Bright Waters Catskill

What a difference indeed. A week ago the mountainsides were brown, save the evergreens, and a few days of actual warmth and sunshine have transformed the Catskills. I love that “new leaf green” we get only in the first full blush of springtime, at times nearly chartreuse in the sunshine!

It simply doesn’t seem like it can be Memorial Day Weekend. There have been far too few days that looked or felt like spring. It was gorgeous all week and, even now the sun is trying to burn through the cloud cover as I sit here and listen to the morning rain on the metal roof, but Memorial Day? No that is still far off. It must be!

Memorial Day is the peak of the season, the hatches having all built to a crescendo, and then…the Drakes! I admit it, I am a card carrying member of The Cult of The Green Drake; but this year I am at a loss.

Last season Memorial day came and went, and there were no Drakes. Memory flashed to 2018’s sustained high water and the fear that the hatch might be lost for the season. I was mired in the work of entering retirement and finding a home here in the Catskills, and I never had the chance to come and try to find the hatch in 2018. The fear rose again in my throat in 2019 but for naught, as the hatch did come, a good one, though weeks late. What might transpire this year?

The Green Drake is an unusual mayfly, in that it takes two years to complete its growth from egg to emerging dun. The timing of hatches seems to be governed by the degree day theory, that it takes a certain number of days at a certain minimum water temperature for a mayfly nymph to progress through its various instars to reach maturity and hatch into a mayfly dun. If this theory is correct then, the conditions during the past two years will set the timing for this season’s hatch. What might the puzzle of these past two unsettled years reveal?

My expectation is that the Drakes will arrive late. Witness that the crescendo is not yet upon us. We seem to be mired in the May lull between the Hendricksons and the March Browns, without the caddisflies to rescue those addicted to the dry fly. It is indeed a very strange spring.

I first fished Hendricksons on the 19th of April, the day after a 2 1/2 inch snowfall, with the river high and warming barely to the mid-forties. In my experience, that amounts to “an early spring”; a normal spring bringing the hatch during the fourth week of April. But then the rivers stayed in the forties for 5 weeks. The shad fly caddis typically overlap the Hendricksons a bit, yet I have seen only token representatives of the species. Are we early or late? I wish I knew.

My vest carries more than its normal load for the season. There are still Hendricksons and a few quills, black caddis, March Browns, spinners and shad flies, various sulfurs and a Gray Fox or two, always olives, and yes, even drakes. I still feel unprepared, like I am missing something. Ah yes, that other caddis box, the ones with Grannoms and some other obscure caddis I encounter once in a while. I must find another pocket for that box!

A day to relax, to avoid the crowded rivers and tie a few flies, adjust those fly boxes and fill a transition box to stay ready for whatever oddities Mother Nature may send bobbing down the current. It is a fine thing to have such a day indeed.

I was really looking forward to the chance to float the upper Mainstem yesterday, so I pushed aside my initial concerns when the wind forecast was 10 to 15 mph from the E/SE. I reasoned that, with the river flowing predominantly north-south along my chosen course, the winds would be mainly crosswinds and manageable. The weather forecasting in our region has shown itself to be remarkably accurate, particularly when compared to that in Southcentral Pennsylvania which was absolutely the worst.

I was hoping for the calm morning to continue as I tied a handful of flies for the trip until, just before leaving I looked up to.see the treetops waving in my yard. Still committed, I dropped the boat in on the lower East Branch and set off downriver. The gusts came straight upstream into my face, and I was confounded that I had to row to make headway downstream. A wiser man would have acted upon his first thought right there, spun the boat around, and allowed that wind to help row back upstream. Me, I really wanted to go fishing.

As I pushed on out of the last pool on the East Branch and into the riffles, that thought came again, stronger this time, as I still had to row in the faster water to make downstream progress. When I got to the top of Junction Pool, I could see a wall of whitecapped waves about one third of the way down the pool, The wind wasn’t just gusting then, it was blowing full on straight up the river at something more than 25 mph. I rowed as hard as I could downstream and the boat kept backing upstream.

I must have spent an hour there, trying again when the wind slacked a bit, only to have it hit me in the face again and blow me back upstream. Four attempts, four failures. Finally I relented and started the arduous trip back upriver into the East Branch.

I rowed where I could make a little headway, and I got out and pulled the boat upstream through the two long sections of riffles. At last I reached the tail of the pool and took a short break before pulling the anchor and rowing hard up the west bank where some upstream boulders directed the main flow of the current out toward midriver. When I reached the boulder field I had to row across to the east bank against the main current, then turn and follow the bank back to the landing.

To say I was exhausted would be a gross understatement. I had passed exhaustion half way back up that mile of river, stumbling in the riffles as I towed the boat upstream. I had put out around 9:45 that morning, and I climbed out of the boat, beached at the same landing around a quarter till two.

Mother Nature smacked me in the mouth this day, but the good news is I didn’t have any chest pains or any other signs from my heart. Retirement and living in the Catskills to enjoy my outdoor lifestyle seems to be agreeing with me; but I guarantee you I will treat any sort of southerly wind forecast with a lot more trepidation in the future.

Today the drift boat is staying in the driveway. The wind forecast is S/SE at 5 to 10 mph, but it is going to be warm and sunny. I know that the sun warms up the air and makes wind in these mountains, and it was close to freezing in Hancock this morning, headed for the mid seventies. Besides, this old body needs a day off after yesterday’s trial.

