It is the prime of May and our rivers seem to be haunted by the doldrums. Next week is Bug Week, so perhaps the bugs are simply biding their time until the celebration. The weather is hot, and the rivers are low, so it’s not surprising that fishing days haven’t been interrupted by too many epic battles.

The fly shops have been doing the “it’s best in the evenings” chant for a while now, though I have talked to several anglers that advised the sundown fishing has still been slow. It is the Catskills, so one can be sure that there are trout rising somewhere, though that doesn’t guarantee they will be taking our flies.

It is six AM here at Crooked Eddy, and I am feeling a bit reflective. Another milestone approaches and, though I have not found that perfect time and place for angling nirvana for the past couple of weeks, I rejoice at the opportunity to keep looking for it!

I am nine years down the road from the events that might have ended my life before I really got to taste the best of it and have spent six of those years truly enjoying the flavor of it all. I spend my days wading bright water, thinking about bright water, and angling for some of the most beautiful wild trout in the world. Yes, fishing has been a little slow, but man there’s still nothing I’d rather be doing!

I have spent the past couple of days wading a low, clear pool while good trout cruised all around busting the occasional something. I believe they have been hunting down March Brown nymphs as they hang just under the surface, taking them hard when they find one. I have seen flashes of movement a few times, when one of those fish darted a couple of feet to nail his emerging dinner.

I have seen this behavior before, particularly when the water gets very low and the bugs are sparse and sporadic. I encountered this a decade or so ago and came up with a fly to deal with the uncatchable trout. I had some success with it, so yesterday I was well stocked and ready for them. The brownies that fell for my imitation all those years ago must have passed on the information to their offspring, as none of yesterday’s cruisers took a second look at my fly. It’s a great imitation, but it ain’t alive!

That is indeed the crux of the magical pursuit of wild trout with the fly: trout eat living insects, insects that swim and wiggle, and struggle. These characteristics are never more evident than during bright sunny days in low, clear, slow-moving water. The trout themselves, particularly the larger, wiser members of the tribe, are at their wariest, but they seem comfortable in their instincts and abilities. They can hunt the food Nature offers at the moment while minimizing the danger, and they get better at it every generation.

My focus as a fly tyer has always been a quest to enhance the image of life presented by my flies. I design as much movement as I can get into patterns for the most difficult situation, but the trout still manage to come away unscathed at times. Honestly, if it weren’t for times like these, I wouldn’t have the same passion for fly fishing.

There is some rain in today’s forecast, though not enough to change river conditions. There is supposed to be more of it next week. I will have to wait and see if we get enough of it to improve the flows and invigorate the fishing. While writing this, I had a thought of how to improve the movement of that hanging emerger, so I am going to take another shot at tying a fly that will break the code of the cruisers. I can’t change the weather; all I can do is work the problem.

It is a state of mind as much as an actual place, a reach of bright water where fantasy dwells with silence and the soft murmur of sun warmed air and trickling water.

Memory lives there, decades of it, though it lives in the present in the ultimate challenges I face there. Flies were born there, theories formed, revised and proven. It is everything that is angling to one who lives for angling itself.

It is a place for sitting in the warm sunshine, contemplating the likelihood of the hatch long anticipated and the run of years that has brought me to bright water for sustenance of the soul. There are echoes there, voices laughing, the symphony of an old Hardy singing in high notes of leviathan unleashed! Images of things that may never be again…

I walk there with a favorite old rod in hand, this one passed on from a friend in the Cumberland Valley. He fished it hard for a good span of years, and now as his time on the water has passed, I carry it on these Catskill rivers to make my own memories. Bamboo has a soul, something of the maker who crafted it from the culm, something of the anglers who have wielded it remain.

I marvel at the magic in this place. How many times have I entered here to find the water quiet, waded in, and had trout begin rising in greeting? That happens not on other reaches of bright water. This young season the greetings have been brief, a cast, a drift, and they recede. The magic remains, but so does the incredible challenge.

No season has truly begun until I wade these waters, assess the changes wrought by winter’s ice and snowmelt’s floods. Last year I found a fine bed of new shallow gravel in a place I used to wade the high flows, before a few spring floods deepened it well beyond wading. Nature giveth and she taketh away. Her gift may be quite perfect one day hence.

If I have my way, I will trust my ashes to the sparkling currents of sanctuary, return something of my essence to the river that schooled me, delighted me, delivered me. The ashes of some fine shaft of cane shall join me there. Take what you need with you.

Rainy day fly fishing is much vaunted in our literature, but I feel there are limits. Yes, damp cloudy days can bring sustained hatches of blue winged olives and other mayflies, but I have found trout reluctant to rise whenever the surface is significantly agitated, whether by rain or wind. I have always assumed that these conditions hamper the trout’s vision and their ability to discern the insects they seek from the floating chaff.

I can count endless days on the water when accelerated downpours have shut down rather heavy feeding sessions. The bugs remain, but the rises cease, at least until the rain slacks up considerably. Stormy days are largely the worst as the winds often charge in anew whenever the rain lessens. Nature being whom she is though, I have witnessed sudden eruptions of rises as a thunderstorm bared down upon me. The reaction is always to look over one’s shoulder at the threatening weather and cast furiously. Don’t fall for it… get off the water! Distant lightning can kill you.

I put in my time on a fine-looking, brooding sort of day last week, but I wasn’t rewarded with a significant hatch. I didn’t get wet, though the chill of the water got through more than on a sunny day.

