Taking the day today, so I am not on the river, though my heart and mind is always there. I was just outside though, casting my DreamCatcher AK-47 model, spurred by thoughts of it’s namesake.

Years ago, when I first met Wyatt Dietrich along the Falling Spring to cast a few of his beautiful bamboo fly rods, he brought along one unfinished model. Guides were taped on, as Wyatt was still working out their optimum spacing, and the blank had just a base coat of varnish. He told me this was a new taper, a 7′-10″ two-piece rod for a five or six fly line, and he had a plan for this first one.

Upon completion, he followed through with that plan, shipping the rod to one Mr. A.K. Best in Colorado as a gift. He asked only that Best fish the rod and let the maker know what he thought of it. I had met A.K. Best, for he was a famous tyer of trout flies, at the first Fly Tyers Symposium. I had taken a class with Archie and found him as fine a fellow as he was a fly tyer. I told Wyatt I thought he would be favorably impressed with the rod, and he was.

This all came to mind as I was thinking about A.K. Best and his famous fishing buddy, writer John Gierach, who sadly passed away last week. If an angler did not know of Archie Best from his own books, he certainly got to know him well through Gierach’s work. I was saddened when I read the news about John’s passing, for I like many thousands of fly fishers have enjoyed his fishing tales over the past thirty years.

My own simple, private showing of loss and respect came early Sunday morning, when I sat down in the quiet of predawn and read through his classic “Fishing Bamboo” one more time.

I believe I will fish that A.K. 47 rod tomorrow, hoping to find a good trout on the fin, and I wanted to feel the bend of it with a Wulff Bamboo Special fly line. It was a perfect match. A simple ritual to send my condolences? Yes, on an angler’s wind.

I did spend some time here at my tying bench this afternoon, though not a single fly was produced. Initially I had to pluck a new supply of Wood duck flank feathers, filling the small plastic bag that nestles in my travel kit. Our Fly Tyers Guild Roundtable is coming up on Saturday, and I have to be sure I have the hooks and materials along for the patterns I decide to tie.

I picked up three packages of big-eyed dry fly hooks too, a place I have taken refuge while battling difficulties with my depth perception on the rivers this season. A size 20 olive dun spends a lot of time tied to my tippet during these last weeks of the dry fly season, and I had used up a number of those hooks putting in a store of patterns.

It seems we will have some wind tomorrow, enough to add some additional tricks to fishing such small dry flies, and to push the cool wind through lighter clothing. The first chills of the autumn season are felt more intensely after a long summer.

I have been spending considerable time considering rod tapers, flaming the culm versus oven tempering the strips, and various ideas for my winter rod project. I may have solved the taper question by looking to one of my friend Tom Whittle’s designs, published in the wonderful book “Split and Glued by Vincent C. Marinaro” that he and Bill Harms authored some years ago. Tom made my Shenk Tribute Rod back in 2021 and his taper designs are great performers.

Well, the afternoon has slipped away, and evening is upon us. I am still not used to these 6:30 sunsets, shadows on the river at two o’clock and all these signs of the deepening year…

It looks as if the warm, pleasant autumn afternoons enjoyed this week are passing, and next week will be seasonable, with daily highs from the fifties to about sixty degrees. Even as the sun kissed the water yesterday, it was clear that the few mayflies that had carried the gift of the dry fly were waning. Though the afternoon was gorgeous, I found no feeding trout.

It is early to be mourning another season’s passing, for I am used to fishing dry late into October. Nature never allows us to get too comfortable in predicting her patterns. Last year my late holiday spent hunting big fish was quiet, and this year seems it could be much the same.

There is little rain coming with that colder weather, and thus no hope for the sustenance so desperately craved by our freestone rivers and streams. The big tailwaters still flow cold with elevated releases from New York City’s dams, but their stated drawdown target has been reached, exceeded in most cases. Those flows could disappear tomorrow.

I hunted along the river all but one day this week, allowing time for the ruffed grouse opener afield. This drought year left little for me to find. A single flush was heard, though unseen through thick cover and distance, and I found the thornapples barren of their autumn fruit. All of Nature in these Catskills could use two days of gentle, soaking rain!

I cling to the joy encountered on September’s last day, the thrill of tangling with that broad shouldered brownie who dared sample my little Cahill. I may have to hold that moment in my heart now, until April.