I plan to take a walk along some smaller water, a favorite bamboo rod in my hand, and see if I can find a few forgotten mayflies and some willing trout.

It seems that, now that spring has finally arrived, we have been dumped into the throes of the notorious May lull. The lull is that fateful period between the hatches: beautiful days with nothing happening.

In a good year the Shad caddis hatch comes off between the Hendricksons and the March Browns and makes for some very interesting fishing. It seems that this isn’t going to be one of those years. I have seen the caddis, fully half a dozen per day, so there is no mystery why there are no trout rising.

The other day I fished three different rivers and saw one trout rise, one time. Today I walked better than four miles, up and down a favorite reach of water, with nary a dimple in the surface. I took a look at another popular river and found it exceedingly popular, but most of the anglers I saw were standing around and staring, not actually fishing. Such is the fate of the dedicated dry fly man!

Tomorrow I plan to drop the boat into the mainstem Delaware for the first time this season, and I hope to find some of those missing caddisflies. I would be marvelous to finish the day with a fall of Hendrickson spinners, something I have not encountered. I fear that several hard frosts and snow showers took their toll upon them. I pray I am wrong, as I would like to see a better hatch next spring should Mother Nature favor us with better conditions.

For the moment all I can do is to give thanks that my prayers for sunshine have been answered. The lull will end, it always does, and there will be flies and rises to bring smiles to all our faces. It is simply a matter of when and where. I cast my vote for tomorrow on the Delaware.

Garish looking fly isn’t it? Probably the last thing I would ever tie to present to a wild brown trout, except…

I was hosting my best friend Mike Saylor last spring and we fished to a nice emergence of March Brown mayflies. Yes, we fished to them while the trout rose and sucked them down, but we got ourselves blanked. For twenty years of fishing in the Catskills, every March Brown I ever plucked off the surface, and every one that ever landed on my person had a nice, warm caramel brown colored abdomen and thorax with heavily blotched wings with a tan cast. Then the entomologists started confusing the bugs with their damned DNA testing.

The bug scientists renamed them a couple of times, then they started telling us we were all wrong, that there was no Gray Fox mayfly, that that pale dirty yellow mayfly was just a March Brown. This obviously confused the insects more than the experienced fly fishermen. We all know we need a completely different fly to match the Gary Fox hatch, but the poor bugs started showing up with the blotched, but paler March Brown wings and pale tannish yellow bodies.

So now we tie two March Browns: the traditional caramel colored fly and the tannish yellow version. Of course we still tie the Gray Fox too because it is a different looking mayfly regardless of the ento-boys and their DNA. Last season. I think the mayflies decided to throw them for a loop, sort of like insect revenge for all the confusion the scientists had caused them.

While we were getting blanked that day on the river, neither Mike nor I had the opportunity to get our hands on a bug. It was only after the hatch had petered out and the rises ceased that MIke was able to pick one up while wading out of the water. “Look at this” he said, “I got one”. He had a very strange expression on his face as he reached out and handed me a brilliant, psychedelic, safety yellow mayfly.

The bug was a size 10, had the required two banded tails and the characteristic wings with the dark blotching, but oh that color! I gave it the name as a joke since last summer was the 50th Anniversary of the Woodstock festival, held right here on the southern edge of the Catskills. I fully expected we would not see them in future seasons. I wasn’t so sure about the remainder of last season though.

At home, I dug out these bright yellow turkey biots and some dubbing that I had never used, and couldn’t recall why I ever bought. Perhaps I ordered them sight unseen trying to get biots for sulfurs. I tied a couple of the monstrosities pictured above, as well as a couple versions with a deer hair comparadun wing. I remember that I was laughing as I tied them.

A couple of days later I ventured back to that spot and encountered the March Brown hatch, and again the trout ignored the caramel and tannish yellow flies. I swallowed hard and tied on the garish yellow parachute and pitched it to the closest riser. I felt better when that “thing” floated over him and was ignored too, but I kept casting it a few more times.

I was shocked when that brown tipped up and sucked that garish yellow catastrophe in like it was his favorite entre. I raised the rod into a tight arc, the reel sputtered then screamed as he took of downstream, and suddenly I was into a serious fight with a big fish! When I got him tuckered out and slid him into shallow water a few minutes later, I slipped my net under 21 broad shouldered inches of gorgeous wild brown trout; no tie dye, no headband of flowers, no joint hanging out of his mouth, just that damned yellow fly stuck in his jaw.

If I was more comfortable believing that fish was a fluke then the 20″ brownie that smashed that parachute a few minutes later just shattered that comfort level. He wasn’t the last nice trout to eat one of those crazy flies last season either. They produced for the duration of the hatch.

The other day I stopped at that river and saw one or two big mayflies riding the surface. No fish were rising, and none did while I was there, but before I left I saw a big bug drift past, upside down on top of his crumpled wings, displaying a brilliant yellow abdomen with brown segmentation. Yes, I have tied a few new versions. You have to have a couple CDC duns and 100-Year Duns with brown ribbing right?

