Bright Waters Catskill

Honest warmth… and wind; but still delicious! The second week of March began with a 64 degree day on Sunday and an amazing 71 degrees of sunshine yesterday afternoon. My morning was trashed by a wasted errand, but I headed out to the Beaverkill around lunchtime. Yes the wind was bad, but I simply couldn’t not go out on the warmest day of the year.

In truth the wind was strong enough and constant enough that it prevented the full pleasure all that sunshine could provide. Out on the river it picked up the cold from the water and redistributed it to the wayward fisherman. But oh the sight of the river!

I stepped out to witness flies in the air, hundreds and hundreds of flies buzzing in the air, rising from the surface and glistening in the sunshine! They were midges, at least for the most part, though there looked to be a tiny mayfly too, now and then. I started scanning for the first rise immediately.

I found none, and reasoned that it was still early, and the sun needed more time to warm the water. I tied on a little bead head soft hackle and started to cast and swing it through the best holding water. Patience was thin, so it wasn’t too long until I cut that fly off and rebuilt the business end of my leader to make a change.

I had received a copy of Mike Valla’s new book last weekend at Flyfest, “The Classic Streamer Fly Box”. I started reading as soon as I got home and during the next few days picked a couple of patterns to tie. Sometimes even a dedicated dry fly fisherman has to face the facts of high cold water in the tail of winter. One of those was a classic Rube Cross bucktail called “Beaverkill”, so I am sure you can understand the necessity of fishing it.

I swung and twitched the bucktail through that lovely stretch of holding water, lengthening the line a bit with each cast. At more than 700 cfs the run was fast, but crystal clear, so I hoped that the shallow swimming fly might just awaken a brown trout still too cold to rise all the way to the surface for midges. On one swing over a pocket of boulders I twitched the fly gently and paused, and felt a single hard pull with a wiggle, my first actual strike of the winter!

I would love to be writing about the battle joined and the giddiness experienced as I brought a fine brownie to the net, but that will have to remain a dream. The hook didn’t catch hold.

I don’t know why this winter has been devoid of trout. It has been mild enough overall to provide little windows of warmer days, and I have fished diligently through the warmest parts of those days to no avail. Yesterday was the first time I found any sort of insect activity, so I have to believe it was some sort of awakening. The weather is supposed to stay mainly in the fifties this week until cooling down for the weekend, and there is rain coming. With warmer air about the rainfall will hopefully warm the rivers somewhat, easing us slowly into the cycle of spring. Barring another onslaught of winter storms, we just might see that early spring the groundhog promised back in February.

As much as I long for dry fly fishing, I don’t want to see Hendricksons on April Fools Day. A spring like that just messes up the hatches for the entire season. We had one of those a decade ago, with grannoms and Hendricksons hatching in March down in Central Pennsylvania. I remember fishing here in early April and never seeing a concentrated hatch all year, the bugs trickling off over a month or more instead of hatching heavily for a week. Some midge activity, and some of the early stoneflies, both bringing a handful of trout to the surface on the warmer days would be the perfect gift. Mid April has always been the perfect time for mayflies to herald an early spring in my estimation. I’d just like a taste over the course of the next month!

I walked out on the porch to get the mail yesterday and felt the sun beaming over Point Mountain. The thermometer read 61 when I looked at it, though experience has revealed that the direct afternoon sun often helps it along by as much as 5 degrees. I couldn’t help but to sit there for a moment and thumb through my mail. God but it felt like spring!

We’re a week into March now, just twenty days from the opening day of baseball with a bit more until the Opening Day of New York trout season. The weather has been warming somewhat, but it still drops below freezing at regular intervals; there’s even snow in today’s forecast. Now comes the longest, most difficult wait of the entire winter.

Mother Nature loves to tease us, one moment tossing her hair and winking over her shoulder, allowing the deep glow of an afternoon sun to warm our desires, the next smirking and vanishing behind a curtain of ice and rain.

Passing the days becomes more difficult the closer I come to an honest day of dry fly fishing.

As of yesterday I have tied 696 flies in the first weeks of this new year. I have blended dubbing, fiddled with tackle, polished rods, read quite a group of angling books, talked fishing with whomever would listen and walked along the rivers searching for a rise that did not come. The Mother teases now every few days, and my lust and torment grows.

I often dream to recapture moments in time. When I writhe in the wretched throes of anticipation as winter slowly wanes, there are splendid moments of springtimes past I long to return to.

There was a day on the West Branch years ago, a breathtaking day when the Hendricksons came by the millions. There were too many flies on the water, so my catch was meager. I was not alone in that fate, as there were dozens of anglers strewn across a couple of miles of river who shared my lack of success, each bearing the same tired, wistful look upon their face.

By five o’clock most of them had walked past me and climbed the trail toward their cars, yet I still wandered the river banks, enjoying a touch of solitude. Along the edges of the river I saw the movement of a few struggling mayflies. I stooped and plucked one from the surface, a size sixteen, brick red bodied Hendrickson. The flies of the blizzard hatch had been consistent, with the tannish bodies in a full size 14 I was used to seeing on the Catskill Rivers, but these ruddy late comers were smaller, and few in number. Males perhaps, or one of the lesser subspecies I had read about. I found an imitation and tied it on, walking the shallow edge along the bank with new purpose.

On the walking trail side of the river, there in the shallow, flat water that had been waded through all afternoon by an army of fishermen, I saw a bulge in the surface and a tiny dimple appear. I pulled line from my reel, checked my backcast for clearance, and delivered the fly gently above the last remnant of the rippled surface.

