Two days until Thanksgiving and I awakened at last to the blissful sound of rainfall on my roof; and gave thanks. It seems that last week’s snowstorm did a lot more good than it appeared here in Crooked Eddy. The Hancock Herald reports that copious amounts of wet snow fell on higher elevations all around our little village. Seeing no more than a couple of inches here, and no radical change in the river gages, had convinced me the drought remained in full force.

With this morning’s rain, the rivers have risen at last, though not excessively. Learning of the heavy snow received higher up in the watersheds makes it clear that most of the rain and snowmelt experienced in the past week was absorbed into the ground where it is so desperately needed. With the load of doubt lightened, I turned at last to my tying bench.

The first dry fly trout of 2025 will likely rise to a fluttering member of species Epeorus pleauralis, the mayfly fly fishers commonly call the Quill Gordon. Theodore Gordon’s legendary fly pattern is thus forever associated with the beginning of spring. I tied a pair of these to begin my day, paying homage to Mr. Gordon with flies tied in my own style inspired by his legacy of fly tying and writing: the 100-Year Dun.

The Catskill style tie will be next upon my agenda, though in truth there are plenty of both styles tucked safely in the compartments of my Wheatley fly box. I tie these each year to welcome the coming spring, just as I tie the Hendricksons and Red Quills. Would that I could live so long as to fish all of the Hendricksons spawned from my vise!

There should be a bit more snow for Thanksgiving, and I wonder about a daybreak trip to the mountains. Deer season continues, and I can use the exercise. The passing of my dry fly season makes it too easy to sleep later or recline with a good book.

Year-end chores await. Time to design a new calendar for 2025, and there are new Christmas cards to be addressed and mailed. It will be a while before the urge arises to take a well fished cane rod from it’s tube for an off-season polishing. Such things are best attended to when the cold winds howl and the snow piles up outside, for that is when my soul most needs their reminder of the magic!

With my dry fly season ended, and the mixed messages on the weather front, I have gotten an early start on my winter reading. The early October passing of writer John Gierach has been on my mind, as I am sure it has for any of his readers of a certain age, so I have been re-reading his volumes these past few weeks. Though I didn’t start in a strictly chronological progression, I have been working toward the present in a haphazard fashion. I found a story this morning that was very enlightening, in an eerie sort of way.

In his next to last book, 2017’s “A Fly Rod Of Your Own”, Gierach wrote of the major flood that devastated Lyons, Colorado and his home St. Vrain Creek. Perhaps due to my own mindset, the story triggered a realization, one I never experienced upon my first reading of the book in 2017.

Just over a decade ago I had become highly enthused about the late Goodwin Granger and his legacy of Colorado made bamboo fly rods. The rod in the photo is my first “real” Granger, one of their ubiquitous 8642 Victory models from the later Wright & McGill era. I was fishing that very rod more than any during that time and devouring any information I could find about Granger fly rods.

I had learned many years before that of Colorado rodmaker Mike Clark, largely through John Gierach’s books and magazine columns, and I became familiar with Mike’s South Creek Ltd. brand and website. There I viewed photos of previous gatherings that Clark hosted along the St. Vrain, largely thought of as Granger gatherings, which he called the Colorado Cane Conclave. I began to work out early plans to attend his Conclave in the summer of 2014. It was when I finally contacted Mike Clark directly that I learned of the devastating flood the previous September. There would be no 2014 Conclave he told me, but there was hope for one to be held in 2015.

During that next year I acquired two more Granger rods, one each of the shorter 7633 and 8040 models with my Conclave trip in mind. These seven-and-a-half and eight-foot three-piece rods would hopefully be carry-on compatible for my flight to Colorado, as well as being perfect for fishing the Rocky Mountain streams. I found an LL. Bean combination fly vest and day pack and added it to my selection of gear, along with a special Wheatley fly box I dutifully filled, tying the dry flies I would need for August in Colorado Each piece heightened my excitement, and I had no doubt that this would be the trip of a lifetime!

The dream vanished in March of 2015.