I have a couple of tie dye Jimi Hendrix tee shirts in a trunk upstairs, and the weather has finally started to warm up…

Its Friday morning, May 15th, and it hasn’t snowed yet this week. The rivers can seem barren one minute and crowded the next. Northeast fly fishers seem to have no problems violating travel restrictions and the good common sense to stay separated, as I see license plates from all over the northeast just like I do every year.

I floated the West Branch yesterday, surprised at the lack of traffic on the upper river miles. There was only one other boat, and it stayed behind me, as I drifted down in search of bugs and rising trout. It wasn’t long before I attributed the solitude to the lack of insect activity and the glory of a southerly breeze.

Floating quickly became rowing with that south wind. The river’s flow was half what it was on my last trip, and the southerly breeze was sufficient to keep the boat sitting and spinning rather than drifting gently down the stream. I had hoped for caddis with the sunshine and the abundance of gentle riffles in that reach of river and I saw them, at least half a dozen of them.

I was sure that I would find some activity in the big Hale Eddy riffle when I dropped the anchor about a hundred yards below the chute. It was a gorgeous day, but it was proving to be bugless.

After a wait and a drop down to anchor in the bottom third of the riff, I found it hard to believe I wasn’t seeing more than the occasional single caddis fly. After more than a month of the fishing season passing with little change in water temperature it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the hatches are sluggish.

I was down in the Camp Riffle at West Branch Angler when I stopped for lunch. The ham sandwich was welcome, though I wished I had brought along a big Yeti full of coffee. The sunshine was resplendent as I sat there eating, and I was enjoying it, though I had been counting on the predicted afternoon cloud cover to combine with the warmth to produce better hatching and rising trout.

I was nearly through WBA’s miles of river when I finally saw a little sip ahead on the bank, and far enough ahead that I was able to act fast and anchor in time to make a cast. I started making short, easy casts, reaching upstream to let the fly drift in the slower current between the bank and a submerged rock. The trout kept sipping, right between the tip of that rock and the river bank. Then things got strange.

My cast had drifted by him when my fly simply disappeared without any rise ring at all. I pulled up and I was tight, there was plenty of weight there, and it started moving. I felt big head shakes and then he decided to make a trip to Hancock. One of those slow steady pulls that I couldn’t stop. I tightened the drag down three times. He kept going, line, backing, all of it. I pulled the anchor one handed and followed. When I got the backing and my line back I tried side pressure and we replayed that whole scenario again, including the single handed anchor pull and follow.

When I saw the fish at last, it wasn’t the 30 inch old leviathan I expected, it was perhaps a 20″ brown trout wrapped in the leader. The 5X tippet gave up before I could pull him in range of the net and unwrap him, so I hope he freed himself after the break. I still don’t know how he got wrapped up like that.

I fished quickly through a couple of spots, then anchored up in a wide pool to look for rises. It was prime time, and a few varied mayflies were showing on the surface in three sizes. I assumed they were Blue Quills, Invaria sulfurs and Hendricksons, since that is what I have been seeing recently, and before long trout began rising and yes, right on cue the wind began blowing harder and steadier.

I cast downstream to the first trout that showed in range and caught him, a feisty foot long brown trout, but the fish I was seeing were taking a bug or two and then not showing again. I kept looking for that nice, steady feeder down river, the fish I could set up on and work carefully, but he wasn’t out there. The activity was brief, maybe fifteen minutes of here and there rises, and then things slowed down and I moved along, still rowing.

The breeze remained much steadier, so I had to keep rowing to make progress downstream except in the riffles, and by four o’clock my arms, neck and shoulders were taking a beating. I always used to say that retirement and youth should be a package deal, and days like this one make it easy to see the wisdom in that. I’m not saying that I would trade the opportunity to be here, to be out on my favorite Catskill rivers day after day, but I would gladly give away my arthritis.

It was about this time that my unexpected solitude came to an abrupt end. Now instead of having to row straight down river, I had to zig zag back and forth across the river to pass behind waders and avoid other drift boats. They were everywhere!

The circus came to a finale when I took the left route around an island to avoid a boat and four waders in the right channel. When I got to the tight spot at the other end of the island, I was blocked in by no less than three anchored boats and half a dozen waders within casting range of the first boat. I did about all I could do; I dropped anchor.

I didn’t want to disrupt all of those guys, but I was tired and sore and I didn’t want to sit there on top of them either. I figured a little patience and courtesy was the best choice. The Red Gods agreed I guess, because a trout began to rise straight below me.

He ignored my little caddis, so I tied on a Hendrickson and tried again. The 16″ brownie took it greedily and put up a spirited fight until I managed to get him within reach of my long handled boat net. As I unhooked him, I saw the boat that had been anchored in the pinch point pull anchor and head downstream, while the waders moved back to the river bank behind them. A nice trout and a clear path: a simple reward for doing the right thing!

I rowed down through the rest of the gauntlet, zig zagging to pass behind more waders and boats, eager to get close to the landing and call for Cathy to bring the trailer. In one unexpected spot I came upon a small pod of trout rising steadily. It was so unexpected I had nearly passed them on the wrong side of the channel when they showed. I dropped the anchor, leaving myself with a longer cast across a windy chute to three trout feeding happily in a little belt of slow water, not a high success situation.