When the bulge appeared beneath my fly I tensed, setting the hook hard quickly when it vanished into the dimpling rise. The still surface erupted and a tremendous brown trout vaulted out of the water, shaking his head and snapping my tippet before falling back with a terrible splash. In a moment it was as if nothing had happened, the trout, and all evidence of his lurking in the shallow flat was gone. I stood there awhile, mouth agape: that trout was easily 6 or 7 pounds!

Another day on the West Branch, years thence, and I had fared better fishing a heavy Hendrickson hatch. I stayed when most of my brethren departed, hoping as always for that late, sparse little emergence of the red bugs. I waded down toward the tail of one of the large, deep pools, enjoying the early spring evening as I searched. The sun angled lower and bathed the far bank with that antique yellowish glow, and I was mesmerized by the beauty of the scene when I saw the first soft ring.

I tried to wade across, but the channel dug by the run of the current pulled me up short. It was well past six and the rises were the soft, telltale rings of trout sipping spinners. I freshened my tippet and knotted a size fourteen rusty spinner securely, then tried the closest riser with a cast. The fish was out there, sipping in that shady realm between my usual maximum casting range and the distance I needed to reach with a perfect presentation. A few of my casts alighted in line with his feeding station, though not nearly enough of them.

Eventually I resorted to a tippet change, going down to 6X, despite knowing in my heart it was not the answer to the riddle. Of course the trout finally selected my fly from the hundreds available, but it took me an extra microsecond to believe it, squinting to follow that little fly awash in the glare of the setting sun more than 80 feet away. That time was my undoing, for I hurried once convinced and set the hook too hard, knowing I was late. I pricked the brown, he boiled enough to display his significant size, and then he was gone.

There were several more sipping happily away as the last glow of that gorgeous sun slipped behind the mountain, each just a bit further over there than I could reach consistently. It remains a delicious, though bittersweet memory, fishing there until the shadows deepened and the rise subsided. Each spring, as I wade the pools of the West Branch, I remember that evening, and I long to return. Many times the river’s flow is higher, and there is no chance to repeat the past and hope for a more satisfying result. In some years though, conditions appear similar, and I haunt that reach looking for my past. I haven’t found it, at least not tangibly; I only linger there in memory.

I had an impromptu “discussion” with a fellow at the Troutskellar a couple of years ago about fly rods. Some might find this guy’s downright belligerent attitude excusable since he was working as a factory representative for one of the prominent plastic flyrod companies, but I didn’t.

I don’t recall how things got started, but very soon he got pushy, telling me I absolutely had to have the newest (and stiffest) $900 stick of graphite his employer was advertising ad nauseum as revolutionizing fly fishing as we know it. I calmly explained that “technology” wasn’t a substitute for casting ability regardless what his latest ad copy proclaimed and that, from my experience in the industry, ever stiffer fly rods typically made bad casters worse. I went on to say that the 80 odd year old bamboo rod I was fishing on that trip would do everything I needed it to do on the water, and was a heck of a lot more pleasurable to fish throughout the day.

The truth hurts I guess, for my words got this fellow all bombastic and blubbering about line speed and guide friction and shooting capability under low gravity conditions in a vacuum or some such nonsense. I turned him off and turned away at that point, acknowledging there was no hope for him, another soldier in the army of combat fishermen.

My statement about stiff rods made that guy come unglued I believe because he recognized it as the truth.

When I owned a small fly shop, I worked with a lot of fly casters on a regular basis. My shop wasn’t located in an urban center with loads of disposable income, so my customers put some real thought into buying a fly rod. They tended to be skeptical of advertising claims per se, and wanted some personal feedback. I carried a lot of slower action flyrods, even though the new top of the line rods my manufacturer was pushing in their advertising were stiff, fast action rods. Whenever I worked with a newcomer, or anybody who complained about dissatisfaction with their casting, I invariably took one of the traditional action fly rods when we walked outside to the casting lawn.

If you spend enough time in this sport you learn a couple of universal truths: fly rods are supposed to bend, and the more easily and uniformly they bend the more feedback they give the caster, leading to better casts; and, long distance casting is generally not the holy grail of catching more and larger trout.

The rod in the picture at the beginning of this post is Mr. Jim Downes’ beautifully crafted rendition of a classic Everett Garrison 206 taper, a very, very full working 7 1/2′ 4 weight, photographed with its first better than 20 inch trout. I was talking to Jim at the PA Fly Fishing Museum Heritage Days event a few years ago when I spied that blonde rod in his rack. It stood out between all of the more darkly flamed rods Jim is known for. I cast the rod out of curiosity, and I simply had to have it.

The Garrison felt very soft at first, but as I adjusted a little I felt the perfectly smooth way it loaded, and the hidden power it held. The photo was taken on a stormy morning on the West Branch when the river, already high for wading, rose by a good 250 cfs during my hour and a half of fishing. The trout were tight to the bank that July morning, and they weren’t interested in rising in the fast current for less than a mouthful. The Garrison let me consistently place my size 10 isonychia cripple within an inch of the vegetation on the river bank; the only place the trout would take it.

That Garrison designed full working action proved to be extremely accurate, even when casting large dry flies some would call too big for a four weight rod in blustery conditions. I have used that rod frequently fishing a long, light line in the summer, as it allows wonderfully controlled, gentle presentations on calm water. It does that because its power doesn’t come from stiffness and high line speed, it comes from superior design and craftsmanship by rod makers who understood fly fishing.

