Bright Waters Catskill

The post-flood fishing has been a journey of discovery kind of situation, although I cannot say I have discovered anything more than the fact that the quality wild trout I prefer to hunt seem to have vanished from their likely haunts. Obviously, a blank day of fishing doesn’t mean the trout are not where you are looking for them, however a run of days with compromised water conditions and a complete lack of clues, as well as trout leads to a firm conclusion.

Larger trout have a lot more mass and surface area then the average foot-long fish and flood flows lead them to seek the cleanest water they can find and larger current breaks. The kind of cover that holds such fish under normal flows may not be sufficient during floods, even if we think it is. Little fish can tuck themselves behind smaller obstructions than big fish.

This is all just another facet of the puzzle the angler faces each day on the river. Water temperature, fishing pressure, predation, cover, depth and the availability of food can all change with water flows, and floods are one of Nature’s tools to create change.

I was talking with another angler a few days ago, and he was expounding on all the rises he was seeing. I dismissed these as little fish, eating little bugs. He asked me if I had caught any of them, stating that big trout can make very small rises. I didn’t feel like getting into a long discussion on reading rise forms, so I simply told him I did not bother with them.

It is true that large trout can feed with negligible riseforms. I have caught a number of them over the years that betrayed no riseform at all. Have you ever had your floating dry fly simply vanish? No ring, no bubble, no little spurt or splash or bulge, just there one second and gone the next while you are staring directly at it – this is what I am talking about. I once watched a gorgeous twenty-two-inch brown trout roll halfway onto his side and drift up toward the surface and suck down a caddisfly into the side of his mouth without a trace. He was six feet away from me in crystal clear moving water. I know his size because I cast to him and caught him once he slid back upstream a dozen feet to find another caddis.

Reading riseforms is a vital skill to cultivate if you wish to spend your precious stream time fishing for larger trout. After more than three decades, I have become pretty good at it, but I misjudge a trout every once in awhile. Just to check my judgement, I did a little experiment at the close of my fishing yesterday.

The river had been lit up with soft, little riseforms for perhaps an hour. I had watched them and determined that there were no quality fish feeding, but the little guys were having a field day. I had removed my sunglasses and checked the surface, smiling when I found tiny black flying ants adrift in the film. They looked to be about a size 22, and some where smaller still. I had none with me, the trouble with my depth perception making it not worthwhile to bother with flies I couldn’t see to tie on. I am out more days through the season than most, and I only encounter a nice ant fall once or twice every couple of seasons. I did have a size 19 foam ant with a grizzly hackle between it’s gaster and thorax, and I figured it might be just close enough.

I stood in the middle of the river and cast to riseforms, choosing the ones that looked a little better than most, and I caught and released seven wild brown trout on that ant. All of them were right around seven inches long. Yep, little fish eating little bugs, just as I thought. I hope I am still around in four of five years when those youngsters grow up. Maybe they will still eat that little grizzly hackled ant that isn’t quite small enough to match the naturals, but is just big enough for me to see to tie it on.

Debby’s rains came through Hancock in waves yesterday, accompanied by swirling winds and warmer tropical air. Our western Catskill rivers in the Delaware drainage flooded accordingly, and all are now receding. On April 8, 2022, when the photo above was taken, the gage height at Fishs Eddy, NY reached a crest of 14.8 feet. Last night after 10 PM, that gage recorded a crest of 14.5 feet with a peak flow of 29,600 cubic feet per second. A spring flood and a summer, tropical hurricane system flood, both bringing eerily similar results to Crooked Eddy.

This storm system brought flooding to the rivers and tributaries above the NYC reservoirs as well as to the tailwater reaches below. There will be some refilling, but it will take some time before we anglers see if that results in increased releases and better fishing through late summer, as it will take a lot of worrying and number crunching before NYC determines how that affects their schedule for the Delaware Aqueduct repair. In short, as always, Mother Nature rules.

The flow here in Crooked Eddy itself is unknown, there being no river gage in Hancock. Fish’s Eddy lies several river miles upstream, mountainous, winding river miles that receive a great deal of additional runoff. The Lordville, NY gage, the next in line, lies miles downstream on the Mainstem. Lordville’s gage recorded a crest of 17.73 feet, just short of the 18-foot Action Stage, the river flowing some 43,900 cubic feet per second.