One would occasionally stray toward my side of that belt, and with a moment of calm I put my Hendrickson right into his lane. He wasn’t the small fish I expected, and gave me the best battle of the day. Time after time he made long runs and fought furiously every time I regained that line and got him near the boat. When I finally got him into that net, I was surprised at his size. I’d give him 18 inches, no more, but he was heavy bodied, shoulders you know; a very worthwhile adversary.

Of course this strange day had to have one more little twist. I was anchored one last time, just before I would turn the corner into the last big wide open flat I had to row across to get to the landing. I had seen one rise against the bank, but it wasn’t repeated after I stopped. I stretched my aching muscles and dug out my cell phone, making the call home to ask Cathy to come and pick me up.

After the call, I pulled anchor and started around that little corner into the big, windy flat. On my right, there were rings everywhere in a little strip of water that was more protected from the wind. I laughed at the pain in my biceps as I rowed right past them. Little fish I told myself, little rings and too many of them too close together. But you never know…

The most reticent spring in recent memory continues, and as often happens, our lives outdoors are defined in moments.

After a couple of days of hard, cold, snowy weather, Sunday morning’s sunrise offered a glimpse of beauty which belied the frost and the winds, already building. The day seemed lost from the fisherman’s perspective, but sometimes there is a moment waiting to be enjoyed.

I had no plan to venture out, figuring I would busy myself with a continuation of Saturday’s fly tying. By mid afternoon I noticed that my flag wasn’t waving perpendicular to it’s pole anymore and I stepped out on the porch for a breath of fresh air. The sun felt comfortable, and the lessened breeze didn’t have the bite expected for a day in the fifties. My thoughts ran immediately to mayfly spinners.

After a pair of nights below freezing, I feared that many of the Hendrickson imagos had failed to survive, but I couldn’t resist that 64 degree sunshine and the freshened air. I dipped a short bowl of soup from the still simmering crockpot, then changed into my fishing clothes and waders.

I walked along the Delaware, pleased that the breeze was soft, with only an occasional gust. Looking down I saw a dark winged mayfly sitting on the surface and plucked it with my fingertips: a Hendrickson, tan with a yellowish olive cast and those dark wings, in the range of a size 14. When I stopped to rig up, I knotted a sparkle dun to my tippet, and settled into a watching mode.

A few duns drifted by sporadically, though if there had been a significant hatch it had passed before my coming, so the first splash took me by surprise. The fish had been somewhere above me and, looking downstream, I hadn’t seen it. The next one though was closer, and right in front of me, so I raised the old Granger Special and made a short cast in his direction.

Delaware rainbows seem to have an urgency about them, a restlessness that keeps them on the move. I was sure that fly was well past the spot where I had seen the rise, and was raising the rod to pick it up when the trout exploded on the fly. He was a wild Delaware bow, thick through the shoulders and gleaming silver, as he cavorted about in front of me. He put a good bend in that 9′ bamboo rod and finally came grudgingly to my net.

A sixteen inch Delaware rainbow is the typical “nice” fish of his breed. They grow larger, but they are not so long lived that one encounters many extreme specimens. There was one long ago, on a quiet June morning down river that came to my swinging Leadwing Coachman. He had nearly ripped the rod from my hand with unexpected ferocity, and vaulted high out of the water flinging white spray everywhere. Long, thick, dark and red sided he was a trout to be measured in pounds rather than inches.

Alas, after a breathtaking run he vaulted high again and snapped the 4X tippet in midair! Back in the day I used to float the rivers with legendary guide Pat Schuler each spring, and I used to joke with him that all I needed was a 25 inch rainbow. He would always tell me they simply didn’t grow that big, guiding me to many between 20 and 22 inches. I guess that restlessness simply wears them out before too many years have passed; though that morning wet fly bow would have easily passed that mark!

The Hendrickson duns petered out after a while so I tied on a small caddis fly. It seemed that each time I looked upstream, the occasional splash would come from below, then above whenever I turned to watch above. Before long though I got a bead on one of those roving risers and put the caddisfly in line for an interception.

That second bow was nearly a twin to the first, and it was good once again to feel his life force throbbing through that arch of cane, split and glued nearly seven decades ago.

The hoped for spinners never showed, the wind rising again as the sun dipped behind the ridge in Pennsylvania. I thanked the river for sharing its energy with me, for a moment plucked from this contrary season, another moment to be kept close.

The Thomas & Thomas company celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2019, celebrating five decades of producing classic fly rods for discriminating anglers. I have been a fan for many years.

From their beginnings as two professors in College Park, Maryland, Thomas Dorsey and the late Thomas Maxwell demonstrated an uncanny talent for crafting bamboo rods with exquisite actions, capable of presenting a dry fly to the most particular trout. As graphite began to catch some wind as the new magic material in fly rods, T&T developed rods crafted with the synthetic materials with the same commitment to perfection, while steadfastly maintaining their leadership in bamboo.

My first Thomas & Thomas fly rod was the 9′ four weight Paradigm pictured at the top of the photo. I bought it with an eye toward fishing the challenging crystal clear waters of Massachusetts’ Deerfield River, finding the Paradigm ideally suited to the small flies and long casts required on that hazardously difficult to wade tailwater. The Deerfield had been my grandfather’s river, and I felt the connection there each time I laid eyes upon it. Sadly the flow regime changed drastically after I acquired my rod, making it nearly impossible to plan a trip with any certainty of finding wadable flows. I have not fished the Deerfield since.