There truly is a sensuality about fishing bamboo. Each rod has a personality and an ability to communicate with the caster if only he learns to feel what the rod tells him. Bamboo rods bend, not in that fraction of an inch microsecond only in the very tip way that carbon does, but smoothly and progressively, with touch and power and control. I think that bamboo simply gives our brains a better stimulus, and a little longer to feel that power so that we can apply just the right touch instinctively to make the line and fly do what we want them to do.

Certainly bamboo rods are beautiful, the warm tones of gently flamed cane highlighted by the translucent colors of natural silk windings and the mystery of figured wood. There is a wealth of history and tradition in the craft of rod making to enhance the enjoyment of fishing.

I get tremendous enjoyment out of fishing rods made by artisans I know. It always brings a smile when I think of those friends each time a trout takes the fly and the art of their genius rises into a throbbing, glowing arc transmitting the wild energy of a Catskill trout to my quivering hands.

I also have a special feeling about vintage rods, for I love to fish tackle that is older than I am. I know a little of their histories, who made them and where, but nothing of the rivers they have seen and of those who wielded them. Thinking about that past builds an extra touch of wonder into the experience.

Bamboo can speak to you. All you have to do is listen…

“I’m looking for the April thunderstorms that wash away the drab dull colors of the wintertime; I’m looking for the spring to break wide open; to hear the phoebe and the robin and the meadowlark; to see and smell the violets and the blossoms on the apple trees; to watch the swallows sweeping low across the satin surface of the stream; to wait for ripples of the rising trout, as evening falls and nymphs emerge and all the world is sweet with scent and song and gentle colors” Dana S. Lamb, “The Ides of March”, Woodsmoke And Water Cress 1965

It is a lovely march morning in the Catskills, the sun tinging the southeastern horizon with orange, the landscape bright with a fresh dusting of snow. My thermometer reads fifteen degrees, but my spirits feel warmer than that. The calendar tells me that spring will arrive in just eighteen days…

Yesterday was the occasion of the Dennis Skarka Flyfest, as members of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild gathered in the Catskill Flyfishing Center’s Wulff Gallery to shake off the effects of winter and greet the coming season with open arms. Thanks to the Guild’s Catskill Kids On The Fly program, I enjoyed the opportunity to add two new fly tyers to the thirty or so veterans gathered in the hall.

I used to teach fly tying regularly during my fly shop days, but it has been a long time since I had the chance to help a youngster learn to tie their very first fly. I look forward to our March meeting at the gallery, and a chance to witness some more new smiles as bright young eyes see the magic of a hackle spring up into a sparkling little fan of fibers as they wind it around a hook for the very first time.

Often we mark time during the winter, tying flies, polishing rods and oiling reels as we dream about sunshine reflected in a subtle bulge in the surface of the pool and that miraculous ring that wasn’t there just a moment ago, but now it is time to get serious about the new fishing season. Now the mystery becomes palpable. No matter what the long range forecasts say, every angler knows that spring can happen at any moment. A turn in the wind currents a thousand miles away can send warmer air our way, dispelling the clouds and waking all the creatures of the stream that so delight us.

The time for tying flies on dreams and whimsy has come to an end. It is time to check all those early season boxes to be certain that all the needed patterns are in good supply. The vest must be sorted through, old leaders discarded and fresh ones laid in, and the drift boat will need to be uncovered, tires checked and compartments cleaned. Everything must be absolutely ready to go, for we dare not miss a moment of it.

It was May of 1993, and life was a bit of a whirlwind. The economic downturn of the previous year threw a wrench in my career and I had found a part-time gig working at the local Orvis shop. I enjoyed fly fishing for trout so completely that I discovered how much fun it was to work at the shop and talk fishing to the customers, and I resolved to open my own shop. I set a meeting with the Orvis Company in Manchester, Vermont and headed north from central Maryland. Along the way, I finally had an opportunity to visit the Catskills and fish the hallowed waters of the Beaverkill.

I had read a great deal about the Beaverkill and the magic of the Catskill rivers. Stories from the Golden Age of fly fishing had captivated me, and I had longed to wade the limpid, cobblestoned pools where a legion of great angling writers had become inspired, bewildered and seduced. I was positively giddy when I got my first glimpses of the rivers from the drive along the Quickway!

The Hendrickson hatch had concluded when I arrived in Roscoe, and my first steps into the lovely river introduced me to the Shad Fly caddis. They were everywhere, flying around in the bushes and over the water by the millions, but there were no trout eating them. The main hatch had come off of course and the egg laying wasn’t happening just yet, so the flies simply weren’t on the water where the Beaverkill trout could get at them. The sight was impressive though!

I recall making the rounds in Roscoe: the Dette fly shop, the Beaverkill Angler, Hendrickson’s Pool, Horse Brook Run, Ferdun’s and Barnharts. I stalked the wide, glassy length of Barnhart’s Pool and witnessed a powerful rise along a shady bank. I approached as stealthily as I could despite the nervous anticipation, and made my pitch. When my little dry fly was taken, all those nerves exploded in far too quick a hookset. I only pricked leviathan, the water exploded in a tremendous boil and then he was gone. So close to Valhalla!

My senses were full those first two days, overpowered by the brilliant sunshine, the beauty of the Catskills and the mystery and history that surrounded me. I just needed to connect with the beautiful trout that had drawn me to Mecca.