All of these numbers mean there will be no fishing for something like a week. After that 2022 flood, I was able to return to a still high Beaver Kill on April 13th when a few representative mayflies were seen. No trout rose and no actual fishing occurred until April 15th when a ten-minute hatch caused one brown trout to rise. That fish became my first dry fly trout of the season.

For this hardened old angler, a week off is easier to weather in midsummer than it is at the end of a long winter. There is a trip to the cardiologist scheduled, my porch deck is due to be painted, and the lawn will need to be mowed once it dries out. Fun stuff!

As that week crawls along, I will begin to fiddle with tackle, tie a few flies and think about fishing once the work is done. Hope will be growing as the rivers clear and recede…

Debby is coming, or perhaps she isn’t. Weather forecasters are falling all over themselves to predict the path of the unpredictable. On it’s face, this storm looks to be a reservoir filler, but then again some of those weather maps show the bulk of Debby’s rainfall to the west of Binghamton, while others foretell a curving path toward the coast. I would like to see some water entering the reservoirs, perhaps forcing NYC to make up their minds regarding their twice postponed Delaware Aqueduct project.

This marks the third season that Catskill anglers have had this hovering over our heads, adding more uncertainty than even Mother Nature delivers when it comes to our precious trout rivers and fishable flows. Low flow has predominated since early May and the fishing has been difficult under the extended heat the Catskills have experienced. Should the reservoirs refill, and the city decide to proceed with the project, reservoir releases should improve along with fishing during the second half of summer.

Currently, Cannonsville retains 64.9 percent of it’s capacity, well below NYC’s stated 70 percent threshold required for the October first shutdown of the aqueduct. Percentage of capacity for Pepacton, Neversink, and Rondout are 81.0, 74.8 and 92.9 respectively. There has been no official statement published since 2023. Flows from Pepacton and Neversink remain low, and both of these tailwaters would benefit from a significant increase. Rondout is the catch basin, feeding water from the other, larger reservoirs directly into the Delaware Aqueduct. Recent rains have fallen below the reservoirs’ drainage areas, temporarily raising the tailwaters with warmer runoff, and failing to improve the fishing.

What will Debby bring? We may only wait and see. At least this week’s rain and cooler temperatures have spawned enough runoff to wash the heat from the rocky bed of the Beaver Kill. No, that doesn’t mean that historic river is fishable, but the runoff is cooler for the moment, giving the surviving trout a little break from hunkering in hidden spring seeps. Sadly, I actually saw one poor fool fishing there last Saturday morning on my way to Summerfest. The river conditions? One hundred ninety-nine cfs and 72 degrees, on it’s way to 76 by mid-afternoon.

I am still waiting to try some brook trout streams with the beautiful little bamboo rod my friend Tom Smithwick gifted me. I would love to see a nice flow in the high country!

I can hear the rain, nearly stopped now, dripping on the metal roof. Despite the forecasts, the Catskills continue to be deprived of their most precious ingredient. Brief, gentle showers fall upon us, teasers for the day-long rains our rivers desperately need.

The fishing has changed once more, trout and angler alike holding our breath perhaps to discover what high summer holds, as well as that all too rapid descent into autumn.

In one of those rare years when we have an abundance of rainfall and cold water, August fishing can be amazing for those who study the rivers and all of their moods. I do not pretend to know the science behind frigid dam releases and bounteous extended hatches of mayflies, but there is clearly a threshold uncrossed in hot, dry summers like this one. The little showers and haphazardly passing storm cells fail to open those doors.

Inevitably, I recognize this turning point, that time when the new season passes it’s midpoint and thoughts of it’s end creep into the quiet moments of my thoughts.

Six o’clock, and dawn is gray. My reflective mood lingers…

I heard footsteps in the water just the other day, and watched smiling as a doe escorted her twin fawns into the river for a morning drink. A moment later a soft ring dimpled along a distant riverbank, and I lofted a long line to lay my fly a foot upstream. My relaxed mindset betrayed me at the gentle take. Awakened to the urgency of the moment I reacted too quickly and missed my sole opportunity for the day. Such can be the fate of a trout hunter.

High summer lies ahead, and my thoughts consider what surprises it may bring. The ten-day forecast calls for rain each day, something this season’s experiences will not allow me to believe, and yet threatening skies are not far away. In the absence of intense downpours, such a run of weather would do our streams and rivers a great deal of good.

