Bright Waters Catskill

I had a plan this morning, and I was fully prepared to execute that plan. The flies were tied, and my main players were set up in the fly threader box I finally found after a weekend long search – take that depth perception!

I was relishing the drastic cool down after a couple of weeks here in the oven, so much that I awakened just before two from the chill air. By the time I regained full consciousness, it was about the right time to be on the river. I got up, got my coffee and a snack, and checked the weather: wind gusts to 30 mph. That slowed my progress as doubt, or more accurately common sense, began to weaken my resolve.

I have a long career of fishing regardless of weather. I can recall 45 mph winds on the big East Branch in Cadosia one spring day, and who could forget the 50 mph winds that nearly pushed me over backwards into the raging whitewater torrent on an Elk Creek steelhead mission. I am retired now, I can fish every day of the season if I want to, so I have become a little more settled in my reasoning in regard to poor conditions.

Of course, just as soon as I aborted this morning’s late mission, the Red Gods chided me by dropping the already gusty winds immediately.

Mission aborted. Fishing will wait another day.

There is a brand new fly box sitting here on the desk after all. I picked it up the other day for a selection of flies I am planning to tie for a gentleman from Germany. I agreed to show him our Catskill fishing when he comes to New York this September for the 30th Catskill Rodmakers Gathering, and I figured it is the least I can do to have a box of flies for him. Early September can be tough on the fishing front, but I do have a number of patterns that usually tempt a few good Catskill trout.

I am on a roll at the moment as far as fly tying. I tied 32 dries yesterday. That’s a large daily output for me, since I tie nearly every day through the season. As alluded to earlier, my depth perception has been suffering this season, most notably as I try to tie on a fly while standing in the river with a nice trout rising. I have been tying sulfurs and olives on big eyed hooks, which of course have been hard to find just when I needed some. I have loaded up my old threader box to solve the on-stream problem.

A lot of anglers struggle with knotting small flies as they age, and magnification is an easy answer. Depth perception compromises are more sinister. I can see the hook eye and the tippet, but every time I try to join them, I misalign the parts. I used to believe that sportsmen should be able to live the retired lifestyle from age 25 to say 55, and then go back to work until its time to have their dusty bones shoveled out of their workplaces. Imagine fishing every day with good eyesight, no aches and pains, and the energy of relative youth!

Of course it doesn’t work that way, so we simply have to adapt. I don’t fish fourteen-hour days anymore, and I am beginning to collect fly threaders. I also recently added one of those white fly plates to my tying vise, and purchased a pair of prescription reading glasses. I have a nice supply of Biofreeze too, to keep the shoulder moving.

The one thing I treasure as related to being retired at this age is the experience and judgement gathered over more than three decades of fly fishing and fly design. The casting parts may hurt a little, but man I wish I could have made the casts and presentations I do today back when I started out! I wish I knew then what I know now about trout flies too.

With that experience comes a lifetime of memories. Some we revel in, and others simply let us shake our heads and laugh at ourselves.

Summer swelter on the last morning of spring, and I am in full hunting mode. The time has come for the new eight-foot three weight hollowbuilt flyrod that Dennis Menscer meticulously crafted for me over the winter to test it’s mettle. I had fished it a couple of times, though I had not tied into a trout of any considerable size. Yes, the tough spring of ’24 has continued right up to the end.

I stalked slowly as daylight grew, the rising sun setting the fog in motion. I heard the first rise, though I could not find it in the swirling mist, but waiting, then fishing the cover failed to reveal it’s maker. I worked slowly up the riverbank with my casts, the three weight doing a lovely job with a Baby Cricket at fifty feet. My eyes locked on the next sound to imprint itself on my consciousness, and the cast was in the air before the subtle ring dissipated. There was no response, and even as I dissected that entire band of current with multiple casts the river remained silent.

I spent an hour working slowly up the pool with nothing but bits of unoccupied cover for targets.

As the sun burned away the last wisps of fog, I observed a tiny dimple in the bright sheen of the surface. The sight failed to raise my heart rate, for I had no doubt that a small fish was working the morning drift. I scanned the surface and found a pair of tiny spinners and one creamy, pale mayfly. Eventually, a better riseform showed along a shady edge, though it’s maker wanted neither my tiny red spinner nor a pale sulfur.

