Bright Waters Catskill

I learned this morning of last week’s passing of Greg Hoover, a celebrated entomologist, gentleman fly angler, writer and fly tyer. Known widely for his expertise in the study of aquatic insects, Greg was a lifelong sportsman who freely shared his time and knowledge with his fellow anglers.

I would see Greg annually at the Fly Fishers Club of Harrisburg banquet and other angling functions around the Commonwealth, always enjoying our conversations. My fondest memory, from nearly thirty years ago, involves a talk about hatches on my little Falling Spring Branch. I mentioned the small hatch of Yellow Drakes (Ephemera varia) that occurred in the lower reach of that limestone spring. Greg acknowledged that these large mayflies were somewhat rare in Southcentral Pennsylvania’s small streams. He became excited when I stated that they hatched quite reliably about the 20th of May each spring. Greg counseled that varia is typically a late June emergence in the slow, finely silted areas of eastern rivers and questioned my timing. I assured him that I kept written records as I gained knowledge about my home water.

Greg thought there was a chance that these mayflies were a different species, one thought to be extinct, rather than Ephemera varia. We made a date to meet at my fly shop and visit the Falling Spring to witness the emergence. Greg arrived fully equipped with a large collecting net, magnifiers and specimen bottles. We relaxed and talked about the treasure of the limestone springs until the first mayflies appeared near dusk. He successfully collected several male imagos as required for DNA testing, a process that he waited several years for the opportunity to perform.

Whenever I would see Greg thereafter, I would ask about those tests, and we would relive our little twilight adventure. When at last the results were in, he let me know that the flies were indeed varia, attributing their early emergence date to the stability of water temperatures throughout the year. This had been my guess during our original discussion, but only that, and I appreciated his sharing his broad knowledge. That discovery has remained with me all these years, for it has given me some confidence in the degree day theory of hatch timing.

I had thought of Greg a couple of seasons back when my friend Mike Saylor had asked about periodic cicadas on Catskill Rivers. I found his Penn State email address still listed on the University website but failed to reach him. It was a number of years past his retirement. Hoover likely had more knowledge regarding this mythic seventeen-year cycle mega hatch than anyone.

I remember Greg as always being generous with his knowledge, ever with that light in his eyes when discussing stream insects, flies and fishing!

Rest in peace my friend and may all the mayflies perform for your delight as you fish on around the bend!

One of the qualifiers to the marvelous spring fly fishing here in the Catskill Mountains region is the prevalence of strong winds on open waters. We have been having quite a run with them lately.

My favorite online weather forecast provides just a two-day window for it’s wind predictions. You get today, tonight and tomorrow and beyond that, well, you just have to wait and see. Our winds seem to outperform the forecast more than they don’t. Monday didn’t look too bad for example, with winds from 10 to 15 miles per hour expected. Growing up in the flat topography of Southern Maryland, I would see that and expect a nice day with a light breeze, and maybe an occasional little gust that flirted with fifteen miles an hour. Life in the mountains is different, and life on the rivers leads to a very different interpretation of that forecast. What I would expect, and incidentally what I got, was a fairly steady blow in the neighborhood of fifteen mph with higher gusts. There were a lot of gusts.

That is more than enough wind to defeat the dry fly angler, for what makes our fishing here so special is that we have sublimely educated wild trout. Our rivers produce a great deal of natural food and host a great many fly fishers, so our trout grow to impressive sizes and display a very high level of selectivity. Your dry fly has to be a good imitation of the insect the fish are feeding upon and it has to be presented perfectly. That means casting accuracy and delicacy is paramount, often at greater distances than most Eastern fishermen are accustomed to.

The absolute key to dry fly success is delivering your fly consistently with a natural, drag free float. Gentle, accurate and drag free are the requirements, and to all of these, wind is the enemy.

I spend a great deal of time and energy trying to plan my fishing to counteract the worst the winds have to offer. I know from long experience that, if I am in the wrong place for the winds, it really doesn’t matter much whether there is a good hatch or not. Those wind forecasts are vital to my planning, though it is a shame they aren’t more reliable.

Yesterday seemed to be an easy decision. I had business to take care of near the West Branch Delaware River, true, the winds were forecast at ten to twenty miles per hour but were supposed to be from the West. I planned to fish a reach of river with a high western bank, a reach where I expected some bugs and rising trout. The river flows north to south there and that high western bank will block a westerly wind very effectively. I should be golden!

The Red Gods were otherwise occupied when I first arrived, and I entered the river under quite calm conditions, even though the winds had risen a couple of hours earlier. Despite the fact that this was a Tuesday afternoon, the river was crowded with wading anglers and a steady procession of drift boats, but there was a clear path ahead.

I took my time crossing the river, rather suddenly at low flow, and scanning a wide swath of shallow water in front of me. I could see the bottom clearly, so I moved slowly and gently and, there it was, a very subtle little rise about sixty feet ahead. I had knotted an A.I. 100-Year Dun in expectation of a few Hendricksons, and I pulled enough line from the reel to make the cast. There was no sign of that riser, but I know that trout often move about in shallow water to intercept their choice morsels from the sparse numbers of bugs available. I extended my casts gradually and voila!

The take was subtle and the reaction bold, with a very nice brown jumping and streaking away from the pressure of the rod, my Hardy singing merrily! We had a wild time out there in the middle of the river, the brown rushing in and out and trying to thrash the tippet with his tail while I alternated reeling and giving line and doing my best to keep him off balance and away from the larger chunks of rock. He still had plenty of vigor when I scooped him in the net.