There was no question where I was headed as I closed out September. I had found a good fish after all, and decided it was about time to go catch him.

Of course, trout, mayflies and Mother Nature don’t simply line up to bring these things about on our command. I have not been finding multitudes of either, feeling blessed to encounter a riser or two to engage for a few hours of one golden September afternoon. I had found this fish because I had been in the right place at the right time, the result of a somewhat systematic elimination of water and finned candidates.

When a river’s pickings are slim, it’s trout will take advantage of the best moments. The angler’s task is to determine when and where these moments might occur. If we are lucky, we get it right once in a while. If we are observant and persistent, we build experience and let that better our odds.

According to my recent observations, the most likely opportunities for a trout to get a snack have come in the form of a few brief flurries of cream-colored mayflies during the length of the afternoons. The timing and the intensity have varied, and there has not been enough of this activity to call it a hatch by any means, but a good surface feeding brown trout has to make do with what he has. This same immutable law applies equally to the angler.

I found this fish enjoying a very brief snack period, one of those that tantalizes the angler and then vanishes as quickly as it appears. I planned my return accordingly.

My little assortment of flies includes my 100-Year Duns and CDC duns and cripples, and they range in size from a standard 16 through 12. There are A.I. Light Cahills, Translucence Light Cahills, and those tied with my standard blend of red fox fur with a touch of Antron. After all, when your fishing comes down to hunting one good trout, it pays to be prepared to show them subtleties of imitation.

The little flurries of mayflies I was counting on have included two or three different sizes, and assumably species, of flies, so I felt somewhat confident that I could offer my quarry an appropriate morsel should he deign to appear again.

My wait was tempered by a rise upriver from my target’s table, and I went to work on him immediately. Sliding around another of those devilish little creases in the current, he finally came when his position and my guessed at drift line intertwined; and he refused me! This too looked to be a very respectable fish, and I tried valiantly to bring him up to a different fly until Nature’s little snack period ended rather abruptly.

I am not sure how long I waited for another to begin, for I was alone on the river and most happy with the warmth of the afternoon.

Eventually, I spotted the first soldier in a second flurry of Cahills. I’ll call them that, since that is what I call the dry flies I tie to match them, though I imply no actual knowledge of their species. I mean, since DNA testing entered the arena of aquatic insect classification, it seems nearly useless to even try to identify the bug on the water, and of course there are thousands of unidentified minor species and subspecies that will never be written about in a fly-fishing text. My trout seemed to recognize the bug well enough, and I fell hopelessly into the game as soon as he began to rise.

He was moving a bit, though generally holding a lie in the confident way that lets us know this is his pool. I had offered one of the long shank sixteens, tied with my Catskill Light Cahill blend, and continued with that pattern. The game offered seeming to be more a matter of getting his timing and the vagaries of his position in line with my repeated presentations. I didn’t need to change the fly.

The electricity made its way through leader line and fly rod straight away! This boy was big and mad and liked the music of the Hardy’s chorus as much as it did! We danced in a deep and rocky and unfamiliar reach of water, so I had to keep the line high whenever he pulled toward the bottom, applying side pressure only when he was in sight and obviously clear of obstructions. I relished every moment of that fight until he was mine!

It had been a long month, and I enjoyed the moment profusely. My vanquished foe didn’t like being lined up on the measuring centerline of the net to get his full length accurately, so I logged him at twenty-two inches plus.

The pounding in my heart finally subsided, and I stood there for a time, taking in the beauty and the solitude, fully appreciating how captivating these Catskill rivers can be. Then I started hunting for another rise…

I am plotting a grand finale to the dry fly season, warm, bright afternoons with occasional showers interspersed with the blessings of the forests. For this is the season of plenty!

October, the word springs from my lips with the ebullience of youth, memories of wonderful days afield with my father, and later years crouching intent upon the flickering movement of a whitetail picking his way silently through a carpet of dry leaves. These days, the greatest store of memories are found along the rivers of my heart.

A recent one was captured by a friend, an old Hardy spinning away the raindrops clustered upon it’s rim, my classic Leonard rod arched with strain as a great brown that had thrice bested me rushed for freedom. Ah, the chances and changes autumn brings!