The drift remained spare for a couple of hours, with just a taste of something to elicit a rise here and there from the little fellows. At one point, I readied myself for a little hatch of sulfurs but, though they came briefly, there were no rises seen. I worked on upriver, casting long and delicately to shade and cover. The rod performed flawlessly, though nothing interrupted the soft drifts of my flies.

There are times one fishes well and finds nothing to show for the effort. This awkward spring has brought many such moments.

Late morning, and at last I began to make my way back to the beginning. The full heat of the sun had stirred the mountain air into motion, and I hoped the hot breeze might send a few treats to interest just one good trout. I knotted my old friend, the Grizzly Beetle, conceived for these moments, and having shone brightly during many of them.

The beetle changed things straight away, enticing a strike from the glide I had covered more than thoroughly. The brownie was feisty and brightly colored. Though he was small, the change of fate felt real, and I continued with new energy.

A long cast, and an even longer drift finally brought what I had been seeking: the test for the new flyrod. The brown caused the light tackle to shudder when he charged for heavy cover, but Dennis’ knows how to design a taper. Of the old masters, Fred Thomas was his favorite, and just as the fine tips of a Thomas rod belied it’s fish fighting mettle, so too the fine tips of my beautiful Menscer 803!

It was a tough battle, but the flyrod won, and I slid the mesh beneath a brawling twenty-inch wild Catskill brown!

I was elated as I worked down river, feeling my fishing had ended for the day. The water betrayed no more evidence of life, that is until I neared an old favorite piece of cover. The ring in the surface was subtle, and not the bulge and dimple kind of big trout subtle, though something told me to stalk carefully into range.

There were a few signs of motion on the water as I worked gently into casting range, though still nothing that got my hackles up with that sixth sense kind of trout hunter’s magic. I felt more of a kind of serene confidence.

The cast was long, angled downriver and across to offer the little beetle with the best and longest drift possible. The fly drifted only a few feet when the surface blossomed with a wide soft, slow-motion ring, and I raised the gentle wand of cane to meet it.

The trout charged away from the bank and his sheltering cover, giving only brief moments for me to feel his weight as I stripped fly line as fast as I could manage. Once he turned against the rod there was no question of his size. I let him pull slack back between the fingers of my rod hand while I wound quickly to get as much line as possible onto the reel. Once successful, I was finally treated to a bit of that lovely Hardy music!

Drawing him close for the first time, he looked dark knifing over the gravel in that crystal clear water, and I realized that I wanted him very badly.

Light tackle is criticized by some, saying that good trout are played out, exhausted. The playing of the trout is up to the angler, not his tackle, and I have seen medium sized trout played nearly to death on long, stiff, heavy graphite rods by anglers too fearful of losing their fish. I know that light tackle, when used to it’s full potential, can land large trout as quickly as necessary for a safe release. A well designed and well-handled rod that gives cushions light tippets and tires the fish quickly.

My slim three weight cane rod brought that second beautiful brownie to the waiting net, all twenty-one inches of him. I would expect nothing less from a Dennis Menscer flyrod!

The trout still seem to be making up their minds as to the season, but for the anglers this heat wave is locked into a rainless stretch and there is no doubt this is summertime!

The early mornings have been hit or miss, more misses than hits to tell the truth, and it is damned hot already today at ten in the morning. Freestones are lower than low and far too warm for trout fishing, and reservoir flows are still lower than normal. I guess I will be dodging drift boats today to see what the West Branch might offer.

I just slicked up my Triangle Taper four weight line after a few casts on the Cumberland Queen, my lovely Dream Catcher eight-footer. She will join me today to search for a fine brown trout or two amid the hustle and bustle of a busy tailwater. The Queen found love for the first time on the West Branch, with a twenty-inch wild brown late on a summer evening.

I tied half a dozen dries of the Cahill persuasion this morning, 100-Year A.I. Duns and CDC Cripples, as Light Cahills have been known to make brief daytime appearances in the cold waters of the West. There are plenty of sulfurs already packed into the old Superfine fly box in my chest pack.

Time to get the rest of my gear together and put these fresh flies in the box. It’s always best to be earlier than Mother Nature.

In hindsight, my decision was somewhat ass-backwards, but as the years advance one of life inevitabilities is simply clear: tired is tired! I fished hard under Thursday’s hot sunshine, hoping against hope for a similar day long affair with sparse sulfurs and picky risers. I knew better, but enthusiasm sometimes trumps cold, hard judgment.