I was about to continue my mid-river search when the Red Gods noticed my presence, no doubt tipped off by the music of the little Hardy and the jumping trout, and turned on the fans to chase any other bug sipping brownies off those flats. Undaunted, I eased my way over to that protective western bank and waited.

Do west winds usually blow from due north, due south and east? It seems they do here. The expected calm would have made fishing that bank easy pickings, at least as easy as it ever gets for our PhD West Branch browns; the strong and ever changing winds did not.

I feel certain that the gusts topped twenty miles per hour several times, leaving me to do my best to adjust. After all, it isn’t like this kind of scenario doesn’t occur most days of the season. The trout I had to fish for seemed to be spread out in the slightly deeper band of water close to the bank, taking advantage of the rocks and logs that populate the bottom. I got no more interest from the Hendrickson, not even after a few naturals appeared around three o’clock. The occasional rises indicated moving trout and the only thing on the menu were tiny Shadfly caddis. I gave up on the mayfly and tied on a long 5X tippet and a size 20 CDX.

One of the other “advantages” of spring winds is the multitude of color they bring to the water, seed pods, bits of leaves and stalks from all of the freshly vegetated trees and bushes, all bearing very similar hues to the light tan wings of those caddisflies. Tracking a windblown size 20 dry fly takes on a whole new challenge amid hundreds of other things that look similar from fifty feet away.

I managed to intercept another moving target, a twin to the first brownie, while constantly checking my back cast to keep it free from the passing boats, and casting between the then downstream gusts. Those winds must have liked blowing straight down from the North, for they ceased their earlier changing of direction and put their best efforts into maintaining a steady blow, eventually ending the rises along my little reach of riverbank.

No complaints here, just a wry smile in appreciation of a typical afternoon on the river. I had a nice little mix of fishing and boat dodging and took a pair of very nice wild browns despite the Red Gods and their games. Let’s see, which direction is the wind supposed to blow from today?

It is the sixteenth day of May here in Crooked Eddy and my porch thermometer reads 34 degrees. Though I am still running the furnace overnight, and paying the ever-growing gas bill it brings, such mornings are a blessing for our freestone rivers. The forecast high for Hancock, New York today is 76. The sunshine that affects that forty-two degree rise works on the flowing waters too, so the cold nights are buffer and balm. I have been told a significant run of dry weather is expected, and the evening chill will remain most welcome.

I fished yesterday at a place I have not visited for a while, one that tends to awaken for the season in the middle of May. Most of that fishing involved three hours of sitting on a riverbank and scanning the windswept reaches of the river for some sign of the mayflies I anticipate at this season. Though our hatches seem to be just about level with an early to normal spring progression, I saw nothing but a handful of the inexplicably tiny shadfly caddis, and nary a rise.

I walked out around half past two, stretched my legs and ate a snack with a fresh, cold bottle of water, then decided to take another look at the river. Walking back down, I stopped at an overlook and saw something completely unexpected, a trout’s rise. I backed away, cut down river through the bushes, and emerged below a fallen tree. The rise had been upstream of the obstruction, so my plan was to stalk up close to it to allow an upstream cast, one that would be short enough I would have some chance if this turned out to be a big bruiser of a trout determined to dive into the fallen tree.

When I reached that position, I cast a shad caddis to no avail, even after the rise was repeated. It was at that point that I witnessed another unexpected development. Just after the second rise, a bug tumbled through the roily surface film: it was a Hendrickson.

I clipped my caddis and selected a well-used A.I Hendrickson 100-Year Dun from my vest, one of the flies that had treated me so well during this year’s hatch, more than two weeks ago. You can guess the rest: a couple of casts, a rise to the fly, and a hooked trout. Brought to hand, I displayed my trophy across the width of my palm, four inches of quivering, wild brownie! I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself. After all, I had spotted the rise, stalked into position, identified the hatch, and made the perfect presentation to ensure success, exactly as planned. This would not be a fishless day, at least not technically.

I walked back upstream, taking a last look at the river as the winds swirled, still laughing to myself about my “luck” at finding a rising fish to save a fishless day. I was enjoying my final moments on the river when I saw a rise at the tail of a broad pool. A trout seemed to be gliding about the tailout, picking off stray Hendricksons before they tumbled over the lip of the pool; or were there two? It can be hard to tell when trout are moving about like that, but there seemed to be a difference in the rise forms, one much bolder than the other.

That particular location is not back cast friendly, so I had no choice but to ease into the water and try to get closer to the rises while wading away from them. Luckily the river level was low enough that I was able to ease into a reasonable casting position without swimming. I was carrying a rod with a double tapered five line, a re-creation of a Payne 102H that is as close as I will ever get to owning a rod by the man considered the greatest bamboo rodmaker of all time. I did get to cast the real thing last year, though not side by side with my copy, and I finally can say that it’s feel and casting ability seem favorably close to the real thing. I Have always liked that rod, and I knew it well enough to be confident it would shoot the DT line so that I could cast the long line required with the shorter back cast available.

I made several attempts to put my fly in the path of that moving target and, at the end of one lovely long drift down the glide, he bulged the flat surface and took it cleanly. The fish shot away toward the far bank and vaulted into the air, leaving me to feather all of the slack line retrieved during the drift in a hurry. When he turned though, still short of my being able to get him on the reel, he came at me rapidly. More wild stripping and hand control succeeded, and I finally got him on the reel where he could strike up that classic, vintage Hardy chorus.