The Paradigm has performed for me many times on our Catskill rivers, and saw considerable action last summer when my carpal tunnel reared its ugly head again. The light weight of the graphite rod and its smooth, classic action was gentle on my wrist and my presentation, and the fine old rod accounted for many trophies including a gorgeous, heavy bodied brown in excess of 24 inches.

The older gentleman pictured was the fulfilment of decades of dreaming. This beautiful early 1970’s vintage 8′ 2/2 Paradigm was made for a DT6 line which it paints on the water with my fly of choice. We opened my Catskill season together a few years ago with a pair of wild, recalcitrant 20 inch Beaverkill River brown trout I coaxed to the surface with a classic Hendrickson dry fly, the only trout to rise for me that day. The Hardy Perfect sang as sweetly as she did in 1929 when she was a newborn!

If you have the chance to see Tin Boat Productions’ wonderful film “Chasing The Taper” you will appreciate the influence the two Toms have had on bamboo rod making. Of the 6 master rodmakers profiled, some of the best in the world, half can trace their roots to Thomas & Thomas. Mark Aroner began his career as a rodmaker and apprentice under the guidance of Maxwell and Dorsey. The venerable Bob Taylor spent five years in Massachusetts with T&T after the closing of the H.L. Leonard Rod Company, before starting his own R.D. Taylor Rod Company. Virginia maker Rick Robbins warmly related the tale of his 25 year friendship with Tom Maxwell, who mentored him in roadmaking.

Several years ago my friend Wyatt Dietrich offered me the opportunity to fish a special early Thomas & Thomas rod with a Chambersburg history. The 6 1/2′ rod for a 5 weight line was inscribed with the name of a lady fly fisher, and the date of ’72. We guessed the angler may have been a Cumberland Valley resident but the mystery was never solved.

I fished the rod on the perfect water, Western Maryland’s Big Hunting Creek, finding it ideally suited to this small, steep mountain stream. A tight budget forced me to decline Wyatt’s kind offer to purchase the rod, and I have ever regretted missing the chance to own it!

We both wondered as to the location the rod was made. We knew that the two Toms had started in College Park in 1969, then moved their rod making to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania the following year. They crafted their lovely bamboo rods there until buying out rodmaker Sewell Dunton’s Massachusetts factory and moving north in 1973. We talked to all of the native Chambersburg anglers and people from the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum, following every lead with no results.

Finally, I corresponded with Thomas Dorsey. Tom related that he had rented a house on a creek somewhere north of town, and that was where they located their rod shop for those three years. Sadly the only record of an address remaining was a long defunct rural route number. I often wondered if those early Thomas & Thomas rods were made somewhere along the Conococheague Creek, within walking distance of the Chambersburg home I occupied for 23 years. It seems that location will remain a mystery.

I will always wonder about the origin of my own classic Paradigm. The company no longer has all of the oldest records, but they answered my inquiry by telling me that my rod is believed to date from the early 1970’s, so it very well may have been crafted in Chambersburg. My curiosity remains.

Each time I take the rod from its tube and affix the reel I think of the legacy of Thomas & Thomas, and I am thankful to be able to so thoroughly enjoy the fruits of their passion for fly fishing perfection!

I was watching “Chasing The Taper” and glanced out the window to see snowflakes flying. It was 27 degrees on my porch this morning when I ventured out to check around seven o’clock. May 9th, and there should be Hendrickson spinners swarming over the riffles this morning rather than snowflakes swarming here in Hancock.

It is supposed to warm all the way up to 38 today. The sunrise was pretty despite the chill, and I am thankful for each one I enjoy.

It seems like a good day for fly tying. My boxes are full, many of them overflowing, but I am drawn to the craft.

I already polished the Menscer rod this morning, a little thank you for the joy it gave me yesterday afternoon. It is important to care for these handcrafted jewels, particularly when fishing in the rain. I wiped it down when I put it in the Jeep of course, then again when I brought it into the house. The rod spent the night in the rack and was polished and returned to its tube this morning; ready to make another memory.

Fly tying, yes, and a chance to begin reading Ernest Schwiebert’s magnum opus “Trout” which arrived from a book dealer in California. My thanks to Planet Books for packaging it so securely and shipping so quickly.

My love affair with the Catskill dry fly began many years ago as a neophyte fly tier. Like most, I had some troubles with winging and proportions starting out. My flies didn’t look like the example photos, but they caught trout.

I really learned how to tie them properly on a weekend visit to Wally Vait’s On The Fly shop in Baltimore County. Wally had invited Catskill fly tier Larry Duckwall to demonstrate his art, and I was eager to learn. Larry had learned from Elsie Darbee, so he was a direct line third generation Catskill fly tier, and a very entertaining instructor. Sadly I have learned that Larry passed away in 2014.

Beginning with my first trip to Roscoe, New York in 1993, I made it a point to visit the Dette Fly Shop on Cottage Street, hallowed ground for fly fishermen. I was fortunate to meet and watch both Walt and Winne tying flies, and often stopped to spend an hour watching Mary tie and talking with her. She is one of the loveliest and most generous ladies I have ever met, and an absolute master at the vise. I fondly recall the kind compliment she offered when I displayed the Dette Coffin Fly I had managed to tie at my own vise.

