartments.

Tomorrow will be another workday in the Catskill rod shop, and a turning point in my quest to hand plane my own split bamboo dry fly rod. One strip remains to be rough planed before all two dozen of them are taped together into sections and the last vestiges of the nodes trimmed from their ends. Once sorted, the strips will find their way back to the planing form, reset for the final dimensions of the butt section. The tension grows throughout each curve of this road… no mistakes allowed!

On the following Saturday, our Catskill Fly Tyers Guild hosts the Fly Tyers Rendezvous, then on Monday the Angler’s Reunion Dinner closes out the anticipation of March. In between there are flies to be tied for a couple of donation projects before the Mike Canazon Memorial Meet Your Maker event on Saturday April 5th. I’ll shuttle from Roscoe to Livingston Manor then to tie flies as the guest of the Catskill Brewery in celebration of the season opener. Once that busy weekend has passed, it will be time to settle down to fishing.

I would dearly love to find fifty-degree water flowing past the banks of the Beaver Kill by then, and the first Gordon Quills swimming up from the bottom to dry their wings and take flight. Of course, any number of them are welcome to pause for a ride on the surface to entice the trout to fully welcome springtime by rising to a feathery imitation of their crowd!

Seventy-two degrees is a mighty fine temperature for March. That kind of warmth makes for a good day along the river, and sometimes the trout get into the spirit as much as the angler.

When I go out to swing a fly beneath the surface of this early season’s forty odd degree water, I never actually expect to catch a trout. Such days are about a renewal of the soul, training my legs to deal with rocky river bottoms and currents after months away from bright water. Sure, an angler always has a little hope tucked into his fishing vest, but there is a very low level of expectation.

I waded upriver around Noon today, enjoying the sunshine. There was a little color in the water, the remnants from last week’s rainfall, and I thought about the fact that suspended particulate matter tends to cause the water to warm a little more on such a sunny day. Would it warm enough?

The snow seems to have finished it’s melting at last, leaving that bountiful sunshine to actually warm our rivers, and that is a welcome development for the third week of March. This was the coldest winter we have spent here in Crooked Eddy, deep cold, sustained cold, and I am beginning to believe it’s over.

The old Orvis bamboo cast the small streamer with some authority, yet still gently enough that is slipped into the water with barely a blip in the surface. The fly sunk slowly and made it’s swing. When the line began to straighten out in the middle of the river, my hand gave it the slightest little twitch, and I felt the grab clearly. I raised the rod and stripped hard to set the hook, amazed at the feeling of life on that other end of the line!

The last thing I expected to be watching today was a good brown trout jumping. Sure enough though, my first trout of 2025 displayed plenty of energy. He left the water three times before I brought him close to the net. A nice brownie, sixteen or seventeen inches long, and colored up like I would expect to see in late May.

The fly was one of my friend JA’s creations, a small, flashy, rabbit strip streamer he calls the Lil’ Brown Trout. The fly shops he ties them for sell out of them faster than he can tie them. I had noticed it when I checked one of the streamer boxes in my tackle bag, and plucked it out to store in my chest pack. Sadly, a submerged rock finally laid claim to that lucky fly and I had to replace it with a smaller Full Dress Copper Fox.

I wasn’t the only angler lured by the warmth of this day, as a fellow and his wife floated past on their raft. We exchanged greetings, and I appreciated the wide berth he gave me, leaving a good hundred yards of river unmolested for me to fish. That was once something expected of boaters on these Catskill rivers, a courtesy that has unfortunately become all too rare.

Working slowly down river I maintained the traditional pace: a cast, a swing, then three steps down before repeating the cadence. The afternoon winds had risen, keeping to the manageable schedule of blowing hard for ten minutes or so, then calming for perhaps twice that span. Another surprise awaited it seems.

That old cane dropped the fly tight to the bank and I gave one full mend to toss the slack line upstream before settling into the swing with the rod tip low over the water. I felt the fly tick a rock jutting up from the bottom, let it swing a few inches more, and then gave it that slight little twitch that had worked magic earlier. The hoped for grab followed the twitch and I socked the hook home!

The second trout of 2025 stayed beneath the surface, leaving no doubt he was larger than the first. The reel drag was set fairly tight, but he pulled more line on a quick run down river. I snapped a photo in the net when he finally surrendered, a fine brownie in the nineteen-inch class.