A little Orvis rod has been added to the fold, eight feet and perfectly suited to a number five line in these hands. It’s provenance tells me it was made in 1958, thus we share most of the same years of experience, and it is only fitting that we share a river or two. I wiped it down with a light coating of bowling alley wax, polished it with a soft cotton cloth, and watched the luster of flamed bamboo and it’s impregnated finish shine through. Shall we dance?

The classic Orvis cane rods are unique, designed with full flexing actions and rated to handle what most trout anglers consider rather heavy lines, they lend themselves to sweet dry fly work when lined a size or two lighter than their ratings. They still flex smoothly and cast a long line and tend to be a bargain in today’s collector influenced market. Most of these rods were designed by the late, great Wes Jordan, truly the man who turned the Orvis arsenal of fly rods into classics.

If the rains come, I have some hope for the sight of a mayfly this week. There are still sulfurs hatching on the West Branch, and days of rain might mitigate the incessant crowds. Of course, a good shower tends to wash an assortment of terrestrial insects into the flow, good news for trout and observant anglers.

My old SST jacket has a lot of years and river miles on it, as do I. It never fails to keep me dry and fishing. I have always liked the fact that they eventually figured out how to make a jacket light enough to be comfortable in warm weather, yet truly durable and waterproof. I’m glad mine has lasted, I mean, have you seen the price of a new fishing rain jacket these days?

My suspicion is I can get away with a simple nylon fishing shirt for at least several days this week, but then again there is a tropical storm system down south. The remnants of those things are unpredictable, though we probably won’t see them until the weekend.

The two summer fly boxes in my old chest pack have sulfurs and olives and terrestrials to get me through, the smallest ones stacked on wire threaders to help me overcome the trouble with my depth perception. I have dealt with that hampering my casting so far, simply taking care to start short of my target to avoid plunking a fly on a trout’s nose.

There are those special fish though, the ones who move and hunt something good to eat. They always present the ultimate challenge, as one can never be absolutely sure where they are and where they are heading when about to drop a fly on the water. To take them, your cast has to be right on, the first time.

I had a duel with one of those last week, seeing single rises in three different places. Three different fish, or one working slowly upriver? My casts failed to elicit any response, but then I saw a brief little wake as that old warrior turned and sidled back downstream to start over. Sure enough, within five minutes there was a sipping rise just where I had seen the first one. Perhaps next time I’ll be able to figure the route and timing of his little milk run just right!

Perhaps unlike any number of anglers, I have fond memories of August, visions of countless golden hours of Catskill summers along the rivers of my heart.

Most speak of the “dog days” and conjure visions of dry pebble beds where mountain streams once bubbled downhill, and it is true that is one part of the mosaic, but there is more. August often brings a welcome change to the heat waves we see in June and July. There is a fresh breath in the air, and cool evenings return to these mountains providing a freshening with high summer.

My memories include sulfurs on the West Branch, with her wild brown trout feeding at the height of selectivity, drizzly days with tiny olive mayflies peppering the surface, where the tiniest rings from falling raindrops share a place with the soft but widening rings of good trout rising.

Summerfest arrives this very weekend, a time for anglers to gather, celebrate the history of our Catskill rivers and their lore, browse tackle treasures from the past, and share tales with old friends.

I remember finding a sweet five strip rod one Summerfest, making a trade and sweeping it off to the West Branch that afternoon. A pair of lovely big brownies christened that rod, testing it’s casting and resilience. Though that rod was traded for another seasons later, it is cast in my memory from the triumph of that very first day!

July has passed with joy and anguish. I fished but five days during her last three weeks, but oh what days they were! Now I look forward to the blessing of high summer: stalking trout at the peak of their wariness, weekend music festivals, fairs and gatherings, the pleasure of cool evenings and a chill at daybreak.

Part of the dream of a rewarding retirement is interwoven with the friends we make along the road of life. Special moments along bright water, shared with our closest friends, make memories. Chances are there are a handful of truly close friends an angler prefers to share the water with. It seems so easy in concept. Hey we’re retired right, what’s to stop us from fishing every day? Life of course has many facets that can get in the way of best laid plans.

During the first couple of years of my retirement, my friend JA and I fished and hunted together quite a bit, before our retired lives found a way to get complicated. The past three years though, our opportunities have been sorely limited, and we have fished just once a season. So far this year, we have made it to the river twice, and I am thankful for that.