Come Friday morning it was easy to accept the thunderstorms throughout the day forecast and elect to make a rest stop. I tied a few flies that my morning fishing hadn’t allowed time for, repaired my cut fly line, loaded up a new number four line on a St. George reel after casting that same line on the Sweetgrass Pent, ran several errands, and cut my grass and a neighbor’s. Doesn’t sound like a day off, does it? It was though a fishing rest, time for my aching casting arm and shoulder to recover a bit.

The price paid will never be known of course, for the storms never appeared and the cloudy day ended up cooler and more inviting to mayflies and rising trout, in short, a day I should have spent on the river.

I had planned to take care of that shoulder over the winter, but spending more than three months battling a persistent case of bronchitis truly sapped my energy. The net result was far less winter exercise rather than more. I have resigned myself to the fact that the shoulder is going to require a day off here and there. I don’t like it, but I accept it.

I did get my travel kit set for today’s visit to the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum as this week’s Saturday Guest Fly Tyer. I will get some more sulfurs tied – I need size 18 100-Year Duns if the light is good.

There is a Guild meeting next door that I won’t be able to attend, though hopefully some of my friends will stop in afterwards. We will all be tying sulfurs and terrestrials, so we’ll be connected in spirit.

I walked the familiar path, the morning cool under cover of the clouds, a return to Sanctuary.

It wasn’t long before I saw the yellow sails upon the drift, at least three sizes of them. There was a single rise at distance, clearly a good fish, and I wondered if he would continue while I languished in my approach. Flat, clear water demands patience and stealth.

That trout continued, not on any sort of regular rhythm, but still he fed as the mayflies passed his station. I started with a size 16, tried a 14 and then a short bodied CDC winged fellow with the barest hint of a trailing shuck. I may as well have cast to him with a bare tippet.

I rested him when one of his brethren showed himself fifteen feet downstream, this one taking the fly when I lost it in the glare and opening my hook wide when I tightened.

As the morning passed, my main opponent must have had his fill, either that or he moved thirty feet upstream. There I could see alternately a soft sipping rise and a tip up with a wink of silver. Nothing to be seen save those sulfurs, so I eased into a better position and offered my little menu once more. Completely oblivious to anything I offered, he went about his little dance.

I nearly ruined it with a cast overpowered by frustration. I caught it in midair, whipped it back hard cursing at myself, and paid the price for my folly. The 6X tippet had cut the fly line right down to it’s braided core. I was finished, with no choice but to withdraw.

There was another outfit in the car, a five though, so I couldn’t simply swap the reel onto my four-weight bamboo. Wipe it down, slide it into its bag and that into the pentagonal walnut case good friend JA had made just for me.

It took some time, rigging the five-weight rod and making the walk for the third time. I slipped into the river and crawled down the edge until I could see the lie I had left in defeat. He was still at it.

With the events of the morning being what they were, I fully expected that trout to retire before I could negotiate that last seventy-five yards. Amazingly though, he waited for me to finally ease into position for a long, down-and-across cast. In fact, there appeared to be two trout working along that bank, either that or my sipper and wink fish had grown more adventurous.

I knotted that trusty size fourteen 100-Year Dun, the same fly I had started the day with, and the very same one my friend had ignored. Perhaps it was that adventurous streak that was his downfall.

He had glided away from the bank and I laid a cast down as softly as I was able some four feet above his last kiss of the surface. He glided up, kissed the 100-Year Dun, and I bowed my head and raised my rod.

He started with a hell of a boil, then darted downstream toward some lovely tippet cutting apparatus nature had paved the river bottom with. I countered with a downstream sweep of the rod, bringing him to the top to splash and slash his displeasure. When he ran back up toward his taking place, I got a good look at his long golden flank and flashing white belly, thinking two feet.

I had done away with the morning’s 6X when I rigged the backup rod, and I was happy with my choice. The cloudy weather after a cool night kept the water nice and cold, and this brownie had plenty of stamina. When I rolled him onto the graduated centerline of my net, I found I had missed my guess by an inch.

Slipped into the current, he cozied down beside my boots and cursed me thoroughly.

With a victory in my pocket, I decided to walk and do my best to hunt up one for another try. I found him too. Hooked him, felt the big throbbing head shakes, then felt the hook pull free as he ran behind a submerged boulder.