I remember fishing my 8642 Granger Victory on Pennsylvania’s Big Spring late in February of 2015. There is a photo somewhere, taken by my freind Andy of me holding a twenty-inch rainbow I had landed on a size 20 BWO. I remember that I didn’t feel particularly good that day, hadn’t in fact for a week or more. There was this little bubbly, burning sensation next to my Adam’s Apple that I did not yet know was called angina.

In late March I underwent successful quadruple bypass surgery and began the long road to recovery and the adoption of a significant change in lifestyle. Prior to the end of February, I never had a clue.

My realization this morning was startling – the aftermath of that tragic St. Vrain flood very likely saved my life months before I had any idea there was a deadly problem lurking in my chest. Had I attended the Conclave in 2014, I would have been climbing through the high country with nothing save one of my Granger fly rods for company. Chances are the altitude and exertion of my dream trip would have triggered what would have been reported as an unexpected cardiac event, at least assuming some other angler stumbled across my body.

It is rapidly approaching a decade since my own mortality slapped me in the face, and I have fully enjoyed being alive and spending the past half-dozen years here, immersed in the bright waters of these Catskill rivers; the rivers of my heart. I never have managed to get out to Colorado and Mike Clark’s Conclave, though I have purchased a couple of lovely used bamboo rods from him.

It’s strange to suddenly realize that someone else’s tragic event more than 1,500 miles away may just have been one of the most pivotal points in your own life, even though you weren’t anywhere near that place or even aware of that tragedy at the time. It may take some time for me to put that into perspective. I am really glad to have that time…

It’s still falling gently this morning, and I say a little prayer for the rivers with every flake…

Like all of the precipitation events predicted during these past months, this one has underperformed. The snow was to be preluded by more than an inch of rain on Wednesday night and Thursday, though we saw just a little, barely enough to move the river gages here in the Catskills. The snow could be significant in the high country, though my brief excursion on the porch this morning showed perhaps two inches here. As the Guild tied and laughed last night, a friend much higher up above the West Branch reported a couple of inches down in her yard while light rain still tapped upon my metal roof here in Crooked Eddy. JA might send a report from his cabin along the Beaver Kill tributary this evening, if he makes the snowy drive north later today.

I hope my friends find no difficulties with the weather or the snow-covered roads, but I do hope the mountains throughout the Catskill watersheds receive the foot of snow the forecasters foretold. I hope fervently too that there is a lot more moisture to follow beyond this first taste of winter!

To inaugurate our new tradition of Thursday evening Zoom gatherings, the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild honored our friend Mike Valla, tying his Wemoc Adams Catskill dry fly as homage to his induction into the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame earlier this autumn. The pattern demonstrates Mike’s appreciation for the Catskill fly tying history by choosing fox fur for the grayish body, and for the late John Atherton’s influence with a gold wire rib and Cree hackle. I offered my own appreciation for Mr. Valla’s creation, taking his inspiration to fashion my own version as a 100-Year Dun, substituting rolled Teal flank for the wing.

We enjoyed a fine turnout last evening, with more than sixty members tuning in, most tying along after JA demonstrated Mr. Valla’s pattern. I for one like his choice of Red Fox fur for the dubbing, as that allows a hint of the animal’s subtle tones of red and tan to be blended with the predominating gray underfur. Nature is not after all the abode of monotones.

We agreed to reconvene on December 5th, bowing to the Thanksgiving Holiday. Per Pennsylvania member John Capowski’s fine suggestion, we will take a contributory format to show and discuss member’s favorite caddis patterns. These sessions can be expected to continue through March, when we hope the rumblings of spring will draw us forth from our tying desks to welcome a new season!

The first snowstorm of winter is squaring up the Catskill Mountains for it’s Eastern swing and my thoughts have turned to a couple of decades of late May memories. That of course marks the season of the Green Drake, mythical behemoth of Eastern Mayflies, when anglers’ excitement rises with the trout they seek.

While I dabbled with the hatch a time or two early in my journey, it has been two dozen years since the obsession took firm hold. Spending Memorial Day in the Catskills quickly proved insufficient, and I learned soon enough that a week wasn’t enough either. Eventually I settled upon a fortnight centered on the transition from May to June, still wanting to spend every day of the season here, upon the rivers of my heart.