Some clouds gathered that second afternoon, and Mary Dette kindly pointed me to a nearby reach of the Willowemoc where I found my rising trout. There were 6 or 7 of them, feeding steadily, and ignoring my flies. I bent down to scan the surface over and over, but saw nothing. Finally I remembered my little telescoping insect net and retrieved it, sifting the current for an answer to the puzzle. Sticks, pieces of leaf matter, seeds, bubbles…bubbles? I dissected one clump of bubbles and then another, finding blobs of olive green, brown and blue gray: half emerged, drowned blue winged olives! My early CDC mayfly ties, hidden away in a small fly box, proved to be a perfectly blobish match and I caught those trout!

I still hadn’t found any fishing to those millions of Shad Fly caddis, so I kept exploring new reaches of the river. At Horton I finally found a few of them hatching in the Acid Factory Run. I tried my own elk hair caddis, and the flies I had purchased at Dette’s, but I only managed a couple of strikes in the churning white water of the run. The hatch ended and I had one small trout to show for my efforts.

Encouraged by the late morning hatch, I spent some time on the porch of the old Victorian bed and breakfast the next morning and tied myself a couple of flies. Gary LaFontaine had showed me how to tie his Emergent Sparkle Pupa a couple of years before, so I used my travel kit to blend a bit of fur and Antron yarn to copy the mixture of caramel tan and apple green I saw in those caddisflies. The two size 16 flies looked rough and shimmery, just as Gary instructed, so I placed them in my fly box and headed back to the Acid Factory Run.

It was Saturday morning, and I found a line of a dozen anglers already standing in the Run and extending well downstream. There was no one in the head of the run just below the mouth of Horton Brook, perhaps due to the bounding whitecaps where the riffle became a run. I waded in and tied one of my emergents to my tippet, and waited.

The hatch began around ten o’clock, just as it had on Friday, and the trout soon began to slash at the flies as they launched themselves from the frothy surface. I ended up wishing I had allowed myself more time to tie a few more flies.

The Emergent Sparkle Pupa in my customized caramel apple color fooled a lot of trout that morning, while a dozen anglers cast and cast, shook their heads and changed flies to no avail. Several waded out of the river and walked up to ask me what I was using while I landed a dozen brows and one very nice 14″ wild brook trout. I told them what fly was working, I showed them too between casts, but all I could do was apologize for having only those two flies.

I needed that second fly as it turned out, for at least twice as many trout as I landed had slashed at my little emergent then came off in mid air, or shaken the hook as they tumbled back into the foamy chute. I fished that first fly until nothing remained of its stubby deer hair wing but three fibers of sodden hair, then exchanged it by necessity for the second one. I became a disciple of LaFontaine’s Emergent Sparkle Pupa that morning.

I fell completely in love with the Beaverkill during that handful of lovely days in May. She had smiled upon me, teased me with her beauty and the mystery of her ways, kissed me shyly and stolen my heart.

Another little warm spell has graced the Catskills, though now the downtrend back to highs below freezing begins. Fifty degree sunshine brought a lot of anglers to the West Branch on Sunday. Despite the snow in the parking area it looked a bit like spring.

The sun on my back felt good as I swung my feathered enticements through the tail of the Gamelands Riffle, but there was no response. Unlike last winter, when I would catch a fish just often enough to keep myself going back each time the weather mellowed, this one has proved to be a time for exercise and reflection.

With Monday’s forecast improving to 55 and sunny, I set out again hoping some of the shallower water might just betray a little activity. Tired of the long spey rod, I carried my 8-foot Kiley bamboo, and rigged a dry fly leader. The day became more than was promised, all but kissing 60 degrees, and I tramped both the West Branch and the Mainstem. I saw one stonefly in the air over Junction Pool.

Winter remains, though my spirit appreciates the little breaks when sunshine and a light breeze over the river whispers promises of spring. Until that sunshine is more frequent there is reading and tying, and waiting.

Saturday is sure to provide a diversion, as fly tiers gather in Livingston Manor for the Dennis Skarka Flyfest. I look forward to the gathering and the chance to share ideas with fellow Guild members and, hopefully, to inspire a few youngsters to wrap a hook with fur and feathers to fuel their own anticipation for spring.

My own efforts to share the craft in this forum are continuing, and I have a third fly tying video to share. Slowly I am learning a few of the tools of the digital medium. Since the Halo Isonychia matches one of the most enduring hatches of our late spring and summer, it is only fitting to offer an imitation of the spinner.

Last summer while working with the Kreinik silk dubbing, I came up with a new pattern idea for the isonychia mayflies which are favored by our Delaware River trout. There are two species that are common on the rivers: a size 10 mayfly that begins hatching in early June in a normal year (whatever that is) and continues into mid-July; and a size 12 fly hatching in September. Between them, isonychia are around long enough that Delaware trout respond to them throughout the summer.

Iso’s tend toward an olive body color immediately after hatching, then begin to darken to the claret or maroon color more commonly associated with the bug. I decided to tie a comparadun using the olive brown silk dubbing applied lightly over wine colored 6/0 Unithread. The translucency of the silk is wonderful and, as the fly gets wetter, the claret color of the tying thread bleeds thru until most of the olive disappears leaving a translucent sheen or halo effect.

I decided to use Enrico Puglisi’s Trigger Point fibers in dark dun for the wing. This produces a very natural veined effect in the wing, great shine for visibility on the water, and terrific durability. The fly proved itself immediately on a solo float on the Delaware last summer, bringing some nice rainbows to the top with no iso hatch in progress.