Your average Delaware rainbow is a hard fighting fish, and this fellow was well above average, but I brought him to net thanks to the grace of split bamboo. Twenty-one inches measured, with a wide flank that gave him plenty of purchase against the current in a fight, I dared lift him from the water for only a quick snapshot in the net, then sent him on his way.

As I enjoyed the grin on my windburned face and stood watching that glide across the tailout, the other rise appeared again; so there are two of them feeding.

There weren’t a lot of flies out there, but every once in a while that second roving trout would find one, just as he eventually found my A.I. Hendrickson. Though smaller than that spectacular bow, this one still gave his all against the pull of my arc of cane. Though I had suspected another rainbow, this was a brown trout, not big, but a quality fish of about seventeen inches. I slipped the A.I. from his mandible gently and offered my thanks as he shot away.

Sometimes, patience is rewarded.

It is thirty-seven degrees here in Crooked Eddy, with the expectation of sunshine and highs above seventy. Rivers have fallen, and prime conditions for wade fishing are with us.

I just finished cleaning the ferrules on my hollowbuilt Menscer rod, a necessary task with bamboo. Ferrule fitting is perhaps the most mysterious of the black arts learned by master bamboo rodmakers like Dennis. Another rod crafter I knew described it as fitting smoke, and I thought that the perfect analogy. Mating surfaces should be cleaned for each day of use, wiping gently with denatured alcohol on a soft, clean cloth or a Q-tip for the female, no abrasives whatsoever, and the alcohol must never touch the varnish!

The nine year old Airflo fly line on that dedicated CFO IV was freshly cleaned and lubricated as well. I am particular about the care of my fly lines, one reason that I can still fish that line after nine hard seasons. I desire the best performance out of the tackle each time I take it on the water, one of the little details that make a great difference in taking difficult trout. We have all experienced those moments when our best cast fell inches short of the feeding lane of the trout of our dreams, again and again. Gaining those magic inches can come down to small details.

My friend the ghost will join me today. He has earned the name by vanishing outside the dry fly season, only to return when mayflies take wing in springtime. It will be good to talk with the ghost, to catch up on where he has been and what’s afoot since he vanished last summer.

Of course, we will both keep our eyes glued to the surface of the water, searching for the sight of wings, or the soft rings made by large trout feeding secretly. Would that we do witness those events, the beginnings of the magic on bright water!

I did my best to pick a perfect day for my first solo float of the season, favorable temperatures, some cloud cover, and the bonus of very attractive changes in the flow regime, but, you know what they say about best laid plans…

I was excited at the prospects! The City had lowered the release into the West Branch, allowing the water temperature to climb into the fifties, even sixty degrees by afternoon, and there was a very nice dry fly flow provided by reservoir spill. It looked like chances were very good for fly hatches, and my boat bag was loaded with Hendricksons, Shadfly caddis and Blue Quills. Throw in that cloud cover with a day in the upper sixties and northerly winds of just 5 to 10 miles per hour and it all seemed too good to be true! It was.

I saw a few shad caddis early on, but just a few, and they were tiny. This caddisfly is typically imitated with a size 18 dry fly. Yes, I know the fly shops tell you 14 to 16, but it is important to look at the insects closely. Caddis have long wings that extend back past their bodies, and they look larger in flight. You select your hook sizes based upon body length and you find that an 18 dry fly hook is just right for the Shads, or Apple Caddis depending upon the locality of your fishing. Mother Nature though, likes to throw some curves.

I tie some smaller caddisflies just to cover my bases, and for the Shadfly and tan caddis, that means some size 20 patterns to complement the standard size eighteens. I was well prepared with twenties, but the naturals weren’t even close to being that big. Too small to catch, these flies appeared to be in the range of size 22 to 24, and for most of the day they were the only fly consistently on the water. When I found a trout sipping these guys, my twenties were regularly ignored or refused.

Having your best efforts at matching the hatch soundly defeated by Mother Nature’s twists is part of the game, but it is frustrating. No matter I told myself, and kept rowing, this day still looked perfect for a big hatch of all of the Hendricksons that hadn’t been seen on the West Branch this season!

After a couple of hours of the morning had passed, I noticed the wind beginning to build. This was supposed to be a calm day remember? Ah yes, the Red Gods were joining the game early. Let’s see if we can make the fly fisherman crazy!

I encountered more boats as I made my way down the river, a little surprised because there had been a single trailer parked where I launched. I took my time, stopped at a lot of places where I should have found some good trout working, and fought the urge to rush to my sure-fire spot for a Hendrickson hatch. The wind kept building, though there were calm spells. The way the Red Gods play this game the calm spells come when you are moving from place to place, saving up the wind gusts to blow when you actually find a rise. They are used to winning.

After a stop for lunch I made my move, as there were now boats up river and more below me. As I drifted toward my target spot, I saw one anchored and thought I was out of luck, but it turned out he was 100 yards or so above my spot. I glided past him, left him some water to fish, and eased into the target zone. By the time I had anchored, I saw two or three rises, so I slipped the anchor to drift a little closer. It was easy to do, since the wind was blowing directly into my stern.

Initially, these fish looked to be eating the tiny caddis. The wind accelerated and made casting very interesting, as I had to throw downstream at a very sharp angle, requiring my backcasts to go directly into that wind. One fish finally appeared to take my fly, just after a big gust blew the line out of my fingers in the middle of a mend. Refusal, or a miss? I will never know, since I didn’t get an honest hookset while chasing those loops of slack line.