The next one sat back in an edge of shade, and I gave him a long reach cast and watched the fly dim as it passed beyond that edge. He was a good fish, spirited and hard running, and I thanked him for his service as I retrieved my sulfur from his jaw.

I started the long walk back around four o’clock, feeling the ache in my casting shoulder and back. It had been a long day.

Summer is flirting with the Catskills. It hasn’t quite arrived just yet, though it has passed through certain discrete locales for a brief visit. Summer always takes me back to The Source, the genesis of my own infatuation and eventual obsession with the magic of wild trout and the fly. All hail the difficult trout!

The hallowed waters of Carlisle, Pennsylvania’s Letort Spring Run were mecca for anglers who sought to walk the path. Ed Shenk was the Master of this fair limestone stream when I journeyed there, and the magician who crafted some of the most famous flies in the world, the manna that could tempt leviathan from the dark places hidden beneath the soft banks and whirling beds of elodea. I sat at the Master’s side and learned his methods and his reasoning, and I remain forever grateful for his gifts.

Summer was the prime season for the dry fly on all of the spring-fed creeks of the quaint Cumberland Valley. Mayfly populations were not high even then, more than three decades ago, and the bounty born of the meadows came in the form of terrestrial insects. Ants, both crawling and winged, various beetles, leafhoppers, crickets and the glorious grasshoppers soothed the hunger of the wild brown and rainbow trout. It was here that the second great revolution of the dry fly evolved.

My heart longs for the best of those days!

Thirty years have passed, and I have migrated to the Catskills. I still feel my heartbeat quicken when summer arrives, and the trout change their mood. It is time to hunt!

I have a mission. It has been a number of seasons since I whiled away a few hours amid the quiet and serenity of a high mountain stream. Bright water takes many forms and personalities, but the source waters are truly special. Without the high mountain brooks there would be no Beaver Kills, Willowemocs or Delawares.

Broad Run was my escape route. Though enthralled by the complexities of the limestone spring creeks, I would steal a warm, calm day in April to wander this tiny mountain stream. I remember those days fondly, the music of the sparkling waters and the drumming of Ruffed grouse delighting my senses as I crouched and climbed over deadfalls, sending quick, darting little casts ahead with a Fox Squirrel Special. A short bamboo rod and a size 16 dry fly from the ancient DeWitt fly box salvaged from the remains of my grandfather’s tackle – I traveled light in those sacred environs. There were days I brought fifty brookies to hand!

My old friend Tom Smithwick surprised me last weekend with a very special gift. We had attended the celebration of the life of rodmaker Mike Canazon at the Wulff Gallery, and stole away at the end to talk. He handed me a tiny aluminum tube, saying it contained “an experimental little rod I think you might have some fun with”.

Three pieces of beautifully crafted split cane met my gaze as I slipped the green bag from that tube. Nearly weightless I thought, as I joined the fiberglass ferrules and affixed the tiny CFO reel he handed me! One cast was all I needed to know this was a Smithwick rod. I rolled the line low behind me and then rolled it forward in the cast Lee Wulff called “the oval”, and the cast travelled quick and low beneath some imagined tangle of branches to drop a perfect dry fly where brookies lurk.

Suddenly I envisioned another of those long ago escape days. This wonder rod can be slipped in a day pack with a sandwich and water bottle to keep Grandpa Al’s DeWitt box and my CFO I company.

Where in all the Catskills shall I wander? I know the right man to ask!

The forecast was straight forward enough: half an inch of rain overnight with showers and thunderstorms possible in the morning and highly likely throughout the afternoon. It wasn’t looking like a fishing day, but satisfying the rivers’ need for that precious rainfall was worth losing a day’s fishing. My final decision was made when I realized I was wide awake and turned to pick up my watch: 2:42 AM.

I did my best to get back to sleep and succeeded, resigning myself to a fishless day given my conviction that early morning provided my best shot at tangling with an early hunter. I was up for a few minutes when I checked the kitchen clock to find it was still only 5:30. There was no sign of any of the phantom half an inch of sorely needed rain. The Weather Channel showed moving systems of severe storms, though they seemed to divide on their video map and turn either north or south of these Catskills. Maryland got tornados, Hancock stayed dry. Better all of that energy the meteorologists were talking about had sent us our rain and reduced the power of the system to the south. No one needs tornados. They swore we were going to get todays storms though! Six thirty-three PM and blue skies to the east with a few clouds to the west.