I feel the urgency of the season most upon the rivers, though the morning chill on forested ridges brings forth the same emotions: catch it before it’s gone!

A tiny wink of light a hundred yards off along the riverbank draws me there. Low water demands the stealthiest approach imaginable, and those yards seem like miles as anticipation builds. At last, I am within range, though the short wand in my hand seems woefully insufficient. The cast, the drift, and yes, the take follows! That little rod bends double as the old Hardy protests vehemently… off to the races!

In the shallows the game ends, and the tired fish is shepherded into the chilled, October current.

The urgency within builds each day, yes, yes… catch it before it is gone!

My perfect trout is not a rainbow after all, and he isn’t as big as I thought he might be, given his choice of feeding lies. I went back for a visit this afternoon and, well, solved the puzzle. There is no question this nice wild brownie proved a worthy adversary.

I wasn’t seeing any rises upon my arrival, so I began the slow walk downriver to see what I might find. That trout remained supremely confident, for I’ll be damned if he didn’t begin to rise as I approached.

I had stayed with my usual 5X fluorocarbon tippet during our previous encounters but try as I might I could not get a perfect float through that wrinkly maze of currents and upwellings this fish called home. I had considered going down to 6X but, believing he was probably an outsized rainbow, I didn’t want to risk it. Our Delaware River rainbows have broken plenty of 5X tippets over the years with their long, fast runs topped off with aerial acrobatics.

This afternoon I knotted a long 6X tippet to my leader followed by an olive T.P. Dun in size 20. The drift certainly looked better, but it seemed that my friend wasn’t eating olives. Some rises were gentle splashes, and a couple of others were soft. I considered the season and changed my fly to a size 20 winged black ant.

My second drift resulted in a brief shiver at the surface and loss of sight of my tiny ant, so I eased the rod tip up and I had him at last. He thought he was a rainbow I guess, clearing the water half a dozen times as we danced. When I got him close, there was no question that he was a brown.

A seventeen-inch wild brown trout is a nice fish anywhere. In some places, I have heard anglers talking about big fish that measured a few inches shy of that mark. I have no complaints that this hard-won game didn’t result in a twenty-inch or better trout to note in my log. I earned the chance to put a nice arch in my fly rod and take the snapshot at the top of this page.

During my early years chasing difficult trout, there were a number of times my hard-earned trophies turned out to be trout less than a foot long. I let out a laugh when I landed every one of them, for they demanded my best and gave me theirs. I cannot ask more of any fish that swims.

I seem to have found the perfect fish! I love fly fishing for wild trout for the challenge and the beauty of the experience, and challenges have been the hallmark for this season. What could be better, given that rising trout have been terribly hard to come by, than a rising uncatchable trout, one to revisit again and again?

I stalked slowly into the wide flow of the river and began to work my way downstream. My eyes scanned the surface for signs of life: an insect, a rise, even a subsurface flash. Working down, I came to that same funny little crease in the current of the pool, the place where I had earned two refusals from a trout I believe is a worthy specimen. I watched for a while, seeing nothing. I took a step to continue my search and there he was.

Of course I don’t know this is the same trout, but I certainly believe it!

Working a small, patterned area from the flat above that damned squiggle in the flow, Mr. Bow had my rapt attention. Indeed, I feel I know him by now, he whose silver gill plate flashes at me when he takes a mayfly with enticing vigor. His routine was much the same as last week, sliding toward that wrinkle for one morsel and away for the next, never quite holding a taking position and thus building the level of difficulty, as if such a confounding ribbon of current needed the help!

There weren’t many flies available, one or two now and then, tiny fellows I took for blue-winged olives. A size 20 silk bodied T.P. Dun does great service for me this time of year, and the first cast with a freshly tied model should have been my only service of the game. The drift looked good, though obviously to me alone, and I paused as he slid up and intercepted it before raising my rod in victory.

Well, no, said Mr. Bow, there’s something squirrely about the drift of that fly!

I of course tried another cast, followed by several more, all to no avail. I tried every antic I can muster with a fly rod to impart just a bit more slack to defeat that current. He failed to surface again after that refusal, at least until something more was added to the menu.