Setting up our tackle at the roadside, we caught each other up on our most recent trials and tribulations. When we were geared to go, I handed JA a small puck containing the two recently conceived dry fly patterns that had produced some remarkable results in their infancy. I am no slouch as a fly tyer, but JA is better. He’s been at it for more than fifty years, still ties commercially for several fly shops, and can craft gorgeous examples of everything from midges to classic Atlantic Salmon flies. I’m the experimenter, always thinking, tying and designing in my own quest to better mimic that image of life that brings a wise old brownie to the surface.

We waded in and turned in opposing directions, each gliding into the trout’s world as gently as possible. I re-learned an old lesson very early, as the first trout of the day took my fly on a long cast to a bubble line. I heard the plop, saw the white mouth open out there in the gloom of early morning, and raised the rod to a complete lack of resistance. Missed him, was my thought, and I continued to pepper the area with casts, despite knowing that trout would not come again. Imagine my expression, twenty minutes later, when I retrieved my fly for another dose of floatant, finding the remaining four inches of tippet and nothing more. No doubt I had nicked the tippet when tying it on in the early gloom so that it parted cleanly with the first attempt at striking.

I found no other signs of life, finally turning upstream to work my way to JA, hoping he had found the trout to be more receptive. When I had approached within talking range, I related my mishap and learned he had taken one brownie and elicited a bow wave approach from an unseen hunter.

We enjoy fishing within talking distance at times like these, comparing notes and thoughts amid the quiet of bright water. Our history began that way, walking the banks of another old friend, the Falling Spring Branch in Pennsylvania’s Cumberland Valley.

Eventually, my patience was rewarded with the unexpected rise of a very good trout. One of the new flies was selected, knotted to a new tippet, and thoroughly checked in daylight this time. That fellow rose again, this time in the closer edge of the current line before me, where I placed my first cast to no avail. A few turns of the reel freed enough line for my second cast to settle onto the furthest edge of that current.

I saw him come for it, his flank flashing as the long body knifed softly to the surface. He took the offering softly and I paused the required half a breath before striking.

I was wielding Dennis Menscer’s eight-foot five weight and needed the power of it’s crisp, faster action as I lowered the tip and let that big old brownie thrash his displeasure, keeping him from burying himself in tippet shearing cover nearby. The CFO ‘s voice crackled amid the quiet of the new morning, letting my friend know what was afoot.

Netted at last, I lifted that bronze flanked brute briefly and whistled softly to attract JA’s attention before I slipped him back to the embrace of cold water. There was nothing spoken just then. Two-foot trout deserve a moment of silence.

I stretched my back a bit, feeling redeemed from the pain of that opening miscue, told JA that the fish had taken “that brown fly I gave you this morning”. Turns out he had drawn the interest of a big hunter with that pattern himself.

Another friend tells me I should market some of the patterns I have designed for trophy Catskill trout, despite my lack of interest in commercializing my fishing. Perhaps JA and I could team up, designing and testing, and letting him produce dozens of perfectly tied specimens for the trade with his commercial speed and precision. Hell, we would never find time to go fishing if we did that!

The morning closed with a slow walk down river. We talked quietly. Once more life is taking a toll, and JA revealed that the week he and his wife had planned to stay at their Catskill cabin and fish had fallen victim to family responsibilities. I know they would have welcomed the break, and a real chance to relax.

Watching the weather at five this morning I was pleased to see a storm-free forecast, even one promising very nice weather through the weekend. There was no sign of overnight rain here in Crooked Eddy, so I began thinking about which bamboo rod I would fish today: perhaps the Leonard 66… A casual check of river gages on my phone slammed that door shut quickly.

It seems that the heavy storms and flash flood warnings I saw just before retiring drifted more southerly than predicted, washing out both branches of the Delaware River. A quick look at the rivers above the reservoirs reveals they remain at low flows, so it doesn’t look like either reservoir will go into a refilling mode and impact the lower-than-normal releases NYC has mandated during this dry summer. None of the relief that cold water can provide seems to be on the table as we reach high summer, but there is far too much water in our tailwaters right now to even think about fishing.

No need to ponder rod choice, and there is no chance I will get a chance at one particular foe until sometime next week. Yes, I am pretty sure that I have had another encounter with the trout that shattered the tip of my lovely old Mills Standard.