My style of tying was modified somewhat through the teachings of Pennsylvania sage George Harvey, and has evolved using a variety of techniques learned in George’s class and book, building upon the Catskill foundation acquired from Larry and from watching Mary Dette during my Roscoe visits.

I offer my own simple video on tying Catskill dry flies in the hope that the results of my learning will be helpful to others.

With rain and snow threatening I headed to the river today with an old friend in the back of the Jeep. Dennis Menscer made the 8′ hollowbuilt bamboo rod for me four years ago. I paired it with a classic Hardy made Orvis CFO IV, 100 yards of backing and an Airflo WF5F line from the beginning and have stayed with that combo. We have many fine memories.

Between fishing from my drift boat and taking my life in my hands to wade a few spots at ridiculously high flows, my spring fishing has had to rely upon a couple of Thomas & Thomas graphite fly rods. Eventually I hope to devise a suitable rod holder so I can fish bamboo from the boat, but for now I have to stick with my old faithful T&T LPS 905. I was eager to fish this afternoon as the river had finally come down to a more tractable wading level and I was finally going to fish dry flies on a favorite bamboo rod.

Dennis’ hollowbuilt got the call as it is a unique rod that is suited to angling all the rivers in the Catskills. The taper is easy casting and has the subtle power for reaching out when needed. All I need do is relax and cast.

I arrived earlier than necessary due to my anticipation and the declining nature of the weather forecast. Leaving home near noon it was a comfortable 55 degrees. The rain was expected to begin near two and the forecasters did an enviable job. Thankfully, a handful of mayflies came out to greet the raindrops.

I didn’t get the heavy hatch that I did yesterday, when the sun managed to raise the water from the mid forties to nearly 52 degrees. A few sporadic Hendricksons floated downstream, but nothing rose to show interest. I knotted a 100-Year Dun to my 5X tippet and waited, feeling the chill deepen in my bones. I guess it was the second or third little flurry of flies that finally raised a trout, and I shot a cast that alighted just upstream of his lie. The old boy must have followed it down, as I was about to pick it up and cast again when he erupted in a burst of white water!

I stripped the line with the rod high until I got him on the reel, then lowered the tip to use the powerful middle and butt of the rod against him. There was plenty of give and take, as the fish bored for the boulders along the bottom of the pool, but the arc of bamboo finally bested him. Measured in the net at 20 inches, he was my first dry fly trout on cane for the season, and a fine omen for the months ahead.

That bronze flanked brownie would be the only trout I would fish to, as the hatch never materialized into something more than a few sparse handfuls of flies. The chill had penetrated by the time I waded to the bank, the air temperature having dropped 9 degrees in a couple of hours. Perhaps we will see that snow this evening.

Wild trout taken on dry flies and fine bamboo are special to me, as there is no other way I would rather fish. The history and traditions of dry fly fishing drew me to the Catskills, and my heart has never left!

The first week of May is behind us, and an inch of show is expected tonight. I guess I should be used to fishing in two jackets and a hoodie by now.

We did get two days that reached 60 degrees this week, and none were forecast, but the wind has been relentless at times. Yesterday they called for 10 -15 mph and I went wading, not expecting anything in the way of hatches unless the sun brought a few caddis to the surface. I was certain that the Hendricksons were finished where I was heading. They had started fully two weeks ago and then the high water and cold flushed the rest of them away right? Apparently not.

I pulled up a stream gage yesterday morning and the temperature field was stuck on early April when the site loaded. Water temperatures were in the low forties, with the better peaks near 44 or 45 degrees, the same thing I saw when I refreshed the page to get the current data. Basically the rivers have not changed significantly over the course of the past month.

I marveled at a heavy Hendrickson hatch yesterday afternoon as I stood waist deep in cold water and worked both of the rising trout I would encounter for the day. There were Blue Quills in abundance and some caddis too, and a new player. I was fortunate to fool the first fish, a stocky 19″ brownie, before the wind got worse. The velocity and frequency of the gusts seemed to increase with the intensity of the hatch. Not the first time I have lived that phenomena on a Catskill river.

I worked that second riser with various flies and adjusted tippets, but the winds refused to let me consistently make the perfect presentation. Too many casts, as the desire to grab a little of that trout’s energy for a moment and a dance around the river overcomes logic and reason. If the winds allow 15% of your presentations to be just right, there is no reason to make the other 85% of those casts. I know this and yet…

I am still seeing plenty of out of state license plates along the rivers, small groups of guys close together, without any masks or semblance of good judgement. I guess we as a people have taken the idea of American freedom too far. So many believe they can do whatever they want and nothing can touch them. More than 75,000 have learned they were wrong.

I am fortunate to be fishing, for that is what I retired to do. The idea was to spend the last few years of my life on the rivers of my heart, the one place where things seem right, where Nature’s energy and serenity envelop my weary mind. I resent the fear each time I hear a car door along the river bank. Fly fishing was once about courtesy, the pursuit of gentlemen, and each of us left his fellow angler to fish in peace when coming second to a pool. To hope that, under penalty of death at least, such courtesy and common sense might prevail again seems a foolish thought.

I will hope for better times.

Yesterday felt like a little daylight was peeking through after a long, dark night.