Of course, they are telling me it will be raining in the morning, with thunderstorms possible in the afternoon. If I fish the early shift, I’ll be home by afternoon. Yes, that does make for a long day après fishing, but I can always tie another couple of dozen flies for my summer larder.

I’ll get my impregnated T&T Hendrickson ready tonight, set the reel out beside the two dozen flies I tied today. Can’t say that I will set an alarm just yet. I usually wake up around five, and I can get ready and out the door in a short time when I put my mind to it.

I always feel cheated when a bad weather forecast convinces me to change my plans for fishing and find out too late it was scientific fantasy. Tomorrow is Friday after all, the last fishing day of the week for sane, resident anglers here in the Catskills. We old guys do enjoy a little solitude you know. I simply can’t miss out on two days in a row. They fooled me once, but I won’t let them do it twice!

I went hunting this morning, not too long past dawn, and slipped into the river to vanish in the mist. I kept things simple: a 7-1/2-foot Orvis bamboo rod and a classic Hardy LRH. Thunderstorms were predicted and I like the impervious nature of an impregnated cane rod when bad weather is afoot.

I was hoping my early morning stalking would turn up a hunting brownie, change my luck for the better. Sometimes I guess its all in the numbers.

When I was a youngster, God how long ago that was, my favorite number was twenty-five. In one glorious week to begin my spring dry fly season, I landed two exceptional wild brown trout whose measurements aligned with that old favorite number. This morning, I did it again.

I was working a favorite summer morning location when the water exploded upstream and out of range for the little rod I had chosen. That booming attack made me think I needed to clip the size 10 spinner from my tippet and replace it with, well, a meal. Experience said it was too early for terrestrials, they’re never on them this early in June, but I knew the trout that made that explosion was hunting for breakfast.

When I had chosen the right fly and checked my knots two or three times, I began casting. It had been a few minutes since leviathan had awakened us both, so I spread my casts out, knowing from long experience that many of these big hunters are on the move. They will hang in an area to suit their own mood and urgency to feed, but they are often not holding to a particular lie.

The cast I placed out away from the cover in the primary line of drift was the right one. He took with a subtle gulp, I hit him, and that little Orvis rod began bucking while the Hardy screamed! There is a special magic when you are alone on a river with that music in your ears and the cry of battle in your heart.

It took some time to get that fish to come near the net, and I wasn’t able to get him in it until about the fifth try. My heart was pumping as fast as the old boy’s gill covers when I twisted that fly free and rolled him into alignment with the measuring line. Twenty-five inches and a smidge, got to be something about that number.

I recognized that trout. I caught him last summer, hoping that the missing mandible wouldn’t handicap him too much. He must have been hooked by one of those sportsmen who fish saltwater size streamers on 8 weight rods and suffered that disfigurement. He had grown nearly an inch since last year, put on some more weight too, and I am pleased that he is still strong and proud.

I fished my way through the rest of the morning with intent, surgically exploring each nuance of current and each piece of cover. I found success again a couple of hours later.

My next foe came from behind a boulder in fast water, enticed by the movement of my CDC winged March Brown emerger. He reacted to my hookset with violent staccato head shakes as he bulled his way downstream and away, the reel protesting each run.

Eventually I worked him toward the shallows near shore and led him thrashing into the net. The morning sun was strong and lit him up beautifully as I snapped a quick photo in the meshes.

It has been nearly a month since I last brought a twenty-inch trout to hand, a month spanning the prime spring season. I logged many days and hours astream during that month, finding meek hatches and little surface activity. Taking two in excess of that mark on one beautiful Catskill morning was truly a gift from the gods of summer!

I awakened early as customary during dry fly season and decided to get ready and head to the river. With an eye toward current flows and the weather forecast, I figured this could be my last chance to fish our most historically heralded river until autumn cools it’s water once again. Checking the water temperature at Cooks Falls just now I found it pushing 68 degrees, too warm for trout fishing, so it seems I guessed right this morning.

The Beaver Kill hasn’t the cold dam releases of her related Delaware River tributaries, and we are thankful for that, though it would be nice to have fishing there throughout the summer. America’s first trout river should run wild and dam-free forever!