I knotted a size 18 version of the fly with a sparse trailing shuck and, with the perseverance of numerous casts, enticed him to take a swipe at that for refusal number two. Oh, I neglected to mention the wind.

Now I felt that this fish and his inability to consider rising anywhere but close to that band of wrinkled current presented challenge enough, but the Red Gods decided to up the ante. Wind gusts materialized from nowhere and plagued me for the rest of the afternoon. The only time they seemed to calm for the first hour or so coincided with my wading back to shallow water to warm up a bit. The river gage recorded forty-nine degrees for the water temperature during our little war of wits.

Eventually I forced myself to remain in the frigid water, thus firing a few casts during the calmer moments of the afternoon. The fish was unimpressed.

As had been the case last week, there was a brief and sudden appearance of a few pale mayflies, and I countered with a size 16 XL Light Cahill 100-Year Dun. He came for it once, leaving me to celebrate a third refusal, and putting me in mind of the late, great Vincent C. Marinaro’s duet with his trout without a mouth on the hallowed waters of the Letort.

Once the Cahills vanished as quickly as they had appeared, it became clear the game had ended for the day. My perfect trout had tired of it and left me alone with my thoughts. I left too, grudgingly, and ran the heat in the car all the way home.

I took a chance on summer’s final fishing day, traveling to the Neversink River with hope in my heart.

I had visited only once this season, finding the summer flow meager at best, and trout absent from familiar reaches. The flow has since been increased, and I thought I owed the river the opportunity to redeem herself in my eyes.

The day was bright, comfortably warm, and carried a surprise – wind! Gusty breezes frequented my old haunts carrying the promise of a feast of terrestrials. I hunted carefully, despite the lack of even subtle hidden rises.

There has been development here in the years since I first visited, and I expect a few more trout may have been released into new residents’ kitchens than the law allows. Whatever the reason, I have found fewer trout in these environs in recent seasons, where once I discovered a quiet bounty.

As I fished along the little run with its overhanging grasses, my heart quickened with memories.

It was springtime when I first approached from downstream, creeping right up to the lip where the current gathered and then spilled into a wide, shallow riffle. The pooled water just above that lip had three trout rising, plucking Hendrickson duns from the surface. I cast as delicately as I could and my dun was taken by a large, vigorous wild brown trout. Landing him, I was breathless to find his brethren still rose.

I caught all three that afternoon, that first one the largest and better than twenty inches, his fellows not far behind. Quite the introduction to this unassuming little run of water!

As I moved on to the tail of the Victory Pool, memories came freely. I found a good trout there at last, his belly tight to a flat rock on the bottom, almost asleep. He had ignored all of my presentations as he ignored the fruits of Nature’s larder delivered by the winds.

I fished on through the pool, covering all of the hides, the shaded edges, the pockets below each rock, but there was nothing but the silence of my casting and the brush of the breeze to break the trance. At the top I recalled a very special day there.

It was my first Catskill trip of the season a decade ago, a longed-for occasion in a late, timid spring. The day itself was everything I had been waiting for: sunny, warm, gentle and beautiful, and I had high hopes for a hatch of Hendricksons. I sat down on the warm, green grass to watch the pool, stretching back and nearly napping with the pure pleasure of it. A sound came to my ear, a gentle plop that brought me upright immediately.

The current parted above a huge rock outcropping in midriver, and the first things I saw there were wings! Blue quills had begun to emerge and struggled to dry their wings and escape the surface. A soft, slow bulge interrupted those struggles, and the mayfly disappeared.

I slid gently off the grassy bank and planted my feet on the gravel, then pulled line from the Hardy Perfect reel. I carried my first vintage bamboo rod, a Wright & McGill Granger Victory, as I began to approach into casting position. By the time I was ready, the first Hendrickson emerged wriggling in the crease of current above the tip of the rocks. The Blue Quill was ready, and I cast it, watching the drift as it bobbed along that subtle seam between smooth flow and upwelling.

Another bulge, and a Hendrickson ceased its struggles. I retrieved my line, clipped that blue quill, and knotted one of the Hendrickson emergers I had tied back in February as my new Granger rested nearby. The rod was older than I, but straight and smooth casting when I sent that Hendrickson on it’s quest, and the arc it described after the bulge and lift was epic! That trout battled hard, ever running back to that sunken outcropping to rid himself of my fraud. In the net he was gorgeous, besting the twenty-inch mark on my tape! That old brownie started me down the long and wonderfully winding road of vintage bamboo and trophy trout!