My explorations into the solo fly tying video thus continue. Still a few things to work out, but the lighting is improved. I hope you like the pattern.

Trying something new this afternoon: my first fly tying video. My video production skills will need some work but I think you will get the point.

Here on the Upper Delaware, we do a lot of dry fly fishing in flat water. The river is know for it’s mile long “eddies” after all. Low floating dry flies are very popular because they work. Parachute flies are a favorite of mine, but I like to throw the trout a curve or two.

I have written previously about translucency and my efforts to improve the translucency in my dry flies this year. Pure silk dubbing makes strides toward that end. Selecting variegated colors and barring in dry fly hackles is another of my particular touches that adds realism and life to the fly.

My friend Mike Saylor sent me a text message the other night. He was cheerily reporting catching seven wild brown trout on a central Pennsylvania limestone stream earlier that day. “I got up to Schoolhouse Pool and had just sat down on the bench when trout started to rise” he related. The blue-winged olive hatch used to be a regular winter occurance for he and I. I was glad to hear that he had a great time.

I do miss fishing throughout the winter, though in truth many of my old favorite limestone waters declined a great deal over the past decade. Somehow fishing pressure and angler interest increased, yet the focus on conservation didn’t keep pace.

Mike was fishing a small limestoner that was once my favorite dry fly stream, a place I wrote about dozens of time in my newspaper column, but never named. It was small water and couldn’t take the publicity and continue to be a healthy, productive fishery. Sadly the pressure increased anyway and it got to the point that the place would be crowded on a Monday in the middle of winter. I curtailed my visits at that point.

I was pleased to hear a couple of years ago that the rush had quieted somewhat, and Mike’s fine afternoon of dry fly fishing showed that the quality of the fishery has improved.

I see angler’s crowding everywhere these days, fishing on top of one another. I’ve wondered sometimes if people were giving out free money at those pools. I don’t know if a lot of those fishermen are simply inexperienced and believe they have to follow others to find a place where trout live or not. I have never been one to seek out the busy parking lots and crowded pools, whether I knew that river or not.

I admit I am old school. I like a little solitude, even when fishing with friends. Years ago my friend Tom Botlock and I would often go fishing together. We would drive up and share stories and ideas along the way, but when we rigged up along the river we would head off in opposite directions. Most of the time we wouldn’t see each other until we met back at the car at evening. We shared the day’s adventures on the ride home. We both thoroughly enjoyed those trips.

I like wading in solitude, stalking trout at my own pace, while taking notice of the next rise upstream to plan the next stalk, perhaps minutes, perhaps hours later.

I am getting to like fishing in my drift boat. I generally take one friend along, alternating turns as we find rising fish. On the best days, when there aren’t many boats on the same reach of river, it can be a little like two man solitude.

Fishing through the winter here in the Catskills does offer solitude. Most of the time I don’t have to share the water with anyone except an eagle or two. I wouldn’t mind sharing it with a feeding trout though.

The sun is out this afternoon, but the wind has a real bite at 25 degrees. There is hope for a warming trend for the weekend, and the rivers have dropped during the past few days. Some sunshine, warmer air and shallower water has me thinking about a tug on the end of my line…

My friend’s text message found me nearly ready to toss my gear in the Jeep and head south with a box of blue winged olives. I know just the right size and shade of color those brown trout like down there, but there are things to do up here. I do wish that dry fly fishing was one of them.

Twenty-five years ago I spent many days in my fly shop talking to fishermen. One lasting impression from hundreds of conversations was their universal derision for fishless days. Many so resented the idea of a fishless day that they chose to deny that they ever experienced them, perhaps the seed of the popular belief that all fishermen are liars.

Every angler likes to catch fish, but I learned long ago to embrace fishless days. They happen to everyone, far more often I suspect than most will admit. Such experiences are among Mother Nature’s teaching moments. Simply stated, fishless days foster greater appreciation for all of the facets of the angling experience, particularly the days when fishing is good.

I have read angling books and articles all of my life, and there is a common thread particularly when the subject matter is fly hatches. Most describe fishing a hatch as if it is a very simple and reliable affair. Go to the river when the Hendrickson’s are on and catch your fill they say, glossing over the true complexity of that wonderful trick of nature.

The truth is better illustrated by my two trips to the Catskills during the spring of 2013. The Hendrickson hatch was indeed on for the first three days as I visited three different rivers. All of these rivers are famous for their fishing during this hatch, and none of them produced so much as a single mayfly. Water and weather conditions were typical for a Catskill spring, and I enjoyed three lovely but fishless days.

On day four I returned to the West Branch Delaware to start the rotation again and fished through an absolute blizzard hatch of Hendricksons. I caught and released a number of fine brown trout on the same water where I had sat and watched the bugless surface flow gently past earlier in the week. My observations on all four days entertained me and added to my store of knowledge.

The second trip brought action on the first afternoon, one of my two best fishing days in that strange, short spring season. I stalked 5 big fish and succeeded in taking four of them, the best a 22 inch brown that seemed to think he had rainbow in his bloodline from the leaping he performed. I had fishermen up, down and across stream that caught little or nothing and were full of questions for me. Sometimes it is just your day. Your choice of flies and fishing tactics fits the conditions you are confronted with perfectly and you reap the rewards; but there was something more than luck going on.