I was fortunate to have some very good years.

That first dozen years passed in a blur! Hatches were heavy except in the flood year, and I counted hours wrapped in the perfection of the hunt. Sitting on sunlit patches of riverbank, I whiled away the afternoons, rising and stalking the site of each erupting geyser which marked a big trout’s lie. The wild browns gave no quarter and demanded patience and dedication.

Patterns flowed from my vise during those years: CDC comparaduns, emergers, and the 100-Year Drake which proved the best medicine even when the others failed. I tweaked colors, blended wings with flowing CDC puffs and experimented with hackles. During the peak of the madness I dared wish it might go on forever.

There are days that stick in the memory, some like the bone chilling, blustery 45-degree day one May when insanity made me stay on the river despite reason. The flies did come, and the big browns after them, and I caught them when the frigid gusts allowed a good cast and a drag-free drift.

As the years passed, the hatches seemed less reliable, though in hindsight there was always a bit of mystery surrounding them. I recall sitting on a riverbank after a warm, blank afternoon, sipping a beer while I waited for nightfall. No drakes appeared, but a pair of dusk sippers after the sparse little sulfur duns proved to be twin twenty-inchers!

By retirement, when I was blessed at last to spend the entire season on the rivers, the daytime hatches had become as much wish as reality. One year they came on unbelievably, a full month later than twenty years of experience had demonstrated. It seems that may have been a last goodbye.

I have seen a few these past three seasons, though not always enough to entertain a trout to rise. When conditions are perfect, I sometimes find a few opportunities before darkness overtakes the river. That old Payne copy still casts the big dries with authority and throbs with the power of a trophy brown when the Red Gods allow.

I still cling to the memories of all those glorious afternoons and evenings as May wanes and turns to June. I hope the Drakes are still there, down in the silt among the gravel of the rivers of my heart. I hope the great hatches of our greatest mayfly will rebound, that I may feel that old excitement again. I still tie a few new patterns each season…

As I expect 99 % of the fly fishing world knows by now, Colorado author John Gierach passed away on October 3rd. He was one of our most prolific and popular fly fishing authors over the past thirty-odd years. He told great stories while telling the truth.

Like many of us, I was surprised when I saw the news posted on the Classic Flyrod Forum in early October. I paid my respects in my own private way, taking out my copy of his book “Fishing Bamboo” the following Sunday morning before daybreak, and reading it once more cover to cover. I followed up by sending an email message to his longtime friend, rodmaker Mike Clark, to express my personal condolences on the loss of his dear friend. I have purchased a couple of consignment rods from Mike over the years and ordered several signed copies of John’s new releases from the rod shop. I feel for Mike and Kathy Jensen, good people, working their way through a very difficult time.

My copy of “Fishing Bamboo” is my third. My first paperback was a gift from my friend, rodmaker Wyatt Dietrich. Eventually I donated that to the Catskill Museum upon acquiring a hardback copy, finally coming full circle with another donation to the Museum by way of purchasing a signed, slip cased limited edition via auction at the Catskill Rodmakers Gathering. I believe that is the only book I have owned in triplicate, some testament to how much I have enjoyed it.

I have most of John Gierach’s books and have re-read a few of them in recent weeks. I always felt I would have liked to meet him, talk a little fishing and a bit about bamboo, but we never crossed paths. I did make the acquaintance of a few of his friends along the way. I spent half a day with A.K. Best more than thirty years ago, enjoying a class he gave at the first Fly Tyers Symposium held in Somerset, Pennsylvania, and Ed Engle gave a talk at one of the Fly Fishing Shows in New Jersey years back. I shook his hand and spoke briefly after his presentation.

I had plans to meet Mike Clark in 2015 when I committed to make a trip to Lyons, Colorado that summer for the Granger rod gathering he hosts on the St. Vrain Creek. (The first rod I bought from Mike was a seven-foot Granger). I feel sure Gierach would have been there, perhaps all of those gentlemen in the photo above, but that was the year I unexpectedly placed a bid to meet my maker. Open heart surgery and recovery therefrom made solo fishing in the Rocky Mountains impossible, and the stars have never quite aligned since then.