The wind roared right down the pipe, as I eased along that bank wishing for a bend that might offer me some sort of windbreak, and then the Hendricksons finally appeared. There was one little pink dun sitting right on the boat’s fly holder. I quickly changed from the caddis to a pink Hendrickson, and continued my battle with the wind. That wind tried to be helpful though, it put several flies into my sweatshirt, so I’d have spares.

As predicted, there were several trout rising along that one severely windblown stretch of riverbank, the only feeing activity I would find this day.

One good trout took the fly, I lifted the rod and felt nothing. Couldn’t spot my fly on the next cast. Oh, there is no fly on my leader !#x&!!

And so it went, a beautifully frustrating day. Red Gods 4,356,203, angler nothing. Like I said, when they play they generally win.

A full week has been lost to the power of weather and water, though at last I find myself on the cusp of better days!

I awakened this morning with a new fly design in my head, the full pattern crystalized in my sleep. I think the lack of fishing, of missing a week out of the prime of the season, must have spurred my resting mind to work it up. Some outlet is necessary for all of the stifled passion!

It is a Saturday, and the rivers remain unwadable, but relief is in sight. Morning sunshine is streaming in my window, and this seems the day we may finally expect it to last. I rushed to mow the lawn yesterday afternoon, finishing under the chill of light rainfall when a big, dark cloud settled right over Crooked Eddy, so today will be a day of ease and preparation.

I took straight to the vise this morning, eager to tie a few examples of that new March Brown. You may be puzzled at the name, though I have mentioned the changes observed in this large mayfly during three decades of Catskill angling. Though I have observed color variations in mayflies as long as I have carried a fly rod, the history of our March Browns intrigue me.

For twenty years, every March Brown mayfly I plucked from the waters of Catskill rivers was the classic caramel brown colored fly, with dark venations and blotches in wings shaded with a translucent brown. During the past decade, these flies have appeared pale yellow, with lighter wing markings within a pale translucent yellow background, with one remarkable exception.

It was late May, two thousand nineteen, and Mike Saylor plucked a remnant dun from the water as we waded out after fishing fruitlessly during a nice March Brown hatch on the Beaver Kill. The fly in hand was a bright canary yellow, an unnatural safety yellow, though clearly a March Brown dun upon examining the wing markings and verifying it’s twin tails. All of the rising trout had refused every pattern we could offer while feeding freely, even exuberantly on these wildly colored naturals. Being the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival that year, the name was a natural!

The garish yellow bodied parachute was tried a few days later when I found one substantial trout taking in that same pool, after he ignored all of the usual patterns. That 21-inch brown accepted the Woodstock Parachute as freely as he took the naturals. I have tied and carried them every year since.

I have a feeling this new Woodstock fly will bring me some luck when the river finally returns to a normal flow. I am hoping that a good hatch will appear this year. I have not enjoyed a good one since 2019, though I have seen a few flies. Warm water kept trout from feeding on them during the single season I did see fair numbers of flies, but this season looks to be cooler and wetter. I can almost hear the riffles playing counterpoint to a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo, the bass line provided by the plucking sound of big trout eating big mayflies!

Twenty-two days have elapsed since my seasonal countdown hit zero, and I had fished sixteen of them, enjoying some great times during the Hendrickson hatch. West Coast steelheaders have a saying: “the tug is the drug”, and I can sympathize with the sentiment. Right now, as my favorite month begins, I have been forced into fishing withdrawal.

These precious May days shouldn’t find us with flood conditions on the Delaware tailwaters, but NYC finally plans to fix the millions of gallons per day leak in their Delaware Aqueduct. They have been hoarding water in the reservoirs that discharge to the aqueduct this spring, leaving no room for the inch and a half of rain the weekend delivered. I cannot fault them for fixing their wasteful leak, though I can for waiting so many years to address it. The engineers who designed the system should have included some valving or a release gate apparatus to be able to shut off discharges to the aqueduct for maintenance, but they either didn’t have the common sense and foresight, or the City determined it wasn’t worth the cost.

Cannonsville and Pepacton reservoirs were both over maximum capacity and spilling before this latest rainfall event occurred, and no one knows if wadable flows will return this month, before NYC begins drawing them down via high releases so construction may begin in October.

At any rate, here we are at peak season and the Delaware system is unfishable with dangerous flows and muddy runoff. The rivers should clear, barring another significant rainfall event, but it will take time for that, and for the flows to recede to safe, fishable levels even for drift boat fishing.

I confess, I am a wade fisherman at heart, even though I own a drift boat. I am a bamboo rod toting, dry fly junkie – and I need a fix! My only hope lies with the freestone rivers, however long it takes for them to recede and clear to wadable levels.

Weather remains the great question hovering over the viability of our freestoners. More rain, at least when it comes an inch or more at a time, means fewer days with fishable conditions. Hot weather can arrive here in May and very quickly warm up our freestoner rivers to the seventy-degree mark, reducing the river miles that are suitable for trout fishing. The angler’s ideal would be a balance between warmer days with cooler nights and weekly rainfall in quarter inch increments, but Mother Nature rarely offers such an ideal balance. I am hoping she might consider it this spring!

The peak of spring fishing was more than evident, depending upon your point of view. A mega hatch of Hendricksons, seemingly driven by a dark, moody storm front came on relentlessly, and then it was done. The aftermath offered some weak sunshine, a handful of flies on the water, and little to no response from the sated trout.

Coming just days after an EF-2 tornado ripped through Sullivan County on it’s way to Roscoe, this front thankfully lacked such destructive force, though it ushered in nearly a fortnight of wet, cold weather throughout the remaining days of April and on into May. An unsettled spring, typical for these mountains, keeps us all guessing.