I savored that memory as I walked slowly downriver, smiling at that grassy bank and the midriver outcropping, on my last summer day on the water. Memories accompanied me rather than energetic trout and the music of a singing Hardy reel, but my feelings were of contentment, not remorse.

It has been a difficult summer, the longest and hottest dry spell of my Catskill memory, my own summer style of fishing interrupted by a July flood and the City’s September drawdown, neither of which brought improvement to the fishing. This season has offered it’s own special gifts, as each season does, and I shall not hold it’s memories in lesser esteem.

What shall autumn bring? I have high hopes, for they are stirred by each new season in a sportsman’s life. I’ll walk the forest thickets on frosty mornings searching for the elusive Mr. Ruff, and angle away the golden afternoons with my hand gripping the scarred cork of vintage cane. What shall I find? Promise and contentment amid cool mountains and bright water of course.

There are clouds at daybreak this morning and, as much as I have enjoyed these last calm, sunlit days of summer, they are welcome. It is fifty degrees here in Crooked Eddy.

I hope the clouds will urge the late season mayflies to play out their life cycles this afternoon, to ascend toward that leaden sky and tempt the wild trout of the Delaware to feed. There have been too few such dramas of late!

I traced a new path yesterday, walking a wide lovely pool along the lower East Branch Delaware. The afternoon sun was warm once more, the surroundings beautiful with a tinge of color hinting at autumn in the golden glow of that sunlight. I had searched upriver and down, finding nothing to draw further interest, and had taken a stance near mid-pool to survey and wait. Another angler joined me, cordial and considerate, and we spoke briefly about the lack of any activity. He asked if I was headed downriver, and I replied that I had just come from there, so he nodded and headed down.

I saw him cast a few times in a couple of areas, but from the distance I could see no rises. Trying spots where memory held a trout? Eventually he returned and I asked him. He reported a handful of trout had risen and related that he felt his casting had kept them out of reach. As we spoke, he told me that two or three were still rising, and suggested I have a try at them, volunteering to show me just where they were holding. I was a bit stunned at his act of kindness.

We walked down and, sure enough, just beyond a ripple of current swelled from a submerged boulder which I had earlier scouted, there was now a trout picking tiny morsels from the glide. A few Cahills had appeared during the past half hour, and I had knotted a 100-Year Dun to my tippet accordingly. Rather than change to a tiny olive, I offered the Cahill once, the smooth power of my Delaware Pent laying it gently on the edge of that glide. The trout rose, I paused, then lifted it free of current and trout!

Analysis can be the bane of the angler, but after trying a couple of other flies once that trout resurfaced, I fell headlong into that trap. My conclusion in the end was that I had misjudged a refusal as a clean take, thus taking the fly away while the trout was visibly beneath it. He had resumed feeding within a few minutes, though clearly alerted I felt. I would never come close to touching him again.

I kept at it for perhaps an hour, there being nothing else to draw my attention, while my impromptu host worked his way upstream. We nodded goodbye to the river and walked out together. He remarked he was recently retired, and I saluted retirement as a wonderful condition that allowed anglers such as ourselves to fish all week! The one thing we neglected was a formal introduction.

Thanks to this stranger, I had an enjoyable interlude with a worthy opponent. I had thanked him for sharing his fish as we exited, but I regret that neither of us dropped our names.

I confess I have become too accustomed to rude, boorish behavior from my fellow fly fishers, to the point that I tend to shun conversation and contact. It seems I forgot how to act in the presence of a gentleman angler. I hope we cross paths again.

My favorite season is coming to a close. Though this summer has not been the kindest, nor most productive, nor even the most comfortable of those I have enjoyed since my retirement, I still feel a touch of melancholy as these last days pass. In truth, none of us ever know if we will remain to enjoy another.

It is not that I do not dearly love the autumn or the springtime, for each of these are truly sportsmens’ seasons, it is just that I find these Catskill Summers uncommonly sublime.

Our great drought brings a second wave, and there seems no relief upon the horizon. The wide Beaver Kill has shrunken to a warm trickle, the flood of July nothing but a memory. The river’s bones bake in the sun, and I wonder if her trout can even survive much more of this.