Driving home, I smiled about my plans to uncover the grill and enjoy a juicy burger and a chilled Catskill brew, and I was happy to put those plans into action. There’s nothing like porch sitting with a cold one while the fire’s doing it’s duty!

It is beginning to seem real now, the idea transitioning between the dreamworld and the waking world. We are more than halfway through this March of meteorological spring, and a mere two days from the Vernal Equinox. Twenty days remain in my personal countdown, and I have felt the warmth of the sun and the caress of the current!

Suddenly I feel I have slipped behind schedule. My vest still hangs empty on it’s wall hook, my spring fly boxes remain in storage. There are reels to check, a drift boat to make ready! My spirit wants to leap forward with the fervor sparked by hints of an early spring, but experience lingers there in the shadows. Snowstorms are battering the West and Midwest as I write, and Nature’s caprice might easily send them here to quell this March sunshine.

The morning light is in my windows, and soon the sunshine will melt the frost… Much to be done!

We have come through the cold snap for the week, a day in the forties with even a bit of snow flying as we drove home from a little dinner and acoustic blues in Norwich last night. The weather is looking up, remaining spring-like with a couple of days of sunshine then a good rain expected over the weekend. Now this doesn’t mean that there won’t be overnight frosts and howling winds in April, this is the Catskills after all, but it is good news.

I should be tying flies this morning, really I should. There’s a collection I began putting together as a donation to the Catskill Museum, and those flies will not tie themselves. Honestly though, there’s no rush, and after the longest, coldest, most consistently difficult winter of my retirement years, I figure I’m entitled to simply relax and enjoy a few nice days.

I am still enjoying a bit of reading in the early hours of the mornings, today caught me laughing at Sparse Grey Hackle, and I’m glad that those precious hours are so much more relaxed now that the grasp of winter has relaxed it’s hold. I received a good book recommendation out of the past last week, a plug from none other than the late Dana Lamb, and I’m awaiting that book’s arrival. It’s a classic salmon fishing tome, “Six Salmon Rivers and Another” by George Frederick Clarke, and the search enthused by Lamb’s words took me all the way north to Nova Scotia to locate a copy. I love reading about the classic age of salmon fishing, something I will never have the chance to explore first hand.

I am amazed at the prices some ask for angling books, any out-of-print books for that matter. Not long ago a friend mentioned a Hoagy Carmichael book that I enjoyed. He was looking for a copy but complained of the thousand-dollar price tag he had encountered. I told him I thought I could find him a brand new, slip cased copy for about $75, and I did. He was overjoyed, and I am still shaking my head at the gaul of some dealer somewhere that I expect is still holding out for a wealthy and uninformed buyer.

There’s a chance my book might arrive by the weekend, and I hope it does. The closer we get to the beginning of the dry fly season the busier my mornings will become!

And so it begins…

I had a feeling this morning that the day would outperform the forecast, and it did so beautifully! Rather than wait for tomorrow’s higher predicted temperature and twenty mph winds, I donned waders and boots to welcome the new season today.

Actually catching a trout was perhaps the furthest thing from my mind as I waded slowly into the margins of the Beaver Kill. This day was about going fishing after four months of a bitterly cold winter. I felt good just wading out to make the season’s first cast, swinging my Copper Fox down across the riffle above the Ben Gray Pool, and better when a Bald Eagle flew overhead, followed by her offspring. It was the perfect salute to a moment I have yearned for since October’s farewell.

I swung three different pools, pleasantly alone in each, and fully enjoying a 62-degree afternoon! At home the sun was too inviting to ignore, soliciting a 72-degree porch sit with a Darbee’s Irresistible from my friends at the Catskill Brewery! At last, winter has packed her bags!

The calendar turns, and the last leg of the journey through another angler’s winter begins. Might I really test my legs on cobbled bank and riverbed so soon?

Cloudbanks have obscured the dawn, and fine snowflakes are swirling in the breezes which prelude the squall. It is thirty-one degrees here in Crooked Eddy.

Though the long wait approaches it’s end, there is still waiting to be done. There is hope of course; hope for Nature’s tease of warmer days and a chance to wade the river for the first time in so many months, but the winds will drive the squalls wherever she will. March will certainly not stop them, nor will April nor even May. The Catskills will share their gifts in their own time.

