It is Monday, the twenty-third of December, and it is five below zero here in Crooked Eddy. Indeed, we have passed the solstice into the realm of official winter now, though there could be no doubt of that in these environs.

It is cold once again in our little house, and even wearing sweats and my heaviest down vest I feel the chill in my bones as I write. They say this extreme won’t last long, that tomorrow’s low will settle in close to twenty degrees (above). Twenty degrees still seems awfully cold; belying the twenty-five-degree swing those numbers foretell.

One of my best friends sent me a completely cool little heater for Christmas, and I am glad it arrived early. I huddled right in front of it with my first mug of coffee this morning!

There are mostly sad tidings as Christmas approaches. My dear aunt passed away on Saturday morning. She was the last of her generation in my family, and I am now the eldest of the clan. Carole lived a good and full life, taking the turns on her terms, and I wish her Godspeed on her journey to that next life. A friend has also been hospitalized, and another whom I respected just laid to rest. Seems year’s end’s entire theme is of finality.

The challenge each winter is to turn the mind to the light and promise of spring. A more difficult process in an atmosphere of loss. I have taken small steps, re-blending my Translucence dubbings for the Isonychia and Hendricksons, tying a few flies. I shall work toward a little more of the same for now.

If you have spent any time fishing Catskill rivers, I have no doubt you are familiar with the name of Ed Van Put. A man of many talents and accomplishments, Ed was responsible for soliciting, negotiating and acquiring record mileage in the form of Public Fishing Rights along the rivers and streams of the Catskills. If he had accomplished nothing else, trout fishers would owe him a great debt and eternal thanks for that alone.

I am sad to say that Ed will be absent from the wide bends of his beloved Delaware River this coming season, for he passed quietly away on Saturday at his home in Livingston Manor, New York. Our hearts go out to his lovely wife Judy, his iconic mother Agnes, and all of his family and friends.

Ed was a founding member of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild, a fly tyer and an angler of legendary proportions. He remained active in the Guild, having given a presentation on the Beaverkill at our October Roundtable, drawing on the knowledge previously shared in his fine book on the river.

I was fortunate to meet Ed and talk briefly with him a few times over the past six years, finding him to be the epitome of the gentleman angler. Despite his wealth of knowledge, he was quiet and respectful of people, not one to force his ideas on anyone. Van Put had the reputation of being a classic presentationist on the water, freely admitting that he caught most of his trout on his favorite dry fly, the Adams. Tomorrow night the Guild will say goodbye to our friend by tying the Adams in his honor.

Though our meetings were brief, I feel I know something of Ed Van Put through his books. I have his “Trout Fishing in the Catskills” as well as “The Beaverkill”, both incredibly well researched and written accounts of not simply the historic fishing in this region, but the people who lived that history. I have no doubt that his appreciation for people and his love of the natural resources of the Catskills and their rivers played a large part in his success acquiring public access to those rivers.

Many knew of Ed Van Put’s storied accomplishments as an angler. Thinking of his legend on the Delaware I am drawn to one of my favorite authors, Nick Lyons. In “The Emperor’s New Fly” (Fishing Stories, Skyhorse 2014) he writes of an evening fishing that great river with Van Put, Len Wright and their friend Mike. Those latter three went fishless that night, even when the river boiled with rises at dusk, though Nick writes of Van Put constantly taking fish, and caring for his companions… “The circles-rhythmic and gentle- continued to spread in the flat water where the current widened. Ed was at my left shoulder now, willing to forego these fine last moments of the day so he could advise me. A saint.”

I need my calendars. Each winter I design my calendar for the new year and place my order, previously filled almost instantly a short walk away. It seems the drug store photo shop has changed their ideas, now requiring me to wait weeks for the calendars to be printed elsewhere and shipped here. I do not consider that progress.

I was thinking now, with Christmas Eve a week away that I am nearing the point of a countdown to spring. I had to borrow a mid-year calendar from Cathy to check my dates and, sure enough, Day 100 arrives on December 28th.

There lies a milestone. I put some stock into that 100-day threshold, a certainty arrives with it that winter shall have an end, and spring a new beginning. That calendar will of course show spring arriving in March as always, but the true angler’s spring arrives with the beginning of the dry fly season.

I mark that traditionally on the first Monday of the second week in April. That will not be the first day I will knot a Quill Gordon to my tippet and search for the season’s first rise, though it will mark the first day I honestly expect to see one.

The turn of the weather will dictate my ramblings astream, most likely with that first warming trend in March. Yes, the winds will blow, and the warmth will be weak and short-lived, but by the time my count has reached thirty days I will take any opportunity to assail the river, even a false one.