So, I have begun my winter reading somewhat early this year, revisiting Gierach’s tales as I work through my annual withdrawal from the rivers of my heart. I recall there’s at least one story of a fishing trip East to fish Pennsylvania waters, though I have not come across it in a few years. I’ll find it if I keep working my way through his titles.

John was a decade older than I, and I am pleased that he had a good, long run doing what he loved best; fly fishing for trout and writing about it. It is clear that he understood the magic of the time we are gifted along bright water, just as I do, and he shared that well. Farewell John, I expect you will enjoy fishing all of those cold, windy, rainy Blue-winged olive days even more now, without your spirit ever feeling the chill.

Pre-dawn, three days before deer season, and it is 24 degrees here in Crooked Eddy. Cathy and I took a river walk yesterday afternoon, gazing at rock formations we’ve never seen before, rock formations that are supposed to be covered by water. There is no stream gage here, at the bottom of the East Branch Delaware River, but the gage at Fishs Eddy shows a flow of 184 cfs this morning. To put that in perspective, the low recorded flow for this date was 197 cfs in 1974, and the median is 807 cfs. We have very little water in the Catskill rivers.

My Sweetgrass rod came home from Montana yesterday, fully repaired with a new tip section. Of course, I wanted desperately to take it out on the river and fish it a little, but that was as far from being realized as possible. The reaches of water I frequent at this time of year, given a warmish afternoon and a gentle wind, are in desperate shape. Walking out to mid-river I’d be lucky to get the toes of my boots wet. The trout are up against it as winter keeps knocking, and I am not about to trot out there and make their situation any worse.

Sad to say, that Sweetgrass pent will have to sit in the rod rack, swaddled in its bag and tube for six months or so, and it’s stretch of idle time could be longer than that. The Sweetgrass is a summer rod, an eight-foot four weight conceived by me and designed and built by Jerry Kustich and Glenn Brackett to dance through my favorite season on these Catskill rivers.

You all remember 2020 right, Coronavirus lockdowns, events of all descriptions cancelled, an aura of doom worldwide? My Sweetgrass pent was borne as an act of defiance to all of that. Jerry and I passed some emails back and forth that summer, and he designed a taper for an eight-foot four weight pentagonal rod I envisioned to combine distance, delicacy and fish fighting power. That was a truly monumental ask, but hey, it was easy to think of such a reach for the stars to avoid contemplating the end of the world.

Jerry came through, and Glenn took that exceptional rod blank and finished it into a truly gorgeous bamboo fly rod. In the very first hour that I waded a Catskill river with that rod in hand, I stalked, hooked and landed three wild brown trout from nineteen to twenty-two inches. That kind of mojo is special, and it makes me smile when I think about that, and how it has continued.

Right now, summer is a long way off. Walking along the river yesterday with the cold wind blowing in our faces, all thoughts were of winter, and we are technically still two days short of mid-November. By the calendar, that is only about two thirds of the way through autumn.

It seems unlikely that there will be much opportunity for winter fishing. There won’t be any release flows from the Delaware tailwaters, unless you count the high, muddy water running down the West Branch to meet the Montague, NJ flow target while this drought persists. Tailwater releases are cold, but not as cold as the general river water in December, January and February. The couple of extra degrees of water temperature can make it worthwhile to swing a fly for a few hours on one of those rare sunny and warmer mid-winter days.

I have already hung up my waders. I like to give the trout a break when they have their spawning season, and they have extra challenges this year due to the drought. The thin flows create more difficulties for them, leaving them unable to ascend the spawning tributaries, much more vulnerable to predators, and just plain nervous, however a trout processes that. The whole scenario creates an extra challenge for me too, for a couple of warmer, sunny days flanking a moderate overnight low might just push the water temperature up enough to make me fantasize about rising trout again. That is a difficult thing to resist when you are staring at six months of winter.

Just a moment ago I tore myself away from the rivers, and suddenly it is mid-November. I have gone through my usual funk during these past two weeks and have arrived at a point of acceptance. That may sound like emotional progress, but with that acceptance comes the realization of loss.