I was on the river by 6:15, taking advantage of the cool morning air and the cloud cover that would let me fish on into the afternoon. I knotted a sizeable rusty spinner to the tippet and worked some line out with the Leonard 50DF. Spying a nearby rise in the run, I drifted the fly through a few times. A trout rose to it, appeared to take it, but wasn’t home when I raised the cane to say hello. A short while later another quick rise drew my attention and my casts, one of which was rewarded with the wild runs of a big Delaware rainbow. A fitting trout to christen my new, old Leonard, the bow measured eighteen inches, a trout right in the top of the wild ride category. The wild rainbows of the Delaware River face months of warm water, thousands of anglers, and long migrations to summer over in suitable temperatures, and they are not long lived. A big brown trout has to stretch the tape to twenty inches to earn that moniker, but a foot and a half of bow deserves it as well. It is the 15″ to 18″ rainbows that will spool you if they have the notion.

I prospected a hundred yards or more of fast water, scanning the dark bottom areas for fish holding pockets, but none of the many I cast to provided a rise. Walking out, I talked with another angler who had arrived a few minutes earlier. Ron is a retired dairy farmer from upstate New York, and finally has time to enjoy his fishing. During our conversation, I mentioned the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild, and Ron asked me if I knew Tom Mason. He occupied the campsite right next to Tom and Martha during previous seasons. I told him that Tom was a friend and I had in fact seen him and Martha just yesterday at the Celebration of Life in honor of Mike Canazon. Fly fishing never ceases to remind us what a small world we live in.

On the way to what would be a crowded Mountain Pool, I stopped at another pool when I spied a lone angler. I walked down to the river sans rod and reel and found my friend Chuck Coronato and his wife. We talked for a good while as Chuck fished. Finding a small March Brown dun floating nearby, Chuck figured it was time to change his fly, and I suggested a 100-Year Dun. He produced one from his fly box and knotted it fast, then offered me his latest bamboo acquisition, a sweet eight-foot Heddon.

Well, a trout rose just then, I cast to him once or twice, and he ate that 100-Year Dun and dove for the bottom of the fast run. The stout fifteen-inch brownie put up a good scrap, and Chuck graciously netted him for me. After some more talk and fishing, I finally headed out toward my goal of Mountain Pool. I guess June 3rd is some sort of new national holiday, for I think I found every fly fisherman in the country crammed into each parking lot along the next few miles of the Beaver Kill. I backtracked and found Chuck taking down his rod with thoughts of finding a nice luncheon. While I was counting fishermen upriver, Chuck tied into a nice bow that showed him his backing twice! Wishing each other well, I headed into the pool while the crowd grew around me.

The sun had made an appearance, and as the late morning warmed past Noon there were fewer flies dancing on the water. I managed another pair of trout, foot-long brownies, between stalking a couple of rises that I guessed might be signs of bigger fish. As the sunshine strengthened, they quickly ceased their surface activity, and I decided to give them a wave and withdraw.

A pleasant day, a nice, unexpected visit with a friend, and a few good fish to make it interesting; just fishing!

As fully expected, my friend’s visit brought stormy skies and wet fishing, muddied rivers and, sadly, produced very few trout. Oh, we spent some lovely hours on the Catskill rivers, misty rain drenched days when every mayfly in the drainage could have been expected to hatch. They didn’t. Though cooler and wetter than the past two weeks, these three days offered no more insect activity than the hot, bright, low water conditions that preceded them.

Hatches have always varied from year to year, but I cannot convince myself that there has not been a significant decline in all species dear to the angler’s heart. A handful of Green Drakes sputtered off over the period, and I know it was not simply the slow beginning of the hatch, for my grille was plastered with Coffin Flies Monday night as they tried their fate at reproduction on a wet roadway rather than their natal waters close by.

We talked of the hatches we had seen twenty years ago, with plenty of duns emerging during the afternoons to bring leviathan and his brethren to the surface. A wet, cool, misty day like yesterday would have produced a heavy hatch back then; today only a few ghosts of what had been, with a handful of trout cruising, still chasing the odd rising nymph.

It is not only the Green Drakes we missed, witnessing but token appearances of March Browns and sulfurs. Still. I try to convince myself this is another of Nature’s cycles, and not the finality of an environment too long neglected and abused.

We took what was best about this span of days, two old friends sharing the water, joking about the lack of fishing opportunities, and each other’s foibles. We thought of others we have known, friends not present, for they fish now somewhere off around the bend. Time stalks each of us, and we know not when the showdown will transpire. May there be many more seasons, visits like these, and may at least a few of them mirror the best of long ago.