May had finally arrived, but I had been forced away from the rivers by dangerously high water. After months of tension with the virus lurking and weeks of colder than normal temperatures, May was supposed to be better. It was supposed to be spring: warm and sunny with mayflies in the air and trout rising; something to take the edge off. Instead, May had debuted with more of the same.

Yesterday I was finally able to hitch up the boat and get back on the river. The water was still high, though it finally came down to the point I felt it was safe to float. I expected the morning sunshine to disappear about the time I began my float, and I wasn’t too sure about finding many rising fish with all that cold water rushing down the channel, but I was out there.

Just before I headed out I checked the weather one more time to find the 10 to 15 mph wind forecast had been upgraded to 10 to 20 mph. Oh joy. I nearly called it off at that moment but hope kept me on course.

There were plenty of boats on the river, with plenty of social distancing violations, but the sun stayed with us and the wind stayed down. The fact is it was a beautiful day, an unexpected one and thus, appreciated all the more.

The high flow and lack of rising fish made for a quick float. You basically dip an oar tip now and then to correct your line and the current speeds you on your way. Sit back and enjoy the sunshine! Once early afternoon rolled around I stopped at a number of spots and anchored to look for flies and rises. A handful of Blue Quills started to show but there was no sign of a trout.

By prime time I had reached some great water for Hendricksons, and did my best to play leapfrog with the other driftboats and anchor where there was some softer water collecting insects. Still nothing working the top. The soft water wasn’t all that soft, and the bugs weren’t coming en masse. There were plenty of quills, but I guess the math wasn’t working for the fish: too much effort for too little return.

The magic hour passed with no more than an occasional Hendrickson drifting past and I figured my day was about done. Between the enhanced current speed and the need to pass other boats, I was further down river than expected with nothing to show for it. I hadn’t made a cast.

Finally I saw a little rise along the bank. Instinct told me it was only a youngster, but hey, at least it was a fish, and all wild trout are worthy. The edge was shallow so I anchored up a little further upstream, and the fish dropped down a bit and rose again. Long downstream casts can be tricky when it comes to getting the right float along the bank. I made several casts, extending my drift, but that fish just didn’t see anything he liked. I tried to lift the anchor and let the boat down a little closer; and put him down.

I sat there for a long while, enjoying the sunshine and staring downstream hoping for another rise. The flies were getting sparser as I sat there, but I finally saw one little ring. I repositioned, but that guy never rose again.

When I pulled the anchor and grabbed the oars I figured that my fishing was over for the day. I had just one stop ahead and I fully expected that another boat would be sitting there. When I floated into view, sure enough, I saw the flash of oars in the afternoon sunlight.

He passed, rowed right by, so I rowed across the river as quickly as possible without creating too much of a ruckus. Once upstream of the spot, I slipped the oars under my knees, picked up the anchor rope and drifted silently into position for a long cast to the first rise.

The fish looked big, pushing plenty of water as he foraged on the quills and odd Hendricksons scattered along that bank. I had tied three flies immediately before leaving that morning, and one of them was secured to my tippet, a sparkle dun with a Trigger Point wing. Four casts, five, still he kept eating, and no take. I pulled some more line from the reel, shocked the rod and twitched the tip back as the leader unrolled, putting more slack in the tippet to improve the drift. Nothing!

He pushed up another bulge of water and his little round nose came out, I saw the whiskers and the flipping tip of his tail: muskrat! I couldn’t help but laugh at my own intensity. Perfect casts to a rodent. It would have been quite a fight.

Wait, there’s something else there. Mama muskrat? No, a bulge and a sipping rise. Two casts and I had him! He pulled a deep bow in my old Thomas & Thomas and my mind flashed to the tip that had been savaged by a low hanging branch while I fought for control in standing waves and white water earlier in the day, but the rod held.

The fish bored away from the bank and into the stronger flow, pulling line from the reel and shaking his big head. Definitely not a rodent. He fought hard, as Delaware browns are wont to do, but I finally led him into my net. Twenty-one inches of wild energy, his sides heaving in the mesh as I slipped the Hendrickson from his jaw. I admired him for a moment then slipped him back over the side.

Funny how a day can brighten so suddenly, and now there were a pair of fish sipping the errant mayflies in the line of quiet water along that bank.

The fish were cruising, working their way upstream and weaving in and out as they found a morsel to their liking, then diving and re-surfacing back where they had started. At last my fly caught one’s attention and he tipped up and took it. The rod bowed, I felt his weight and then nothing. Should have checked the tippet better after landing that first big boy.

I clipped the rough end of the tippet and knotted the morning Hendrickson number 2 to the hook, then looked for another candidate. I guess the fish along that bank had seen too much of my comparadun, for I could draw no more interest. I changed to a Blue Quill parachute, for I could see more of the smaller flies in the drift. That too proved unwelcome. My eye caught the form of a spinner in the glare beside the boat, and brought a smile to my face.

I checked the tippet one more time, tied on a size 16 biot-bodied rusty spinner, and began to play the game with the cruisers once again. It took several casts before I guessed which way the trout would turn and laid the fly perfectly in his path. He sipped, I tightened, and the big trout boiled the water and headed out of town!