I spend many happy days along the river each autumn, but last year left me wanting. The large, wild trout I meet there made no appearance, not even when the crispness of the air and cool autumn rains bade them to come home. Would that I could spare half the high flow in her sister river and shower her gravel with that gift of cold, clear, lifegiving water!

My thoughts look past the glory of autumn, for there is a fear growing. I try to distract myself with the culm of Lo o bamboo which waits for these old hands to split, plane and glue. JA loaned me his copy of the bible, A Master’s Guide To Building A Bamboo Flyrod, to prepare.

Imagine me, tasting the last draughts of summer and thinking toward winter! Too set in my ways perhaps, too comfortable with familiar summer patterns to embrace the variety of a difficult season.

I keep hearing the same line, hatches and rising trout at evening, but it is an old song. In spring certainly, dusk brings a whirlwind of activity, but I have spent many summer evenings along these rivers with little for company save my own thoughts. I hear tales of the afternoons too, yet the great river I walked last week revealed little.

I should look further, deeper into Nature’s farewell to the season of warmth and plenty, yet memories pull us back to old haunts by their very existence.

Part of me wishes to survey miles of river from the seat of my drift boat, to float easily upon summer’s last release, search the riffles and pools for some spark of life. I don’t trust that pinched nerve in my neck though. Still hearing it’s murmur, I know this is not the time to challenge low water with a solo float, despite my longing.

I just cleaned the ferrules of my fly rod, my Delaware River rod you might say, for when the 8 1/2-foot five weight penta was conceived and ordered it was with the Mainstem in mind. Pittsburgh rodmaker Tim Zietak flamed the cane beautifully and presented me with a smooth casting foil. Each autumn, I take it home, to the wide expanse of the Delaware.

As the second week of September comes to a close, summerlike conditions prevail. There is not much dry fly fishing about other than on the big river. Flows are ideal for wading, and plenty of cold water flows from both branches and their reservoirs.

Still, the Mainstem always presents its challenges. Foot access is limited as it always has been, so anglers cluster around the few available. The riverbanks can get a bit crowded in these areas. Walking up or down river will provide some space and solitude, but that too is limited. There are deep eddies, rock studded heavy water right to the banks, and a general lack of convenient walking encountered, and respect for private landowners generally means staying in the river. Age enters into the picture too for anglers such as myself. Long walks in the riverbed take their toll on legs, hips and backs in particular.

There are memories here: bright evenings as the anticipation builds for the hatch, epic battles with drag burning rainbows, and quiet moments when the sheer beauty of the river touches your soul.

On this afternoon the first pool I visit is deserted. I wade out and see one tiny fish break water, nothing more. Deciding to give things some time to evolve, I wade further and cast first an Isonychia dry, and then a soft hackled fly to resemble the swimming nymph. It swings through the tumbled water around a rock pile, though it’s path is not intercepted by any of the trout I seek.

Straining my eyes downriver I see a lone drift boat and wonder if he has found some action where the river moves into a shaded bend, so I stand and watch for a moment. He moves on, and with that I decide to do the same.

My second stop is not so completely deserted, as a lone angler prospects downriver. I am free to sample the first and second riffles which had drawn a small crowd earlier this week. The anglers there seemed not to be catching much of anything, until one gentleman hooked “the biggest fish of the year”. It was more than he could handle, running hard into his backing and staying there, so I moved to shore and bid him walk through to follow. His friend eventually joined us and netted the fish amid much complaining, a lovely 18″ rainbow wearing the angler’s fly on his flank. Foul hooking had seemed ever more likely as he tried in vain to get the fish close, but I was pulling for him!

Mostly the river has surrendered feisty small trout, to me and others this week. On this bright, comfortable afternoon it was much the same. A few flies were seen, but only the occasional rise typical of small, hungry trout taking advantage of slim pickings to draw a cast. That fellow down river walked out before me and reported the same: two, between eight and ten inches. I nodded, as my single fish resided firmly in their company.

Eight days remain in the summer of 2024, and for now the big rivers are the only destination which will draw my interest. I have urged JA to join me but have yet to hear his reply. Working on this or that no doubt…