The Catskill rivers really need some rain. There won’t be the great fishing we all associate with Bug Week unless we get some, for NYC simply isn’t going to give us any water. I’ve been really worried about this, and I finally had to take action. I mean there are dozens of drift boats out there sitting upon dry gravel, filled with wide-eyed staring fishermen. Mikey is coming up for a visit!

The forecasts changed as soon as he picked an arrival date: three days fishing in the Catskills, three days of thunderstorms.

Now Mike and I go way back, thirty years, and he has always had this magic power to bring bad weather to any planned fishing trip. I recall one season many years ago. I had arrived early to get in as much fishing as possible before Mike sidled into New York and brough the flood. I had started taking a two-week vacation, generally centered around the last week of May and the first week of June each year, and I guess I was about three days into the first week. I was on the river and catching brownies on Green Drakes when Mike showed up. The black clouds followed within the hour and the wrath of the Red Gods descended on the Delaware River system. That storm blew out all of the rivers for three or four days!

I cannot count the early springs when I sat at home checking the fishing reports and watching river gages and weather forecasts before launching my first trip to intercept the Hendrickson hatch. All it took was for Mike to announce that he “might be able to get away for the weekend” for the rain and the deep freeze to come whistling out of the north. The man has a strange mystical power, and you simply have to respect it!

I am hoping that my plan will work out this time, and we will get enough rain to give our rivers the big drink they desperately need. I know, it’s a risky plan, but I am hoping that the rivers will clear after he slips back to Maryland and give us at least a few days when the water is high enough and cold enough to keep the backs of the mayflies wet.

I am going out fishing this morning with an old friend. Actually, I never met Tom Maxwell, though I am intimately familiar with his work. My Thomas & Thomas bamboo fly rods are favorites which see a lot of time on my Catskill rivers each season.

A couple of years after his departure from the company he helped found, Maxwell was hired to lead the rod making operations at the storied H. L. Leonard Rod Company. Many anglers will tell you a tale about some memorable moments astream with their Leonard rod, particularly the iconic 50DF model. Many fans and collectors of the marque hold special praise for the rods made late in the company’s history, the rods of the Maxwell Era. It is said that the most beautiful rods in their storied history bear the hand of Thomas Maxwell. That notation in a classic tackle dealer’s listing commands a premium, for the prices asked and gladly paid for Maxwell Leonards are among the highest for the fly rods which bear old Hiram Leonard’s name.

I was interested in a Leonard 50DF, and I had perused various listings of rods offered by dealers of my acquaintance. I had no designs on a Maxwell, for there was no question they were out of my price range. Once in a very long while though, even I can get lucky. I visited the website of South Creek, Ltd. as I had purchased a lovely seven-foot Granger from proprietor and rodmaker Michael Clark several years ago. There among his listings was a nearly new Leonard 50DF-6 made in 1980, the fabled Maxwell era, inked in his hand. I won’t divulge the price, but I will say I was astonished at how very affordable this rod was, even for an old, retired working man like me. A milestone was approaching, and I took the availability of this coveted rod as a sign. Arrangements were quickly made for the rod to travel from Colorado to the Catskills.

I have cast the 50 with several lines, both five and six weights, and it is amazing, much faster in action than my fifties vintage Model 66. I doubt the rod was ever fished, lawn cast, but likely never taken to the water. It is for all intents and purposes a brand new forty-four-year-old fly rod. Today it shall become a much-appreciated used bamboo rod.

We entered the river just after six o’clock, parting the morning mist. I chose the early morning shift as the afternoons had proved difficult to say the least. It seems a bit early for the kind of morning activity I hoped for. It has felt like summer this past week, but it is still spring, despite the low water and hot sunshine.

I knotted a rusty spinner to my tippet and set about prospecting the tailing currents of a gentle riffle. I had not made a lot of casts when a rise met my spinner and the Leonard came up deftly. The trout leaped when his breakfast bit back, then set about testing the arch of this fine shaft of split cane. Yes, I had visions of christening this special rod with a twenty-inch brown, but that gloriously dark colored foot long fellow was well received on this day.

The big fish proved they were not yet interested in an early breakfast. Perhaps when summer does arrive their patterns will change. Our rivers need rain, and there are promises in that regard for next week. Whether they are fulfilled lies in other hands than mine.

Tom’s Leonard performed beautifully, and now that I’ve had it on the water, I will continue my search for the perfect line. Every bamboo rod has one.