I hold out hope for some Hendrickson fishing for the West Branch, for the river’s store of cold water limited that emergence while the flies took wing on surrounding rivers, but it will not be the warm, welcome, pleasant fishing that lingers in my memories of springtime in the Catskills.

As I write, the rain beats harder on the roof above my head, and my visions of fishing involve cold aching shoulders bent over the oars. There are snow showers in the forecast for mid-week, perhaps a perfect day to float in winter coat and gloves. The glow of soft evenings wading the flats below wide riffles, as soft rises sip spinners from the film, shall remain trapped in memory.

The forecast indicated afternoon showers, but the sunny morning skies seemed to speak louder of a lovely spring day. That sun was bright when I walked the riverbanks, the water glistening and quiet beneath it. I hoped the light might warm the cold river a bit and encourage more fish to surface feed, at the same time wondering whether the bright sky might continue to suppress that activity.

That had been the formula this week: bugs and rises under cloud cover, and still waters when the sun shined. I became more convinced during the first hour or two, until a handful of flies appeared on the surface and a single trout sampled one. A small olive Century Dun had been waiting on my leader, and that trout took my third cast. He was on, and then he wasn’t; one of those scenarios that makes you guess and wonder.

Ten, twenty minutes later there was another ring on the surface, and the few flies in the drift were definitely Hendricksons. The old faithful A.I. brought him up, a good fish, who refused to give in to the pull of my rod. He found his way beneath the downstream edge of a sizeable rock, keeping me in that stalemate until he leveraged the hook bend open enough to escape.

The sun remained, though a few clouds had gathered, they were thin enough to pass the general brightness, but the number of flies on the water gradually increased to a medium trickle. I had waited patiently for another rise, and it finally came beside an upshot rock two thirds of the way across the river. He showed his nose and I pulled line quickly from the reel, aerializing it as he teased with a brief roll at the surface.

I put that first cast three feet above the tip of the rock and just to my side of it where he had made his display. Nothing. The follow up cast dropped a touch further upstream and was also ignored. Perhaps he’s shy after that showy rise under this bright sun, I thought, lofting the next cast further to my left so that it danced down right over the center of that sheltering rock. I met the take with a solid hookset, and the big brownie turned his side into the current!

We had a good game there in the middle of the run, he and I, coaxing a tune from the Hardy each time he ran down with the flow. In the net he was bright and golden, twenty-one inches from nose to tail!

The hatch gradually increased, but as had been the case all week, only a few trout took advantage of the steady surface feeding opportunities. As I moved and reached for the few that did fall to temptation, the sky darkened with a new bank of clouds.

The winds had been crazy since I parked the car, changing from hard upstream to calm, then hard downstream, trying to make up their minds in these pre-frontal conditions. Their intensity grew with the arrival of those darker skies and the hatch became heavier. I moved upstream to chase one good fish that splashed heavily in the deepest party of the run, finally hooking him as a powerful downstream gust accelerated the current and bowed my fly line in a deep downstream arc. I lost control for only a moment, long enough for that fish to take advantage of the situation and open up the hook gap.

As the edge of the front overtook the surrounding mountains, another trout licked one of the hundreds of skittering duns from a foot wide band of slick water across the maelstrom. My casts in that swirling wind came up short, so I took two steps upstream and over and waited on a moment when the wind paused to reverse itself. On cue I delivered the cast, old A.I. alighting amidship in that narrow slick.

Seconds can seem like days sometimes, the drift of the fly almost detached from time; and then, finally, the gentle bulge and the battle joined. Experienced anglers relish the vigor displayed by a good trout feeding on a hatch in fast water. The excitement of the protein buffet and the high oxygen levels can make an average trout feel like a trophy, and a true trophy feel insurmountable.

Wind and water rushing, the pawls in the little Hardy screaming for mercy as the big fish took charge, formed the soundscape for ecstasy. The blackness of the sky continued to expand as I fought him, adding it’s own drama to the power and crescendo of sound. The battle seemed it would never end, with my heart rate elevated each time he roared away. Once his runs were completed, I brought him round again and again, yet his strength was still with him, refusing to come to the net. I had him at the last, pinned near the bank, twisted the hook and he was away. Wide flanked, and better than two feet long, he still had the energy to shoot back across the river like a bullet upon release! I believe I was more spent than he was.

As the full measure of the front descended upon the little river valley, the temperature dropped ten degrees and the cold rain blew sideways in the swirling winds. The river was blanketed now with Hendrickson duns, thousands upon thousands of them in phalanxes that blew en masse across the wind tossed currents. All feeding ceased it seemed, but the flies continued as I rested, then began the long hike out.

Nothing in fishing can be wholly considered to be preordained. As anglers we may head out with a goal in mind, but there are always far too many variables to predict the outcome of the day.

Tuesday, another cold day along the river, this time lacking the early hatch that had me casting from arrival on Monday. The flies would come, in fact there may have been more of them, but it would tend to be one of those occasions where the trout decide to ignore the feast. The saving grace? Not all of the trout in this reach of water would ignore Nature’s larder.

I had an eye upon the Unobtainable’s abode early, and in fact, it was in that protected zone that I saw a few early rises. Ordinarily, I would place that information in storage for a while and concentrate my efforts on finding more cooperative trout, but not today.

The river had dropped one tenth of a foot since our previous encounter, not the kind of change that would radically alter the wading challenge required to attain a proper casting position. There was a new disadvantage too, inadvertently leaving my polarized sunglasses in the car, I was fighting glare as I tried to negotiate the deep, uneven, rocky bottom. I hiked up my vest and started in.