All of those other anglers were wading from the opposite bank and fishing in the gorgeous full sunshine, casting at sporadic risers in the heavy flow in the middle of the river. Most waded to a spot and stood there fruitlessly casting. I stalked along the shaded edge of my bank where big browns were lying in the quiet, shallow water between several large rocks, sipping the smaller male Hendricksons that drifted down that edge of the river. All of my fish accepted the same size 16 CDC sparkle dun, but I cast to each of them from a different position, selected to provide the best casting angle to achieve a drag-free drift.

The calm, shallow water and the uneven bottom made my approach very difficult. I spent a great deal of time working around the boulders and chunk rock to prevent spooking the trout before I could cast to them. Patience can be difficult, particularly in the presence of large, rising trout during a hatch that might end at any moment. Three of the browns I landed were more than twenty inches long, as was the one who managed to shed the hook prematurely. My fishing tactics used the lessons learned from past fishless days.

The two middle days of that four day trip belonged to the fishless category: no bugs and no rising trout. I could have pounded the water with nymphs or streamers, but I chose not to fish that way. I waited, enjoyed the day and was rewarded on the final day of the trip.

I fished an old favorite spot and had the reach of water to myself. Around 1:30 I spied a little wink in flat water along the bank and proceeded to fish slowly and intently with a little Blue Quill. I worked over 4 or 5 trout during the next couple of hours, each sipping daintily, first taking the duns and later the upright spinners the slow current delivered.

I landed three fine gorgeously colored wild trout that afternoon: a pair of beautiful 21 inch browns and another heavy bodied specimen of 20 inches, all well earned by patience and careful fishing. It is hard to ask for a better bit of fishing than that, particularly if you are an aficionado of technical dry fly fishing as I am. In a way the good days were earned with patience and perseverance during the fishless days.

I can recount fishless days when plenty of flies appeared and the trout ate them, days when high water prevented me from approaching those rising trout to best advantage., or high winds made a drag-feee presentation impossible. I have fished often in high water where the situation offered only one spot to cast from, and that location was not the right one for me to make a successful presentation. I study those situations when confronted with them and try to learn something for the next time.

There are times when it is simply not your day. I have had days when I have approached a rising trout and made two dozen careful, perfect casts to that fish without drawing any interest, only to have a gust of wind toss the next cast off target, causing the fly to drag terribly. Concentration broken, I have dropped the rod and relaxed, only to have that difficult fish immediately smash the fly and escape when I couldn’t set the hook on time. At times I imagine the Red Gods sitting up high with a finger on the fan switch, smiling.

Sometimes all you can do is relax and laugh at moments like that. Take the positives from the day, learn from the foibles, and give thanks for each day you are blessed to spend along bright rivers. As I tell an angling friend who oft complains about sparse days astream, you have to take what the river gives you. Some days all she is willing to give is her company, and if you are to enjoy this gift we call fly fishing you must learn to appreciate that and accept that it is enough.

The opening of this trout season will mark an anniversary for me. It will be five years since I was struck down and barely evaded a float down my last river. I had no idea that my heart was in trouble. The brief, bubbly burning sensation below my Adam’s Apple had been dismissed by the medical types, so I went fishing.

Friend Andy Boryan and I were savoring what would be the last of the great fishing on Big Spring, and I had found a big, wild rainbow rising to a sparse emergence of tiny olives. My size twenty fly laid gently upon the surface turned the trick and I played and landed that beautiful fish with my old Granger bamboo rod. A heavy, twenty inch bow will get you excited, but oh the burning felt like so much more than joy and elation. Not too many days thence I was laying in a hospital bed taking regular doses of nitroglycerine.

There was fear, and disbelief, and a lot of hope that the surgeon could save me. She did. I worked hard in recovery, resigned to the fact that I was going to miss that precious spring upon the rivers that sustained me. A month after the surgery I was able to cast a fly rod, so I went fishing.

My early May newspaper column from Chambersburg’s Public Opinion told the tale of the beginning of my season here in the Catskills. The season I nearly didn’t have:

“I have seen Hendricksons, but not the heavy hatches common to these rivers. Conditions seem perfect, but the bugs have their own agenda. Rather than the typical 3:00 PM emergence, there seem to be a few flies on the water from mid-morning until dark. Finding a good trout rising to these sparse pickings has been extremely challenging, even with the best of help.

Knowing that my body is not yet ready for the rigors of wading the great rivers, I have enjoyed fishing from the luxury of McKenzie drift boats, ably piloted by guides Ben Rinker and Kevin Corser. Both have toiled at the oars, dragged boats across riffles to shallow to float the craft, and managed to put me in front of the fish that were willing to eat a bug now and then. My hat’s off to both, fine guides and the best of company on the river.

Of course the Red Gods have to have their fun as well, typically at the expense of the wayward angler. A picture will tell the tale best: After scanning the river, the sharp eyes of the guide have located a trout casually sipping duns. The approach is perfect and the cast true, as are the next twenty casts until the wind blows the fly of course a bit and the angler cannot see it on the water, fixing his gaze on an actual Hendrickson he believes to be his fly. Of course that is the one and only cast that produces a take.

There are variations on the theme, but these are the kinds of things the Red Gods like to toss out to fly fishers. It must give them a multitude of enjoyment judging by the frequency they play such games.

Undaunted we push on until evening, interrupted by a fine Delaware rainbow that actually eats my fly while I’m looking at it and fights with great spirit and the reel spinning runs his kind are known for.” Fishing isn’t always perfect, but even the challenging days are a gift when we have the sense to realize it.