I read, ponder, tie flies and tinker with tackle. The days will pass and, as anticipation builds, I will taste the sunlight whenever I may, strengthen my legs with the fierce pull of frigid currents, and find my way on toward spring.

Warmer air and rainfall are all it takes to break the rivers free of the ice harbored between their banks for months. Yesterday’s rain began the big flush, and it is still working it’s way downstream. When I checked the gages before dawn, the upper portions of the East and West Branch tailwaters were registering, and their flows rising. The Beaver Kill was still ice bound, but has broken free now, as has the gage at Fishs Eddy. The Beaver Kill peaked at 4,300 CFS and is already dropping, so I am hoping some of the higher snowpack remains, yet to melt and replenish the groundwater.

The East Branch at Fishs Eddy collects flow from the entire Beaver Kill drainage, as well as much of both the upper and lower runs of the river below the dam and halfway down to Hancock. Once thawed, the river gage revealed a peak of 7,850 cfs near 7:45 this morning, a strong flow to be sure, but not in the range of a flood. Coupled with the West Branch’s 3,260 cfs peak, the system could free the Lordville gage on the Mainstem sometime today. The combination of last week’s warmup and yesterday’s warmer rainfall seems to have thawed the watersheds gradually, preventing damage to the riverbanks and bottoms. Avoiding floods and ice jams is very good news for the aquatic ecosystem.

Thirty-one days remain on my winter calendar and, as I busy myself with promoting spring activities for the Fly Tyers Guild, I have one eye on those river gages and weather forecasts. It is time to set aside the flies tied for donations and friends, time to get my own spring boxes out of storage, fill their compartments with my winter’s work and slip them into the pockets of my vest.

The rod work has proceeded slowly, as my aging hands and wrist struggles with the largest part of the job, the endless planing of the bamboo strips. My three-piece, two tip fly rod has 24 of them, 12 for the pair of rod tips which must be planed down from one-quarter inch width to seemingly threadlike fibers between 83 and 3.5 thousandths of an inch!

There will be no Angler’s Rest Special for spring fishing at the pace my aching hands and joints have allowed, so I look to summer with at least a little hope!

Should the stars align, there could be mayflies on the water in five weeks or less. The signs of change have begun: short stretches with warmer air, snow melting, longer days, and long-frozen rivers beginning to showcase some open water flow! Our ten-day forecast features more days with forty-degree or higher temperatures than it does days stuck in the thirties, and there are two coming with the promise of the mid-fifties. Of course, it is still early March in the Catskills, a beautiful region where I have shivered on frosty mornings in May!

In my mind lie pictures of many a Catskill spring. There are the wading boots, frozen solid on the cabin porch beside the West Branch, the sleet tapping on the hood of my rain jacket as I huddled on a high bank watching for Hendricksons, shooting a video as a May 9th snow squall whisked through Crooked Eddy. Such moments are thankfully more rare than those remembered for the trophy trout brought to hand or the ones sipping spinners and late pinkish duns far across the river, as the late afternoon sun warmed my tired shoulders.

One such day on the West Branch teases, and makes me wish to journey back in time. There were fine trout sipping, scattered in that shadow world, some just near enough, others beyond my reach. As the lowering sun warmed away the aches from a long day of casting my body relaxed and my casts lengthened. My spinner drifted beyond my sight and I played the guessing game by necessity. With timing thwarted, I pricked a few, none staying pinned well enough to be brought to hand!

Even some of the frigid days produced fond memories, like the 34-degree May morning I launched the drift boat upriver. All was quiet until I passed Hale Eddy and witnessed something I thought was pollen gathered on the surface. Shad flies by the hundreds, much smaller than normal and drifting paralyzed until the sun warmed them into life. The fishing was technical and rewarding!

I fished successfully once to fine wild trout rising to Green Drakes, on a blustery day that never quite reached forty-five degrees. But I still wait for that mythical Hendrickson hatch in a snowstorm I have so often read about, even to the point of wishing for the flakes to appear.

It may be five weeks until I make that first cast to a bona fide rising trout, but I will be out there much sooner. It takes no more than a couple of mild March days for me to pull on my waders, cinch the hood of my insulated jacket tight over the top my cap, and string a fly line through the guides of an old bamboo rod. Its true I have never seen a Catskill trout rise in forty-degree water; but somehow, I still believe that tomorrow could be the day…