I have developed a bit of a ritual during the sweetness of autumn since retirement, and though it varies in regard to specific places and flies and execution from year to year, that sweetness has ruled. Autumn 2024 marks the second consecutive autumn when, though I have wandered, waited and searched for it, I failed to find that touch of magic.

There are moments when I feel like Nature is evening the scores, as I have enjoyed some absolutely blissful moments during my autumns as a retiree. Fresh, classic days and experiences, punctuated by big, beautiful wild fish tend to stand as monuments in memory, particularly when they are framed in the light of the final weeks of an angler’s season. When a season or two passes without such days, the loss is deeply felt.

I worry too about our rivers. Floods, droughts, man’s manipulations intentional and otherwise, all of these can do damage. Too many damaging events in a cycle can do a lot to change our river ecosystems, and not for the better. I am a worrier from a long line of worriers, and I try to remind myself of that from time to time, just to maintain a perspective. Nature does heal herself.

Fishing seasons are most certainly variable, and that variability is one of the things that make angling special, beautiful and challenging. We may learn a great deal over a lifetime, though we will never know everything. For every pool we explore expecting the bounty we fail to find, there is undoubtedly another out there where that bounty exists unseen. Perhaps we should have wandered around that very next bend.

The late Charlie Fox wrote of an angler condemned to purgatory, finding himself on a lovely, favorite reach of stream on a perfect spring day. A trout rose to a hatching mayfly, the angler made a perfect cast and caught a fine sixteen-inch brown trout. As he walked along the stream, he began to notice neither the scene nor the events ever varied. He was doomed to fish that same pool on the same hour and day and catch that same trout, forever. Mr. Fox knew well the true magic of angling.

It was chilly in the rod shop yesterday morning, but the heat of the flame warmed the bamboo in my hands, as the work lit it’s own flame in my heart. I began the most interesting and inspiring of my winter tasks with a little practice on a shortened piece of cane by flaming the culm, or more accurately the internodal piece of the culm, of Lo o bamboo.

Flaming is the method rodmakers use to turn the bamboo from it’s natural blonde color to various shades of brown. The method also heat treats the material, ridding it of excess moisture and increasing the strength and resiliency. I learned quickly that it takes the perfect touch, like everything about the craft of bamboo rod making.

Once flamed, I split the culm into six wide strips with a star splitter, then began hand splitting those strips into the 1/4-inch-wide strips that will be roughed into equilateral triangles and finally planed into the fine taper required to form a six-strip hexagon.

Before JA set up the beveler, he showed me how to square up the 1/4″ strips of bamboo with the plane and then we delved into the tricky part: straightening. The 28″ strips of Lo o proved to be nearly straight enough on their own after splitting, and I appreciated that, for straightening is one of those tasks that requires a certain feel. It involves moving the crooked section of the strip over the flame of an alcohol lamp, then gently applying hand pressure to the bend. JA said ” you can feel it move”, and I did, though my result was more crooked in the opposite direction. I’ll need to work on developing this skill carefully.

It took some time to get the beveler cutting correctly, though once it was finally adjusted, the strips came through as perfect triangles. The last act of the day was to run them through the binder before storing them until next time. I will split the four remaining strips into 1/4″ widths at home.

The 28″ strips, once I have at least 18 of them straightened and beveled, should allow me to make a 3-piece, single tip rod between 6 1/2 and 7 feet long. That will become a future project. After Thanksgiving, I will begin flaming and splitting the 40-inch internode that will form the 7′ 9″ 5 weight rod that will be known as the Angler’s Rest Special.

I am building my rod to a taper designed by my friend, Pennsylvania rodmaker Tom Whittle. One of Tom’s passions is the design and crafting of shorter fly rods that can do bigger work, that is, rods that perform like longer rods. It was Tom whom I called upon to make the Shenk Tribute Rod, a special seven-footer in homage to my late friend and mentor, fly fishing legend Ed Shenk. The Lo o bamboo will make the rod somewhat lighter, though Tom’s taper will ensure the performance will handle all the rivers of my heart; at least if I prove to be equal to the task.