I have a store of fresh memories to guide me through the false signs along the road to spring. First there will come that hint of green on brown riverbanks, then the warmth of the afternoon sun will penetrate the insulated shirts and jackets and truly reach the stiff muscles in my neck and shoulders. Finally, the early stoneflies will fill the air at seemingly opportune moments, and I will stare for hours across the surface trying to convince myself and the trout that there will be a rise!

Dry fly season comes variably each year, so I always cling to the hope that one of these false signs will suddenly blossom into tiny gray wings drifting upon the surface and a spreading ring reflecting the sunlight.

Autumn fishing was something new when I embarked upon retirement, not in general, but here in these Catskill Mountains. Yes, I had come during my travelling years, more around Labor Day, that season the masses have been trained to think of as autumn, but sportsmen know as late summer. Just once I ventured North in October to celebrate the inauguration of my friend Ed Shenk into the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame. I fished of course, wandering the West Branch and casting tiny Hebes on the Delaware, but the fishing I found did not showcase the wonder of springtime. Without other causes during the following years, I failed to return.

That first retired autumn I really did not fish much at all. It had been an unusually wet year in the Catskills, literally drowning most of my summer fishing, and conditions failed to improve from there on. I wandered the mountains west, north and east of our new homestead in Hancock and searched for grouse covers and eventually whitetail deer. There were those days when I made game, but the grouse which flushed tended to do so wildly and far out of range. Some of the covers I found nearly required swimming to explore with so much rainfall in the mountains. My deer hunting proved similarly productive. I savored each moment.

I was flushed with new wonder during my first full year here, and late summer provided a rest from the fine fishing I pursued from April through August. This was a dry year, and by September even the tailwaters were thin everywhere, and downright warm in some reaches. I fished less and waited for October.

When October’s rains came, and the weather cooled, the rivers welcomed the wading angler with open arms. There were breezy, sunlit afternoons along the Beaver Kill, delicately casting a dry ant pattern from a respectable distance while big brown trout sipped along shaded banks. Many of those afternoons followed a morning walk with the shotgun where, true to form the trout brought to hand far outnumbered the birds flushed. At last, I saw just how much marvelous fishing I had missed during the two decades I stayed away after Labor Day.

Learning continues upon bright water, and time in these mountains impresses with the variety of Nature’s moods. There have been years when that storied fishing proved as elusive as those brown mottled birds, and others when I bowed my head in thanks for the bounty laid before me.

Autumn has become synonymous with the Beaver Kill, though she hasn’t smiled upon me each and every season. Each passing day of the year weaves the threads of Nature that determines the personality of autumn’s glow. The Catskills are always beautiful; that seems the sole constant in this mosaic of light and air, earth and water.

The seasons of an angler are always changing. We revel in the special times between the droughts and the floods, the extremes that reach farther into the future than we know. Whatever comes, I remain grateful for each step I take along both rivers and ridgelines.

Well, the rain has come and melted the snows! The East Branch Delaware today is a muddy torrent, flowing more than 8,000 CFS at Fishs Eddy after a peak of 21,500 CFS just after midnight. The Catskill region’s drought is not over despite this thundering mass of water, and though I would have liked to see the high-country snows last and melt gradually into the groundwater, it is good to see flowing water where for so long now there were bare stones.

If winter is kind to us, there will be more snow, and thus still hope for it to linger and replenish the springs and brooklets from which these Catskill rivers issue.

It is cold today, with a blustery wind to make sure that chill penetrates. I am heavily attired even here at my tying bench, and so comfortable enough to let winter blow on through. I keep watch on the calendar as we near the middle of this second month of the angler’s winter, and dream of April and those first hesitant rises to fluttering mayflies.

I can see them now, just near three o’clock as the first singles bob down in the high spring flow. I ease a step closer to that far bank and the line of drift where the parade of flies meets the depth and cover the larger trout prefer. There! I am sure that swirl was something more than the current curling round a rock. Ten minutes seems like an hour as the anticipation builds.

At long last a trout’s nose breaks the surface and a pair of gray wings vanishes. My line is in the air!

A pause, then the lift and the music of the reel takes me away! He’s strong, energized by the same forces of spring that burn within me, and we dance round and round that circle of bright water until the game is won or lost…

Here at the bench the seasonal clutter surrounds me. It is time to pack away the hunting gear, little used this deer season. The upland jacket can stay on the hook for now, as I do hope to visit the grouse woods. That perhaps is the gift of Nature’s premature snow removal, improving conditions enough to get me out there.

The sunshine has lit the landscape beautifully this morning and the village looks cheery! I’d rather have the sun melt the snow, allowing it to seep gently into the groundwater reserves than hang around for this week’s rain to turn the mountains’ white blanket into muddy runoff.