“It is evening, and the sun is off the water, yet still lights the treetops along the east bank of the river. It is absolutely gorgeous as all my days here have been. There is a riff ahead, pouring hard against the steep bank of an outside bend, and I cannot wait to fish it, but as we approach there are two drift boats anchored in the prime spots.

Kevin is looking east however, studying a soft edge where the fast water meets slow. With a subtle pull on the oars he glides the boat into position and tells me to watch that edge. There are trout rising in a line, most in the faster water, a few more subtly just inside in the softer water. One of Mary Dette’s Hendricksons elicits a rise and the battle is joined, the fish charging downstream and using his weight in the current! In the net he measures nineteen inches, a wonderful Delaware brown, and the highlight of the day!” I cannot explain how grateful I felt to be alive and fishing that day, but if you happen to be an angler with a near-death experience in your resume, you understand.

This season will open five years from the day I had to place my life in the hands of a lady I had just met. Thank you Dr. McCarty.

I have done a lot of fishing since that fateful day in late March, and loved every minute of those five seasons. Walking the river banks, sitting alone in the sunshine waiting for the hatch, or stalking into range and casting to a gorgeous wild trout, I have lived to feel the energy of the rivers flowing through me. My time on the rivers healed the part of me the art of the surgeon’s scalpel could not; my soul.

I take more time now to appreciate each facet of life: my time outdoors, conversations with friends, little walks with my girl, little daily tasks most of us regard as a bother. They are all worthwhile, all special. I find myself looking at the sky and the light as it rises and falls behind the mountains. I still laugh out loud when a trout finds a new and exciting way to avoid my fly, jus as I laugh when I slip a good one back into the clear river at my feet.

Winter has had a lock on Central Pennsylvania since November. The snowstorms that hammered the Northeast coast were kind enough to sweep around us but we’ve had more ice than any reasonable fly fisher needs to see.

The extreme cold has kept me from any winter steelheading. With Lake Erie being five to six hours away, there has to be a serious warm spell to get me on the road. Sure any of the little thaws might bring fishable conditions, but they don’t last long enough for those of us a day’s drive away.

Living in the Cumberland Valley there are a handful of waters close at hand that play savior to the snowbound angler. Our limestone springs: Falling Spring, Big Spring and the Letort meander through the countryside at about 52 degrees even in the bowels of winter. The wild trout feed and grow, and they can be caught with the right presentation of the right fly.

As much as I love the spring creeks, they are small waters and can become a bit too familiar when they offer the only available fly fishing for several months.

So here we are a couple of days past Valentine’s Day and the sun shows up. Fifty degrees, sixty, even sixty-five makes you want to believe its springtime even when you know its not. Rods, reels and waders are in the truck so there’s no holding back.

The Little Juniata River has a reputation as one of Pennsylvania’s best trout streams. She’s come a long way to earn that reputation. Coming back from decades of pollution, the stream boasted good hatches of mayflies and caddis until a still undetermined spill killed off the insect life in 1996. The river rebounded again, and the last few years have offered heavy hatches of Grannom caddis and fishable emergences of olives, sulfurs, Cahills, Isonychia and tricos.

Driving through the mountains toward the village of Spruce Creek I note the variations on my Envoy’s exterior thermometer: 45 on top of the ridges, 36 in the valleys. I remind myself it’s only eight o’clock and the forecast is calling for the upper fifties.

By 9:30 I’m wading the river and my feet are feeling the cold. I nymph slowly and painstakingly through the big riffle above Spruce Creek but nothing touches the fly. The need to warm up my feet convinces me to head to my favorite pool, and I welcome the break.

There are memories in this pool, many memories of the Grannoms that are still two months away from making the appearance that will kick start the dry fly season. The water and the gravel look dark, and the morning sun reveals only the snow flecked bare gray and brown landscape of winter.

The river banks hold patches of ice and snow in the low places, and I long for a hint of green and the dimple of a rising trout. It is understood this trip is about going fishing and not about catching trout. Dangling my thermometer as I rig a heavier tippet, I tie on a fox tail streamer before I pluck it from the icy flow. The 38 degree reading confirms my plans for the day: fishing, not catching.

Halfway down the pool I am used to the rhythm; cast to the bank, mend and swing, then twitch it gently back. To say I am surprised when the fly stops is understatement, but the pull increases as I tighten and the rod slowly throbs with life. The foot long brown is scrappier than expected in water so cold and I chuckle to myself with the thought that he’s two kinds of fish… a trout and a fluke.

Where the pool deepens to the point that the water laps at my vest pockets I stop and turn, heading back to the head where the fast current rushes past the island. Knowing better I make a few more casts into the bank, twitching the fly as the current pulls it back downstream. No more “fluke” here.

I wade slowly back around the island, sure footing it on the slippery stones to avoid a 38 degree bath. At the top of the island I throw that streamer into the pockets I nymphed earlier, with the same result. Cold feet get me thinking about a walk back to the truck and the ham sandwich I packed for lunch.

My path to the bank brings me to the tail of a deep, flat pool where I see the unbelievable dimple of a soft rise. Staring for a moment I note that I am not dreaming, there are 3 or 4 trout sipping midges in the glassy tailout.

Now the spirit of the afflicted dry fly angler is awakened, and I cut back and rebuild a suitable leader to present a tiny midge. A compound tippet works well with the poly leader butt I’ve been using for nymphs and streamers. Finishing with a long soft section of 6X, I dig a size 22 biot midge out of my spring creek box and knot it fast.