I made a couple of different approaches, finally settled in a position that seemed tractable if not comfortable, and began to play the age-old game once more. There was no question as to the fly pattern to be employed. The same 100-Year Dun that he had sampled yesterday was secured to four feet of 5X fluorocarbon tippet; the imitation so good that my eye conceived it as an actual mayfly.

The body of this fly was an experiment from last winter, a Hendrickson blend inspired by the writings and patterns of the late John Atherton. I had labeled the compartment in the dubbing dispenser “A.I. Hendrickson” for Atherton inspired. Red fox was the base fur of course, in line with the Catskill tradition, mixed with golden tan Antron and a bit of fox squirrel for the bugginess of it’s barred guard hairs. The hackle was from my prized Charlie Collins No. 1 grade cape, colored Barred Rusty Dun.

I am not clear on how long, nor how many casts were made once the soft broad rings began to appear out there. Like the day before, he was not regular, preferring to dine at his own variable pace; a very confident, comfortable trout in his chosen impenetrable lie.

The breeze would pick up and casting would cease. I shifted position a time or two as the rings moved about in that protected abode of his, and casting stopped when the rises stopped, less one errant attempt spoil the game forever.

The cast that brought the magic felt good, and I tracked the fly most carefully with yesterday’s error vividly in mind. The bulging ring replaced the canted wing upon the mirror of the surface, I took a breath, and struck…

Feeling the steel, a mammoth trout catapulted into the air, there in his abode of many hazards. Once down, I turned him and stripped line with a frenzy, my only chance would be to get him as far away from the snags as possible for, given his girth and power, there would be no stopping him on my light tippet. In the river proper I had only dozens of sharp-edged boulders to defeat me.

This fish was angry, plucked from his lair by one confounded bug, and now he was going to punish it. The Hardy protested each time he charged toward freedom, but each time I managed to turn him from the rocks. Once I found a moment of control, I grabbed my staff and backed toward shallower water and solid footing. Two steps, three, and then the hand rushed back to the reel. We kept that up for a long while, until I finally found level stones beneath my boots. I swung the rod, took a turn, gave several back, and eventually eased him toward the net’s rim. When I scooped and lifted, the weight shocked me, for now, in hand I could see this bruiser was not a leviathan more than two feet long.

The heavy body aligned with the scale: twenty-two inches, but the girth and depth of his flanks convinced me this brown trout would easily exceed five pounds. The Unobtainable posed quickly and shot away with vigor as soon as his fins touched the water!

I was content with my one fish day, marveling at the expanse and duration of the hatch and the lack of feeding trout as I lingered, eyes searching for the next challenge. Touching the magic is always a blessing!

We always think we have enough layers, and I was certain of it this time. UA Cold gear top and bottom, poly fleece hoodies and fleece lined chinos, insulated jacket and waders – certainly enough to stay comfortable on a 52 degree day. On the drive home my vehicle thermometer recorded 54 degrees, so the day was warmer than expected to boot, but I was as cold as the grave.

I will admit there was an inner glow.

Trout hunting is my favorite activity, so a cold spring day that featured olives, Blue Quills and Hendricksons in regular doses fits right in with my plans.

I arrived at my destination early to find flies on the water. A trout or two rose in front of me as I selected a dry fly and checked my leader. The chill of the river took care of the warmth gained from my hike almost immediately, but my concentration was focused on finding just the right rise forms as the afternoon played out.

The flies came in fits and starts, first some Quills, followed closely by early Hendricksons. So closely in fact that I had to cut off my Blue Quill after half a dozen casts and affix a Hendrickson. Let the hunt begin.

I started working to those riseforms I liked the looks of that appeared closest to my position, and it wasn’t long before I had an energetic taker. That trout ran, pulled and twisted with everything he had! There is a subtle difference between strength on the end of your line, and power. When he finally gave up enough for me to get him in the net, that fifteen-inch brownie still had some vigor remaining. Clean, cold, well aerated water and plenty of bugs to eat brings out the best in our Catskill wild trout and makes them fight like they are much larger than they are. Later on, I would meet his twin.

After working the nearby rises, reduced by all of the cavorting that first fish had done in their midst, I began to reach out to the most promising, solitary bulges in the current. I got fooled by one of those subtle riseforms though, and brought a feisty ten incher to hand as a result. Time to get more serious…

I eased out into the run as I watched a soft rise downstream, convinced this was no ten-incher playing masquerade. Studying riseforms may not be an exact science, but it works far more often than it doesn’t when hunting good fish.

That one turned out to be exactly what I believed it to be, with that electric feeling of power as the little Hardy began to wail!

As the afternoon flowed by, the mayflies continued in variable little spurts of activity. During what passed for a brief shower, the surface was suddenly filled with tiny olives, allowing just enough time to change flies and make a few casts before the sun peeked out and calmed all activity for a while. When the clouds covered the brightness, the Hendricksons returned to the drift.

The largest brown of the day took one of them: speed, power, electricity – everything you could want. It took a serious effort to get him into the net, flanks heaving and quivering with the life of the river. Beautiful!

And then there was, the unobtainable. I had seen the rise from a distance, judged the river’s flow and the depth for an approach, and worked as close as possible. It was a long cast, out near the limits of my capabilities with the tackle in hand, and it had to deliver a soft, seamless presentation in that protected flatwater. I got my fly boxes wet again, trying to get those last few inches. Though mostly rising with a big, soft ring, he rolled a bit once or twice, just to make it absolutely clear that he was the king, and he wasn’t leaving the palace.