The Guild enjoyed a special live meeting yesterday, and afterwards a pot-luck dinner with the ladies and gentlemen of the Catskill Museum’s Board. The morning session got me into tying some quill bodied Hendricksons. Liking what I saw, I started in with a few more this morning.

With the luxury of working at my home tying bench, I am free to coat the quill bodies with Hard as Hull cement, protecting them and making then glow! Quills so handled are best tied with a production technique I learned in my tying infancy from the great Ed Shenk. One ties in the tailing and the quill body, then coats that body with the chosen lacquer before setting it aside to dry, moving on to start the next fly. Once all are fully cured, the hooks are returned to the vise for wings, thorax dubbing and hackle. This systematic approach works well for patterns that require any curing time for finishes, glues, etc.

I tie the quill bodied dries in both my 100-Year Dun style as well as CDC Duns; both offering a tantalizing meal for difficult wild trout. I feel they excel in calm, clear water and good light conditions.

There are those times when a buggy pattern is more effective than the very natural appearance of the quills. Cloudy, low light days when there’s some tint to the water, or the trout targeted are rising in faster water often call for a more impressionistic fly. Such conditions make it more difficult for the trout to get a good look at your fly. The air bubbles trapped by a roughly dubbed, slightly sparkly body like my Atherton Inspired blends can trigger a good trout under these conditions. Both styles of fly provide a strong image of life, though I feel they work their best when matched to the variable conditions encountered on the river.

There is no doubt that choosing the right fly for the conditions is a key component to taking quality wild trout on our hard-fished catch and release waters. Science has finally acquiesced to something many of us have long believed: our fish are indeed getting harder to catch! Better and more thoughtfully chosen flies, greater skill in presentation, and stealth in wading and approach are the essential ingredients to success in the angler’s game.

With snowfall, winds and cold, we’ll not be perfecting our wading and casting for many months. Flies however can be designed and tied at our leisure during this indoor season.

I spend a good deal of time thinking about my fly designs and materials, looking to improve their performance. There are hundreds of sage anglers who have shared their thoughts through the written word. Many of the older books provide valuable insights to those who take the time to read them. You might be surprised to find that the most important ideas and techniques have been around for a century! Now doesn’t that fly in the face of the modern obsession with technology?

Want to keep your fascination with fly fishing active during the winter? Read an old, classic angling book or two. Study the classic Catskill flies and then take out your fly box and look at your own flies. Are your proportions correct? Colors? Are the bodies and hackles of your flies slim, sparse and well ephemeral? Consider all of the information you’ve gleaned the next time you sit down to tie a fly!

I will soon pass an anniversary date, one counting five years writing this blog. Time rolls by, season after season, and I still look forward to these mainly early morning hours to reflect and share my thoughts and impressions from the shrine of bright water. Retirement is truly a blessing, allowing me not just to achieve my oft uttered goal of fishing one full season upon the Catskill rivers of my heart, but to continue this life for six years running. To all who have visited and followed these meanderings, I thank you.

I should be tying flies today. There are ideas requiring action, and a few display flies to be crafted and photographed, but I am caught in that post-season whirlpool of scattered directions.

Tomorrow evening the Guild will be tying favorite caddis patterns, and at the very least I need to get out the materials I will use to tie a few of mine.

It has been a good expanse of years since I encountered a truly heavy caddis hatch, one of those that cause the trout to become maddeningly selective. The late Gary LaFontaine’s venerable Emergent Sparkle Pupa has proven to be without peer in these conditions! I count myself fortunate to have learned to tie this legendary fly from the man himself, a memory I shall always treasure.

Season in and season out though, I find sparse emergences, a handful of egg layers, or a brief flotilla of spent caddis on the water. One could carry an immense selection of patterns to copy all the sizes, colors and stages of these flies, but I do not. In truth, I designed an all-purpose pattern nigh on twenty years ago that suits my needs season after season. It has taken some prodigious trout!

I guarded this secret for fifteen years, a long span of time during which only four human beings walking trout waters knew the secret. I tied a few idly at Flyfest two years ago, then demonstrated it last winter during one of our Guild’s Zoom meetings. That came back to me with a smile a month or two ago when a young fly tyer pulled me aside at the autumn Roundtable to show me the flies he had tied from my instruction.

The fly I dubbed the CDX has landed my life’s largest wild trout, a true leviathan exceeding ten pounds. That fish took a size 18 tan pattern like the fly pictured above. A pair of Delaware River browns measured at better than two feet, a 25-inch Beaver Kill brown just last May; there are honestly too many to count. This little caddisfly has been the gift that keeps on giving!