Dropping a dry fly within six inches of the bank, I was rewarded with that soft, confident take my summer dreams are made of. I paused, then raised the vintage Thomas & Thomas into a full arch. In the same instant, I felt the power and heard the CFO screaming as line evaporated from it’s spool! I steadied my feet, palmed the reel, and finally turned him, then reeled just as fast as I could to regain the lost line and keep him under control. Well, perhaps control isn’t the right word.

I guessed the cover he was heading for once he turned, and I kept him short of that, settling into the part of the fight when the angler begins to get the upper hand, or so I believed. He passed in front of me at about twenty feet, giving me a good look at his length, and as soon as he slipped out of sight the hook came free. A moment’s leverage around an unseen rock I suspect, for the hook bend was opened up when I inspected the fly. Round two goes to that brown as well.

I really wasn’t expecting another chance at him so soon. Decades of experience have proven that some time must pass, days, weeks, even months, before I can expect to find such a fish in a taking mood. At least I walked away from this encounter with my vintage bamboo rod intact.

I am glad to have the rainfall, though I would have preferred it to fall over the watersheds above the Cannonsville and Pepacton reservoirs. Filling them up a bit would have caused the City to increase the releases for the second act of summer, providing better fishing along more miles of river. We will have better river flows once they recede a bit and clear, though it won’t be the frigid release water that stimulates good summer mayfly hatches. Ah, remember those?

At last, the heavens opened and washed over our Catskill Mountains with a substantial gift of rainfall. Rivers rose rapidly to roily, un-wadable levels, covering acres of riverbeds which have too long baked in the summer sun. Between those aforesaid homeowner duties and this wonderful dousing, I have begun another week without fishing, though I offer no complaints, for our rivers are better off for this sorely needed gift of water.

It is early this morning, well before dawn, and I have studied the usual misleading forecasts with an eye to a few hours of hunting. One boasts ” a steady rain this morning and thunderstorms this afternoon” complete with hail and destruction, yet the likelihood of precipitation wavers among low percentages until Noon. There are times I think the weathermen are trying to scare us away from the outdoors.

River levels are still up, more like spring than summer, though I feel certain that their flows have cleared and offer safe wading. They have predicted stormy days so often this spring and summer when nary a drop of rain arrived, but Monday night’s predictions came true. What to do?

I am leading toward a drive, waders donned and tackle ready, it only takes one cast to take a spirited trout!

Did not fish, a simple, factual designation that has applied all too frequently to recent days. It is after eight on a lovely Catskill Summer morning, one that I hoped to join one of my best friends in a hunt for a wide flanked brownie or two, and I am waiting for the electrician.

It is hard for me to give up a day on the river, something I had to do for most of my life. These days, I sometimes take for granted that, if it’s a weekday, I am going to be fishing. I paid enough years of dues, so now is my time to explore my passion for dry flies and difficult trout. Homeowner responsibilities have gotten in the way.

I did sneak out for one morning last week, and it turned out I was very glad that I did.

I ran into a couple of exceptionally fine wild brown trout, very quietly going about their own morning hunts for a meal. I had fished a pretty good reach of water without really noting any activity until my sixth sense kicked in upon the sight of a touch of motion in the current. It wasn’t much and could easily have been nothing but one of the river’s usual little hydraulic reactions to rocks and moving water, but it did get those hairs on the back of my neck twitching.

The cast had to touch the cover, and when it did and drifted ever so slowly for maybe half a foot, there was the take I had been looking for. Oh man, did that fish want to tie me up and break me off immediately, and it seemed for a long moment like he was going to succeed. We had that kind of standoff going, my rod loaded up and throbbing with energy without an inch of line moving one way or the other. This time, my pressure won the initial tug of war, and I got him a foot away from his sanctuary. I worked the rod down and to the side and turned his head a little more, and when he reversed direction, I was quicker. It was a long, hard battle after that, but it kept going my way. Two-foot fish are like that.

When he was unhooked and released, I took a breath and a swig of water. Too bad I didn’t have a dram of single malt to toast him, but that kind of celebration is made for the den after fishing, not on the river.

It wasn’t too many casts after I resumed the hunt that I connected with one of that brownie’s competitors. He rose once in a current line just off the edge of the bank, and I started casting gently a couple of feet upstream of his riseform. With no response, I figured him for a mover, and gradually expanded the scope of my casting, first upstream in that same line of drift, and then back down and closer to the edge. He took the fly with a subtle spurt of spray, and we started in. He was more the brash runner when he felt the hook, though he thought too late about turning back toward cover. By then I had him out into the river enough that I managed to check his runs for trouble. He was a beautiful brownie, just slightly smaller than his fellow hunter.