He ran hard toward a snag and I turned him just short of it. Coming my way, it was all I could do to reel fast enough to keep up with him, then it was down with the current, twists and head shakes. In the net he was a solid 20 inches, another lovely big, wild Delaware brown.

The drift of flies had lessened, and there were no more cruisers picking off the remaining strays, so I took a moment to reflect on how quickly the day had turned, let the warmth of the sun ease my tired shoulders, and floated on toward home.

Somewhere in the vicinity of thirty years ago I developed a series of emergers tied with CDC feathers. The premise was to tie a good match for a specific mayfly nymph, incorporating CDC feathers in the insect’s wing color. The CDC was tied in in a low loop to trap air bubbles that would hold the fly in the surface film, and the loose fibers that escaped the thread were allowed to trail and move in the current.

Since I was chasing the Hendrickson hatch on the Gunpowder back then, the first emerger I tied was the Hendrickson. It was followed by sulfur, blue-winged olive and white mayfly (Ephoron leukon) variations. All of these caught trout; difficult wild trout in clear heavily fished streams like the Gunpowder and the Pennysylvania limestoners.

When I began fishing the Catskills in 1993, I tied versions to match the March Brown and the Green Drake. While I missed those hatches in the Catskills that season, I got to try both flies on Penns Creek. Both were effective when the trout would key on emerging nymphs and refuse to take the duns.

After amassing a track record of success on different rivers matching different hatches, I finally published this style of fly in the Mid-Atlantic Fly Fishing Guide. I hadn’t published any of my original fly patterns previously but I ended up being thankful that I did decide to write the article on the CDC emerger series. Later the same year Fly Fisherman magazine carried an article by Rene Harrop where he offered several of his original CDC patterns, among them a loop winged emerger very similar to my tie. Neither of us was aware of the other’s experiments, yet we came to similar conclusions. Mr. Harrop certainly needs no introduction.

So there were at least two of us who were convinced that this style of emerger was a great idea, though I don’t doubt that there are other tiers that have had kindred ideas and tied similar flies. Such is the nature of fly tying.

My CDC emergers can be fished effectively as tied in most situations. When you encounter a trout who still isn’t convinced, there is a little trick that can turn the tide in your favor. Pinch the CDC loop as tightly as you can with your thumb and forefinger, then submerge the fly and squeeze the body to thoroughly wet it. If you get any water in the loop wing, blow it out and cast. The fly will hang deeper with nothing but the loop wing caught in the film, and that trout will probably take it.

I have chosen the March Brown pattern to tie for this video, since that should be the next mayfly to appear this month. It is May after all, even though our ten day forecast shows our high temperatures won’t get out of the forties and fifties here in the Catskills.

It has been a few years since I last witnessed one of the epic Catskill Hendrickson hatches. Every spring I look forward to the possibility. Considering that it is the first major hatch of the season, there is no doubt that the dry fly man’s anticipation is at its annual peak as the second week of April approaches.

Yes I have seen it that early, though I have endured the long wait on the brink of too many seasons when the flies did not come forth until May. This year had all the appearances of an early spring, one in which the hatch would appear during the third week of April, but a push of persistent colder air after a warm weekend to begin the month seemed to stall things; or did it?

The water temperatures rose to the magic 50 degree mark that first warm weekend, then plummeted back to the thirties as we were battered with snow squalls and frigid nights thereafter. The last blast brought us a 2 1/2 inch snowfall on April 18th. Though river temperatures were in the wrong half of the forties, I saw the big duns on the water the following day, April 19th. The flies have been here for nearly two weeks, but there hasn’t been a big showing of rising trout to greet them.

As I watched a handful of those beautiful ruddy duns blown with the gale two days ago, I feared that might be the last I will see of them for the season. The rain clouds have had their way and the rivers are all blown out once again; and more rain is coming. Anticipation unfulfilled and hopes dashed once again!

Memory assures that I have had great days fishing the Hendrickson hatch, though upon reflection there have been more that have been frustrating. Wind and high water have most often been the culprits to take the blame. I see visions of dark, cloudy days, the surface filled with flies as far as I could see, and pods of trout feeding furiously on them. Wading deeper than reason I still needed a long cast to reach those pods and the winds defied a presentation. Such is fishing, lest we forget.

I have grown as an angler passing those years that flood my memory, something we all do if we are dedicated to the sport and strive to improve. I can fish effectively under conditions I once considered hopeless, yet Nature is still the great equalizer. She reminded me, standing in the river just the other day, watching big trout pound those last few Hendricksons while I laughed out loud amid the rush of 35 mph winds that defied my casts.

So, another season begins, and though conditions do not suit the dreams that guided me through the winter I am thankful. I am here, alive and breathing despite my own health issues and the devastation of a global pandemic. There is still a tomorrow.

I had a reminder of that too, as I drifted through the tail of a pool early this week. Suddenly I saw a splashy rise and let the anchor as quickly and quietly as possible. Rises erupted toward midstream and below my position. The display seemed to coincide with the appearance of a few larger duns on the surface. I had just tied on a Hendrickson and thought myself ready for Nature’s little gift, but the fish were moving with each rise. I cast to each target immediately, only to drift my dry over vacant water. It lasted all of five minutes, and then the surface was still.

Teased, I sat down and let my heart rate slow a bit. That little flurry of fruitless activity brought a smile and a chuckle too. It was fun without feeling a tug.