I designed the CDX with inspiration from Craig Matthews X-Caddis, some classic Catskill patterns, and a great deal of fishing and observation. Trout slash at caddisflies because they are excited by their movement, the light sparkling from the gas bubbles that power their emergence, and their easily recognizable profile. My thought was to take advantage of all of these factors, to craft an easily tied pattern that would be versatile enough to fish effectively regardless of whether the natural flies were hatching, egg-laying or spent.

In these Catskills, I tie and fish the CDX for Grannoms, Shad Flies (Apple Caddis) both light and dark, Psilotreta (The Dark Blue Sedge), various tan and cinnamon caddis, springtime’s little black caddis and the tiny green caddis of summer. Color is important to me, and I blend specific dubbings to match each of these naturals. The formulas are generally a spiky fur blend such as fox fur with guard hairs from squirrel, a small amount of Antron dubbing and short chopped fibers of a coarser Antron yarn. All are chosen to get the color of the natural, adult caddisfly just right.

The dubbing blends require most of the work, but I simply blend a good supply of each and store them in small plastic zipper bags or dubbing dispenser boxes, each marked for the matching fly. Wings are CDC puff feathers, something that is still readily available in small sizes, but tougher to find in larger ones. Two puffs are the usual choice, tied in so the natural curve of the plumes depart from one another. If your puffs are too wispy for the size of fly you are imitating, add a third feather on top of the two spread wings that is centered along the hook shank. Match the natural fly’s wing color as best you can with the CDC.

Don’t listen to all of those fishing reports that publicize the wrong size flies for matching the caddis hatch! I have read and heard too much about the Shad Fly or Apple Caddis being sizes 14 and 16. Bunk! Look at the bug! The body length is typically commensurate with a standard size 18 dry fly hook. I have seen isolated cases when the match was a 16 or even a 20. Choose your dry fly hook to match the length of the body. The wings are tied longer to match the naturals and extend well past the end of the body, past the hook bend. Flying caddis appear larger because their wings are much longer than their bodies.

CDC gives the magic of movement, for the splayed wings play in the current and flutter with the breeze. I love barred hackles to complete the image of motion, choosing colors which complement the color of the fly’s wings and body. At first glance, one might assume my pattern has a trailing shuck, but I offer a fine distinction here. You will see trailing shucks on many dry flies and emergers, usually fairly heavy hanks of Z-Lon, Antron or another “sparkle” yarn. I did not design the CDX to have a trailing shuck. I wanted a few trailing air bubbles and a hint of sparkling light and motion. I think of this as a “bubble tail”, tied in short with just a few ragged fibers of crinkly Z-Lon or Antron yarn pulled over the edge of my scissor blade to add some crinkle. I don’t want a thing back there, just bubbles, light and motion!

You can start with a packaged dubbing if you don’t have the color from direct observation of the insects to blend your own. Blue Ribbon Flies’ Z-Lon Dubbing is available in a Hydropsyche Tan color that is excellent for a variety of our tan caddis. Their Brachycentrus is a nice match for the Grannoms. I have never encountered the perfect package of dubbing to match the Shad Flies. A few shops market apple green dubbing in soft beaver or rabbit fur. Start with that and add some short, light squirrel guard hairs, pale tan Antron dubbing and some chopped tan Antron yarn to make it “buggy”, with a little bit of sparkle.

I have many fond memories of days upon Catskill rivers with a Shad Fly CDX in size 18 tied to a 5X tippet on my bamboo rod. Try it out for yourself my friends!

December, and it is twenty-four degrees here in Crooked Eddy. The first month of the Catskill angler’s winter lies behind, thus only four months remain. The early cold and snow makes it seem like mid-winter, as our highs will stay close to freezing all week.

My friend Mike just sent me a few photos from his Lake Erie cottage, his message entitled “No Steelhead Fishing This Week”. I don’t know if he is up there this morning, but if he is he will be staying a while.

In years past I learned something of that region’s lake effect snowstorms, largely that the greatest accumulations tend to pass over the lakeshore, settling a few miles inland. Of course, the highways and villages lie a few miles inland.

We often get tailing squalls from lake effect snows in these Western Catskills. You can be reading quietly on a moderately sunny day and look up from your book to see a furious swirl of wind driven snow. Two paragraphs later the sun has returned. I am pleased not to dwell in the land of those squalls, (they last for days there!) though I would enjoy a winter walk along any of the steelhead tributaries I have known.