The trout are holding in inches of water, so a single bad cast will erase this magical opportunity before my eyes. I slide into position still standing in the riffle, and just below the lip of the tailout. I prepare for the cast, and the devilish wind springs up out of nowhere, and my heart falls. I have lived this exact moment a thousand times. I think of God with his hand on the fan switch, laughing.

For a few moments I stand there in the river and the darkness of unending winter begins to take hold of my spirit, then the wind calms and I compose myself, waiting tensely, even praying for another rise.

The first cast alights perfectly, the tiny fly drifts with the line of current as designed then disappears in a soft rise. The foot long brownie races toward me then away, and I am sure he will send his brethren scurrying from their exposed positions. Once again I am surprised at the trout’s vigor in this frigid river. Sliding my hand beneath him, it takes but a touch of my finger to dislodge the fly.

The frantic movements of the hooked trout have put the others on the alert but did not scatter them as I feared. The next one to rise takes a couple of casts before he is satisfied with the fraud. He thrashes wildly and the tiny hook comes free.

Another gust ripples the surface and the action dies for awhile. Eventually trout number three sips again and my cast offers the midge. This one is more difficult. The long winter has not dulled his instincts. I loose count of the casts and drifts he ignores. At last the fly and the slack of the tippet fall perfectly in his line of drift, defeating the micro currents, and bringing him to the table.

Releasing the brown I smile at the deep gold and bronze flanks, the blood red spots, and the remarkable spirit that has helped his clan thrive despite the river’s turmoil. He slides from my hand with a kick of his tail.

It takes a few minutes before the last of the four risers reveals himself. He has chosen the position where drag is all but assured, where a little rise in the stony bottom, breaks the seemingly smooth flow into thousands of swirling, dancing eddies. The best lies for the best fish I muse as I make a few cautions steps, choosing an angle to present the fly.

The game continues: a sip, a cast, repeat. I want to fool this trout, though part of me wants the game to continue indefinitely. I know this comfortable afternoon is but a tease and winter is not ready to release us.

When the perfect drift intercepts the perfect line, the trout takes the fly. Immediately it is clear that he is the largest of this little troop of surface feeders, and I enjoy every minute of his energy. At fourteen inches he is not a trophy on this river, though he means a great deal to me, coming as he does on a tiny dry fly amid the icy surrounds of a river struggling with the season.

The tailout is again calm and lifeless. Though the temperature has reached the mid-sixties the sun has hidden during the afternoon, and it does not feel warm amid the breezes crossing the cold water.

After such an interlude, I cannot bring myself to rig another weighted fly and search the bottom. I have already had the best the river will offer for the day.

Walking out I still long for April, for green leaves and grass, and caddis on the wing, but the want is less tangible. The river has smiled briefly, blown me a kiss, and I am still savoring the sweetness.

I stole a couple of hours from Old Man Winter yesterday. After days of cold and wet, stormy skies the sun brightened the mountainsides, and I headed out for the Beaverkill.

I have always been a winter fly fisher, unable to stay away from rivers for any length of time. I began this habit on the Gunpowder, the stream I have always called my first love. Much younger then, I was able to climb along the steep, slippery footpaths along the upper river all winter long and fish that lovely little tailwater for wild browns and rainbows.

I was fortunate to discover the Gunpowder at the perfect time, after the right kind of politics and a lot of hard work had developed a fine wild brown trout population. The rainbows were a surprise. I believe that some of the rainbows stocked miles downstream in the put and take reach of the stream followed their spawning urge upstream, reproduced, and that they and their offspring found the Wild Trout Management Area to their liking.

Many of those bows gathered in pods to feed on the midges and microcaddis during the autumn and winter in the couple of miles of river directly below the dam, the reach I affectionally dubbed “The Canyon”. Those pod feeders were 14″ to 17″ long and very tough to catch. My new fly tying skills were tested imitating the tiny bugs, and my presentation was upgraded by necessity.

The rainbow fishery was somewhat short lived. One day after their decline I encountered a couple of the Maryland DNR biologists in the “canyon” trying to figure out what had happened. I never learned if they solved the puzzle to their satisfaction. It was fun while it lasted, and I feel privileged to have enjoyed the best of it. The little river still maintains a healthy brown trout fishery.

I have yet to discover any winter midge activity on the Catskill rivers I now call my home waters. Water temperatures on the days I have fished have ranged from 36 to 38 degrees during the daytime. Nightime flows are another matter.

During those halcyon days on the Gunpowder I fished rising brown trout in 36 degree water during a particularly rough winter in the early nineties. That occurred within the first half mile below the Prettyboy dam where the trout tended to acclimate to the cold water discharge. The bottom release water gushed forth at a relatively steady 42 degrees regardless of season. Those experiences led me to first expect, and still hope for similar activity in our Catskill tailwaters.

It appears the colder climate here will not grant the blessing of a rising trout in winter. Still the milder days find me walking the river banks with a rod in hand. As I said, I simply cannot stay away from rivers for any length of time. I still need the energy infused as the currents wash over my legs, just as I need the freshness of the mountain air.

I carry soft hackle wets and small streamers, each tied to entice with subtle movement, the spark of life: cast, mend and swing. Still, somewhere deep in my bag or my vest there is something, a pill bottle or a little box which holds a few midges, tiny blue winged olives and an early stonefly or two. There is always hope in the soul of a confirmed dry fly man.