There was one pitch: my fly alighted way out there, right next to a drifting dun. My eyes picked them both up simultaneously, and they drifted side by side. I felt confident that I was tracking my fly, so much so that I stayed my hand when he rolled and the other vanished, watched it drift on past the disturbance. When I began to retrieve my line for another cast, the fly I had been watching didn’t move.

With the post-hatch calm settling around me, I began my hike out. In the tailout of a pool I saw the rings, Hendrickson duns were still on the water there. Perhaps my 100-Year Dun will have a chance at some redemption I thought.

It is mentally difficult to stalk a wide, shallow flat tailout in the waning moments of a hatch. Haste pushes water and ends the game, too much time, and the duns may be exhausted and the rises stop. There looked to be multiple trout at work, moving though, so impossible to tell how many. Two at least I figured, though irrelevant, as the chance would be for only one.

I made it into casting position, checked the tippet and the knot, then waited for a trout to settle down, to rise in the same position for a second time. One cast, then two. A pause to see where that cruiser wants to rise next. Cast three, and quiet again. Swing the fly well out from their taking area and wait. I fished them carefully for a few minutes, checking my own urgency. It will happen if you let it, if it is meant to…

The fly landed gently and drifted four feet before it disappeared in that wide, soft ring. As the rod bowed deeply he exploded into the air, the reel shrieking. Boring hard for the nearest tipping sheering cover, I laid the rod down and turned him just short of disaster. It was a long, hard fight, though eventually the magic turned it my way. He was bronze and golden, iridescent even in the muted light, as I slipped the fly from his jaw and cradled him back into the peace and beauty of the river.

Walking out got the blood flowing in parts of my legs at least, and the smile warmed me along with that inner glow. A good day, yes, a very good day. Cold? Well, yes, I guess it was.

Another beautiful spring day: cobalt blue skies, brilliant sunshine, and a gentle breeze! Well, maybe not so gentle. Wind is always a factor in these mountains, and how much, their direction and maximum velocity combine to add challenge to our fishing. As if the avoidance behavior of heavily fished wild trout failed to provide sufficient challenges.

I more or less lucked out yesterday. I was delayed in the morning while a technician replaced the modem on our internet service, hoping to finally put to rest the glitches and outages that make me hate electronics. When the work was done, I jumped into the shower, gathered my gear and beat feet for the river. I never stopped to check my watch, and actually ended up reaching the river’s edge earlier than planned.

Perhaps the Red Gods weren’t looking my way, I can’t be certain, but I waded out into the river to find a few early Hendricksons drifting by. The wind was intermittent at that point, gusting upstream from time to time, while leaving reasonably long periods when a guy could actually make an accurate fly presentation. I went instantly into trout hunting mode.

Wading along carefully, I was distracted by a rise just below and flipped my fly in it’s direction. There was no response to the drift, but as soon as I tightened for the pickup a little brownie grabbed my fly. He fought with all the ten inches of vigor he could muster before I hand lined him in to twist the hook free.

There was enough wind at times that I kept hearing the little wavelets plop, plopping against the rocky sections of the riverbank. Every once in a while I heard the distinct plop of a rise behind me, but every time I turned to look, the wind had dissipated all evidence of the riseform. This persisted until I turned back downstream and studied that water. There had been this big Canada Goose in the water diving and feeding on vegetation, and I was thinking that he was making all of that racket, but I wasn’t sure. Some of those plops sounded closer to me than the goose, so I kept watching. It’s not like there was anything eating those Hendricksons upstream anyway.

Staring hard into the glare, I finally heard a rise while looking right at the riseform before the wind ate it up, and I knew I had him. I had a faithful old CDC sparkle dun tied on, one of my best producers on that river, and I pulled some more line from my old Hardy Perfect and let the 8-foot Thomas & Thomas Paradigm bamboo rod do the rest. The wind blew my first cast a bit of course, but the second one was right down the pipe. Plop…zoom! That trout charged straight towards me, and I stripped line as fast as possible, barely keeping tight. The head shakes telegraphed size and strength, then he turned and brought that old Hardy into full song! She’s as old as I am that reel, but a much better singer.

The cane was bucking as I was reeling, then giving line again, and the big trout gave me everything he had. I had a heck of a time seeing him when I tried to bring him close to the net. I was standing about thigh deep and the glare on the wind rippled water kept me guessing and watching the leader. He tried to wrap me in the leader once, but somehow I blindly kept him from breaking off. I even lost sight for a critical moment when I scooped with my net, but he was there when I completed the lift, still with the greenish coloration and steely flanks of winter.

Not long after releasing that brownie, the early duns began to fade. I wandered further upriver, stood around scanning the water for activity, and managed to pass the time until the main event started trickling off. The winds increased as the afternoon warmed of course and, though there was a decent hatch for close to an hour, I didn’t find another feeder until the flies had nearly disappeared.

There was a fish noodling around in a shallow scum line, fully exposed to that upstream wind. I worked close, but the gusts were just too strong and too constant by that point to allow a suitable presentation. Whatever finny predator was milking the cripples from that scum line was too savvy to take a compromised, dragging fly.

Though the forecast promised a calm, lovely 67-degree day, sunshine wasn’t expected. That gave me concerns about water temperatures, one of the frustrating things we fly fishers cannot control, and which have so great a bearing on the outcome of our precious spring fishing days.