I took a few dry fly hooks to task the other day, spinning out half a dozen of my 100-Year Dun versions of the Catskill Adams. I tinkered first though, blending a touch of hare’s ear gray Antron and Red Fox underfur to the clippings of my Fox Squirrel pelt. Both serve as binders for the wonderful, short guard hairs of the squirrel with a hint of sparkle to catch the eye. I must find just the right fly box for them so I can find them four months hence.

Winter fly tying has always been about exploring ideas for me. A day on the river may inspire a new pattern, with a handful of them tied next morning before dawn, but winter allows more time for thought, refinement and expansion of the idea. The best of these flies may never be modified, though borne of inspiration they are thoroughly, considered, once the all-consuming passion of the season has been subdued by winter’s forced time away from bright waters.

Just now a thought has crossed my mind, a concept for the perfection of a Translucence isonychia. There is a tiny bag of silk dubbing blended to the classic claret shade tucked into my cabinet, one that never quite clicked. It needs lightening, a blend of tannish, even olive hues to mimic Nature’s lively beauty.

Ah, I have something to work on today…

At this season it is more subdued, fighting through cloud cover to greet the day. It is neither orange nor golden, but some stirred mix of those hues, starkly contrasted by the snow.

Summer, and I am wading with all of the stealth I can muster as morning light spreads from the crests of the surrounding mountains. The surface of the river here is a great mirror. If I do not keep my concentration upon my goal, I will be swept away by the stillness and the beauty.

I carry a lithe cane rod at my side, and it is hoped to be my foil against the strength and wildness of the trout which slowly cruise this pool at daybreak.

At a whim of remembrance long before daylight, I had tied a handful of these bright olive duns, envisioning their gray CDC wings alive on these very currents. I can see the cruisers begin their dance, one here, one there, and the excitement urges me to move faster, but I know that would be my undoing. My knees quiver as I forcibly slow my pace.

At last, I find a swirl just forty feet away, pull line from the reel and wait. The fish wander aimlessly it seems, and the cast must come at the gentle sipping rise obscured by those swirls. There can be only one cast per rise, and it must fall within seconds of the swirl.

Another swirl and my line is in the air, the smooth arch of the bamboo taking the fly to a spot just upstream with hope in my pounding heart that he has not turned…

He rockets away as I raise the rod, and it is all I can do to guide the loose line toward the stripper until the music of the reel breaks the quiet spell of dawn!

I am thrice blessed this morning, for patience and stealth have guided me. I have controlled the urge to send that fateful second cast when the first has not been taken. So simple a reaction has ended the game before!

In my eyes this morning light reflects upon the surface of that still pool, and I feel the goosebumps rising on my skin, the warm caress of the mountain air amid the chill of the rising mist. Alas, the reflecting light dances on the snow this morning and summer lies far away…

Snow is falling, and my thoughts still revolve around angling. Memories come flooding back as I picture the season just past and more than one hundred days upon bright water which I am thankful for.

My angling year began with Flyfest, as tyers gathered once more in Roscoe to celebrate the winter season. We had a fine turnout, a rush on a wonderful store of Charlie Collins’ dry fly hackle, and a great day which ended far too soon. Two days later I was wading the river and swinging a fly on a 58 degree afternoon. I witnessed a few of winter’s early stoneflies hatching and fluttering, and even a couple of honest rises to them. With my seven-weight rod and intermediate line there was little I could do about that.

By mid-March there were signs of an early spring, including the first sighting of a few suspected Quill Gordons. Alas, it was not to be, though I wandered the Beaver Kill once my countdown came round to zero. Fits and starts, typical once spring comes to flirt with the Catskills, shadowed me until the third week of April. I launched the drift boat in the high cold waters and rowed, finding a lone reach of riverbank where the Hendricksons held court, and four fine brown trout paid me a visit.

As April waned warm air and low water became the rule. Within a week’s time I thrilled to epic battles with a pair of 25″ browns: the first a bright morning’s surprise and the second a hard-won triumph with a classic old Leonard rod that shared my age. Both encounters were electric moments for which I am ever grateful, particularly in the midst of a difficult spring!

And then there was summer…

I am thankful for the misty mornings stalking low water, the black bear that added a new type of excitement to my summertime dawn patrols, and all of those epic trout which took me from elation to frustration and back!

I am thankful for the joy of the gatherings with my friends of the Catskill Guild, sharing thoughts and patterns through my column in the Guild’s Gazette and through this blog.

There are fond memories of a couple specific flights of inspiration at the vise this year, new patterns I still hold close, and the wondrous trout they seduced! There will be some new things to share through the winter months.

Lastly, I am thankful to still breathe the fresh mountain air, gaze at the light upon the water throughout the seasons, and to spend my retirement with my best girl, here on the doorstep to the rivers of my heart.