Mid-July, and still no rain. Even the thunderstorms seem to be bypassing the region. Those that pass by have ranged from threatening to destructive – there were tornado warnings all over the map two nights ago. If only all of that moisture, energy and turmoil could spread itself across these parched mountains as a day or two of sustained gentle rainfall.

I have not fished since Monday, and that was a day the Red Gods won. Penance for the miraculous day I enjoyed last week. I found myself victim to the yips, overcome by anticipation born of that perfect day, and pulling the fly away from most every taker. I took a pair of feisty trout, but oh those that might have, should have been…

Hunting trout requires a clarity of focus. Each step, each decision, and of course each cast must be executed with delicacy and precision. The smallest imperfection robs the angler of an opportunity that will not be repeated. Thus, the supreme challenge and delight of the game befalls us. We humans are not, and most certainly I am not perfect. In this type of angling, we seek a few moments of perfection to share in and pay homage to the astounding perfection of Nature.

Allow one foot to slip momentarily on a cobble, and a soft pressure wave telegraphs the trout you are stalking, and likely others, that something intrudes. Place a cast a foot further upstream then ideal, and the unseen hunter is alerted instead of tempted.

My old hunting grounds were my classroom, and they offered no quarter. The trophy rainbow is just to the right of the center of the photo. Line him, drop your cast too far above or too close and he is gone. The fly, the approach and the cast must be perfect the first time, for there is no second! Clarity of focus and execution are as simple as that. The trials of these wide, lovely Catskill rivers are far less obvious, but they are there and just as difficult, perhaps more so because they are hidden from the casual perspective.

The responsibilities of the homeowner have intruded, and still are, as I try to deal with issues stemming from my attempt to rescue us from this incessant heat wave. A perfect stalk, a perfect cast are not made of divided attentions.

Yesterday would have been a good day to stalk the rivers. The hot winds rose to herald the onslaught of more of those phantom severe storms, winds that can drive thousands of Nature’s insects into the water, and I was dealing with electrical problems. The severe storms failed to materialize, and though I am thankful for that, I would have loved to have the rain. One of those passing clouds must have nicked a corner of the Beaver Kill’s watershed, as that river got a tiny bump in flow yesterday morning, though insufficient to bar it’s temperature from exceeding 82 degrees. The flow dropped rapidly and is back to pitiful as I write.

Of course, this afternoon’s forecast has storms in it, though I expect nothing per this season’s experience. I have dreams of sneaking out to the river for an hour or two, at least if the winds come sans lightning and chaos again. There’s a special new fly just waiting.

I have yet to find a mountain stream to enjoy the wonderful little six-foot rod my friend Tom Smithwick gifted me, for they suffer too from the heat and drought. Give me the seventy-degree days and the gentle rains that make what I know as a Catskill Summer!

It is the weekend, Sunday in fact, and my projects have been completed. The lawn has been mowed, and the new air conditioner this recurring heat wave forced me to acquire has been installed and, well, cat proofed. I have tied a handful of that new jumbo-sized Light Touch Beetle whose debut turned into the morning of the season, since there was only a single fly remaining in my summer box. Oh, and I have been out casting rods.

I decided to fish my 7′-6″ Dennis Menscer four weight tomorrow and wished to try a couple of reels and lines. That rod is a rarity for Dennis I believe, for it is made to an uncommonly faithful Jim Payne taper for the renowned Model 100. I cast one once, at the Catskill Cane Revival in April of 2019, and promptly ordered one. As a rule, Dennis’ tapers are his own. In the course of his restoration work, he related that he had removed the varnish and then miked two separate Payne 100 rods which were made some 35 years apart. He smiled when he told me he found no more than 0.0005″ between the two at any point. Five ten thousandths – that is consistency, and the taper makes this a very sweet casting trout rod. He was so impressed he decided to offer his own model, using Payne’s original taper exactly as his micrometer measured.

Mine was christened on the Beaver Kill, once cool temperatures and the blessing of regular rainfall returned the great river to fly fishers, with a beautifully wild twenty-inch brown trout which sidled up to my Isonychia dry fly. Alas, since often I gravitate to eight-foot rods fishing our large trout rivers, it has not been fished in a while.