As soon as I arrived at riverside, the blue sky and brilliant sunshine already had the upper hand, the remaining clouds retreating rapidly into a gorgeous spring day. I was smiling as I found a seat on the riverbank and pulled the line through the guides of my eight foot Dennis Menscer Hollowbuilt bamboo rod. I checked the leader thoroughly and decided the tippet needed replacement, so I knotted a long, fresh piece of 5X fluorocarbon in place. I started with a Blue Quill pattern, then sat back to watch for signs of life.

I wasn’t there very long when a nice trout glided up from the river bottom, showing his head and half his body as he found an early winged morsel to his liking. By the time I stood up from my seat, he was up again.

That brownie was what I think of as a teaser, a fish that rises once or twice like that, then vanishes. After easing over into a casting position, I waited for him to rise again. Failing that, I began to cast over the general area where that teaser had showed himself. There really weren’t any flies visible yet, so I figured he could still be down there and just might take a liking to my little fly. That approach works about once in a thousand tries I guess, and it did allow me to limber up my casting muscles. Nine hundred ninety-nine tries to go…

I had resigned myself to simply standing in the river and searching for some quiver of movement within the classic taking areas this reach of river presents, and I spent a considerable amount of time doing that. There are days when you don’t see a lot of rises, even when the mayflies or caddis are abundant, and such days are very suitable to my style of hunting trout.

Eventually I saw him, one soft ring between a rock and the bank, just the one, and I began to work my way in that direction. You move with purpose in these situations, glancing at the bottom in front of your feet, then back to the target area, all the while assessing the current between you and that trout. Roll a rock with an idle step and you may end the game before it really begins or slip and stumble into a very cold and unexpected bath.

By the time I reached my initial casting position, the trout had moved to my side of the rock where the current could bring him enough nourishment. There were small and smaller mayflies that I took to be Blue Quills and Olives, and a very occasional early Hendrickson. Just about the time I started to cast, the breeze picked up out of nowhere. “Winds light and variable” something else the forecasters got wrong it seems. They would tell you that the “unexpected sunshine warmed the air more rapidly than expected thus increasing surface winds” or something like that, and they would be technically correct. Anglers simply smile at the impeccably bad timing and know that it is the work of the Red Gods, doing what they do.

Dealing with the upstream wind, the multitude of mayflies present in the drift, and that old trout’s sliding up and down and in and out to different taking spots provided me with something like three quarters of an hour of gamesmanship; changing flies and casting positions, ever aware of just how easily it is to spook a feeding fish in these situations.

I finally had a little bit of a revelation and dug around in my vest for one of the first little Olive 100-Year Duns I had tied last fall. One of those size 18 dry flies had landed the last beautiful big brownie of my 2022 dry fly season in late October. I made three or four presentations with that fly before it was replaced by a soft, wide ring in the surface.

Oh, that flamed bamboo felt good with the heavy arch as I battled that trout in the broiling currents! As soon as I felt him, I got concerned about the small, light wire hook and 5X tippet. He was boring down into very rocky bottom, and there were severe limits to my tackle’s ability to change his mind and keep my fragile tippet away from the rocks. The Hollowbuilt did a wonderful job as always and kept enough pressure on the trout to keep him a little off balance. I just did my best to respond to his tactics and listen to the Hardy music!

Netting that fish in the deeper, faster water took a few passes. Every time I tried to bring him around, he found new energy to dive away and back toward that snaggy river bottom. I backed out just a little shallower for my last try, swung the rod in a big upstream arc, got his nose over the bag and lifted! The weight felt wonderful as he writhed in the mesh and showered me with icy cold water.

I kept the net bag in the water as I eased back toward the riverbank, where I slipped the little fly from the point of his upper lip. I got the camera out of it’s case with one hand while I laid the Menscer very gently on the rocks, then positioned the brown in the shallow water and snapped two quick photos.

I carried the trout into the current and slid him back and forth a couple of times, enough to satisfy him he had water under his belly and shoot back toward midriver.

No sooner had I released that trout than I heard two guys clattering down the trail to the river. One of them spoke to me while I rinsed my hands in the river, and I recognized the voice. It was Galen and a friend of his that looked somewhat familiar, both ready for the day with classic bamboo fly rods of their own. They headed upriver after our greeting and I picked up my rod and turned back toward the water, going back to the searching part of fishing as the flies began to change.

There would be more Hendricksons, and more anglers as the afternoon progressed toward evening. I found one more good fish feeding, there weren’t many despite a pretty nice hatch of flies. That guy sucked the fly down without a ring and dove down around one of those rocks before I could even set the hook. I got back my fly with the hook bend opened up wide.

Before long, another angler wandered into the pool below me. The sun’s reflections showed me he was fishing bamboo as well. I was looking for a third riser when I heard a loud voice shouting my name. I turned and waved to Kevan as he waded in with his favorite Granger. His friend Forrest joined him shortly. I had fished to and landed a magnificent brownie in total solitude, and then found myself in the middle of a bamboo party, realizing I knew all of these guys.

There would be a sporadic rise here and there, and I waded into position a few times, but there would be no more feeding fish to play the game with. I waded out when Galen and Vinny came walking down the bank, Galen with his 8-1/2′ Dennis Menscer rod, and Vinny with a golden hued Don Schroeder 3-piece he had just used to land a big brownie upstream. We walked down to say hello to Kevan and congratulate him on the big fish we had seen him land.

The four of us talked for that last half an hour, catching up on the offseason and the early events of this very young one, while Kevan’s buddies Forrest and Brooks stayed far out in the river, hoping to clash swords with a rising trout. The chill got to me quickly as the sun retired behind the mountainside and left us in shadow. I bade them well as the first spinners circled overhead and headed up the path.