This hands-on introduction to rod making makes me yearn for youth, and more time to learn and perfect the craft. I know it will be an achievement to build one serviceable bamboo flyrod. Perhaps I will be blessed to have the chance to make that second one, the seven-footer, but I know that one or two rods will have to suffice for my lifetime production. That will be just fine, for I know that I am best suited to spend the time I am allotted upon bright water, if not wielding my own rod, then enjoying the artistry of a true master of the craft!

It is the first Sunday in November, and twenty-six degrees here in Crooked Eddy. We have a hard frost this morning, just days away from seventy-degree sunshine, and it truly feels like the angler’s winter.

I was thinking just now, working my mind into this new groove of the off season. I can no longer busy myself with my daily quest for the magic, putting off the inevitability of the change of seasons which is so stark and final to those of us who derive our strength from bright water. The drought still persists, and the shutdown of three of the four Delaware reservoirs has silenced their tailwaters. It is very clear to even the casual observer that our trout fishing has dwindled.

Throughout this long winter there will be a wavering faith to deal with along with the typical emotions of withdrawal. Will Nature refill the reservoirs, and will she offer enough sustenance to the trickling rivers before the long freeze comes along. What of the fates of the mayflies and the spawn?

It always takes me some time to adjust, cushioned somewhat by the fact that outside it is still autumn. Once my soul has settled into this forced change, I will sit at this bench and tie the first Quill Gordon to be set aside for spring, a simple act of hope.

November first, and the winds have been howling today! It’s not cold, in the seventy-degree range and sunny, but with winds that could knock you down if you aren’t prepared for them. I think of these as winter winds, for in my Catskill Mountain world there are but two seasons: dry fly season and winter.

I conceded to the end of dry fly season yesterday when an eight-inch brownie grabbed my dry fly as I stripped it in for another cast. The sun was brilliant with record temperatures flirting with eighty degrees, and that drove the water temperatures up close to fifty with the thinning flows. Nothing rose, though I did see a couple of long distance splashes indicative of something sizeable chasing minnows.

Even without those winds, this first Friday of November was earmarked for chores. The wear and tear on my old porch needed some paint and wood filler, and the warm conditions are perfect for that. In between I took the cans and bottles to recycling and removed the tackle bag from the SUV. The reel with the floating fly was put up too, replaced with the holy one spun with the clear intermediate line I use for occasional winter fishing. Holy isn’t ecclesiastical in nature by the way, it’s just how I think of that machined fly reel that seems to have more holes than aluminum, the better to shake off water and dry the line before it can freeze.

I am clear to get back to the mountains now and try to find a grouse or two in the dry forest. That can be tough, but I hope a few places along some small streams will prove productive.

In a couple of weeks it will be deer season, another forest pursuit that will help take my mind away from fishing while I give the rivers and the spawning trout the rest they so richly deserve. A number of deer hunters would be clearing out their freezers about this time of year too, but I have no illusions about my luck. Any venison that finds it’s way in there comes as a gift from friends. I do still enjoy walking in the mountains and looking for a buck though.

Once the spawn is over and we hopefully get some rain to bring river flows back to normal, I usually take a day here and there when some warmer southern winds push the thermometer upwards from the winter norm. Walk a riverbank and swing a fly through likely feeding areas, easy fishing, without expectations.

There is a winter project that I am looking forward to: the chance to turn a piece of Lo o bamboo into a 7’9″ five weight fly rod. I plan to start by flaming that internode section of a culm, something I will undoubtedly look to my friend Dennis Menscer to supervise. I like the warm brown color of flamed bamboo, and flaming will also accomplish the heat treating necessary. After that, the real work begins.

I am leaning toward one of my friend Tom Whittle’s tapers. He makes a sweet, powerful 7’9″ 3-piece five weight rod that I got a chance to cast at the Catskill Gathering in 2022. I like the idea of making a rod from a taper I have cast or fished with before. The Vietnamese bamboo will make my rod a little lighter, and it will be nodeless! Bamboo nodes add a lot of work to making a fly rod, as they must be pressed, sanded, filed and straightened, as well as staggered when the strips are laid out for the blank. If everything goes well, I will have a new rod to fish when spring awakens the trout and the mayflies: the first and only Angler’s Rest Special.

Have Quill Gordon, will travel.