I was delighted to find that one of my vintage 3″ St. George reels, spooled with a 406 brand DT4 fly line is a perfect mate to this beautiful rod and it’s classic Catskill taper.

Lunchtime, and I can almost taste the fresh ham sandwich I’m thinking about. First, I’ll load these new beetles into my fly box, lest my sleepy head forget them in the morning…

There are days when Nature’s signals are muted, but all her wild creatures heed the call.

I did not carry a cherished bamboo rod on this day, still reeling from the damage some wild Catskill brown had wreaked on my fifty. I carried another veteran, the rod that was my limestone springs companion, a slender eight-foot Winston boron rod.

I missed the bamboo, but I adjusted my casting to the very light, quick feel of the Winston, coaching myself to ease up on the power, less my casts strike the placid water with trout spooking force. I lost myself in the hunt, slipping softly through the early morning mist.

The day began in beauty and solitude, though the fishing seemed to tell me that the Red Gods intended to punish me once more. I hooked two, briefly, the hook pulling out quickly on both of them. The short moments of contact telegraphed size and strength, two more missed opportunities, and then solitude was sacrificed to the whims of the Red Gods.

I changed the fly, thinking that might perhaps change my luck, and it did. This season’s now months long low water had me thinking about another variation on the theme of the beetle imitation. I went back to a Cumberland Valley staple in construction, then modified it in concert with the use I had in mind. The Soft Touch Beetle was born, with a pair of them tied on a size 12 hook, for hungry hunters.

Dissecting bits of cover throughout some known trout lairs, the long beetle performed as designed, even when fired under and around cover and foliage with the quick flexing boron rod. The first take was soft and confident, and tightening quickly convinced me I was working with one of the trout lost on that disastrous day the Mills fell.

I urged him from the protection of his lair with the rod heavily bowed, so he ran against the drag down river and away. Ah, what’s this? The Winston wears a modern reel, one with a staunch drag that impeded his retreat, though I missed the sweet music of an old Hardy. Still, he tested every fiber of the rod before I swept the net beneath him.

Straightened along the graduated midline of the mesh, his full two-foot length was confirmed; a little redemption for this hunter of the mists!

The beetle impressed on it’s first trial, so I fluffed and dried it’s hackles and continued. A fifteen-inch brownie found he was big enough to get that big beetle into his mouth, pulling so hard he fooled me until I got him close enough for a look. After taking a short break, a rise showed in that same location, and he took it again! I swear it was the same fish.

Returning to the hunt, I sent the Soft Touch to inspect one of those quizzical haunts where great boils have been noted from a distance, with nothing save a sprat or two ever being caught there. The soft, confident ring bulged the surface, and I was in it from the hookset. A hard charger, intent upon breaking my tackle, and it took every trick I had to keep him from the edge of destruction. Netted, he was a dark bronzed warrior, barely an inch shorter than that two-foot mark!

My new beetle was looking somewhat chewed, even after a rinse and dry. I massaged a bit of floatant into it’s herl and hackles and continued the hunt. Grabbed again, I felt one very hard pull before the fly came away, checked the hook and cast again.

The fishing was patient and surgical, and my concentration was rewarded once more. The next beetle eater leaped high when he felt the steel, then again and again he vaulted skyward, a brown that must have rubbed fins with a Delaware rainbow. A prodigious fighter, he too was eventually led to the net, and exceeded twenty inches.

There was another, a two-foot trout I have never seen before. In the net I found that my reaction had been slow, for the fly had caught him in the skin beside a pectoral fin, as he spit the fraud before I struck. A spectacularly colored brown, I offered my apologies and released him. He cannot be counted, for he was not fairly caught, but it is a bit miraculous to have four trophy browns sip that same fly in less than four hours of fishing.

The energy of that amazing morning propelled me through an uncharacteristically long day. I fished nearly nine hours, something I have not done often in my golden years. Some more trout were caught, a few missed, though none like those that left a glow in my heart that morning. On my last cast with that poor chewed and bedraggled beetle, I saw a tiny wink at the end of a long, long cast to the shady bank. I reacted a bit hard, my nerves still firing with the energy of redemption and left the fly where it was. I felt nothing and assumed it had been one of the juvenile trout I had encountered later in the day along that last reach of water. Perhaps, perhaps not… it was a magic fly after all.