The best thing about rainy days is the freshening they can impart to our rivers. I have enjoyed improved fishing on many occasions after a good rain has raised the flow during low water conditions. I’d love to see that happen this time, for there are a number of pools that could use a boost. I might even put on the old raingear and head out this afternoon. The Hendrickson is waiting…

I had one of those tough days late last week, the kind where the opportunities you hoped for just refused to materialize. The trout were spread out and there were very few flies on the water even as prime time rolled around, so I wasn’t doing much fishing as I was fruitlessly waiting. I found myself with a brief and difficult window, eventually.

The water I was trying to fish was low as were most of our rivers, and that restricted my movement significantly. Wandering around in low water just alerts all of those trout you don’t see rising, with the result that they don’t rise when the day’s sparse allotment of mayflies finally gets going.

I waded very slowly and set myself up to be able to reach a long line of drift where the main current carries most of the stuff on the surface, bubbles, miscellaneous vegetative matter and bugs over some of the best bottom habitat in the area. That is usually the right plan under tough conditions like these, but it wasn’t on that day.

There is a secondary current that spreads down along the near bank of that pool. It is very subtle, unnoticeable in low flows, unless there happen to be flies on the water. As I was standing stone still and carefully watching the prime lies across the river, I heard a little plop or two that sounded like it could have been behind me. Thinking a fish might have risen quietly well downstream, I didn’t trust the directionality of my ears, and kept concentrating on that main line of drift. There was simply nothing doing out there.

Eventually, a few mayflies started to show, and I truly expected my patience to pay off. It didn’t, but I did hear another plop or two and turned around to watch that secondary current. Sure enough, there were a few flies coming down through the back door hallway, and a trout was taking advantage of them.

As the number of flies increased, I found four or five trout spread out over an area some thirty feet wide and one hundred feet long, all of them fairly close to the shallow bank. They were not holding position, but each trout was cruising around a small area. Once they got going though, I was pretty well trapped. These were good fish, I know because I encountered this same situation a few seasons ago in this area, during another early spring low water scenario. There was no way these fish were going to allow me to move into a favorable casting position to fish them, leaving me with trying to take advantage of what would be the afternoon’s only opportunity via long casts nearly straight downstream.

It was a flat light kind of day, so I was looking straight into widespread glare as I tried to watch my fly, casting and mending to feed it to one of these moving targets. When I can’t see my fly at the take, I tend to get antsy sometimes, and this was one of those times. On a downstream presentation like this, you have to wait a little longer before you raise your rod to strike a taking fish. I know that very well, but losing sight of my fly and that antsy feeling undoes things.

I was a bit too early when I thought the nearest fish took my fly, and I pulled it right out of his mouth. Of course, that raised my frustration level and made me do the same thing again. Self-defeating prophecy – same result for number three, though he actually started to pull, hard, before he opened his mouth and let go of my fly. I don’t believe he was even hooked. I think he clamped down on the fly and then decided to let go when it pulled back. That is all the time Nature allowed, for the flies stopped coming within moments. That is definitely fishing.

I have found feeding fish in secondary current situations before, though it usually happens in areas where the trout are rarely disturbed and not on our hard fished Catskill rivers. I recognized the possibility before anything happened, but I remained intent upon the more likely water near the other side of the river. The result was really just the luck of the draw; it wasn’t going to be my day.

If I had it to do over again, I would have moved into a position earlier, setting up for the rare chance of the action happening on the thread of that secondary current. If it hadn’t, and that was really the most likely outcome, I would have been easily able to move into position to work the main run without spooking trout beginning to feed in that wider, deeper section of water. Might have turned out to be my day after all.

Another gorgeous May day, though the winds were epic yesterday! At one point there were so many seed pods and assorted tree litter blown onto the surface the downstream view resembled a field as much as it did a river. In between those catastrophic blows, lay periods of calm when, if you could spot them amongst all of that floating vegetation, were a few soft riseforms. It was a tumultuous though beautiful afternoon to stray along bright water.

I had a good laugh to complement the passion and solitude of the scene. Yes, that first rise, a soft little sip alongside a brushy hide, while straining to follow my fly amid the seed pod flotilla I managed a take! My hookset had him vaulting from the water and my mirth overcame me. Still hooked after the launch, I pulled him close, all five inches of him! Well, perhaps only four and a half, but I’ll call him five.

After a long blow I spied another little something and tossed my 100-Year Dun out there. Lost the fly in the vegetation for a split second and tightened out of reflex into a good pull. Wild and leaping, flashing in the sun, I could have sworn I had a rainbow. He put up quite a show, a silvery sided brown trout a bit more than sixteen inches, masquerading as a bow.

The flies were sparse, or at least the ones I could pick out of the blizzard hatch of seed pods were. Late, the pool showed little, but I heard a splash or two upstream and found a couple taking duns sporadically in the top of the little run. No takers though, at least not until the main event.

Every once in awhile you find one of those guys, the big trout with a hair trigger, lying in shallow fast water and sucking down a snack. I cast, saw the funny little disturbance by the submerged rock and raised the rod. That big boy took off like a bullet, nearly pulling the loosely held rod grip right out of my hand. It’s all reflex then, no time for thinking: the clutch! Tighten that grip to save the rod and…snap! I’ve still got the rod but no big, burly trout to admire, and he’s gotten away with my fly!

Lightning from a cobalt blue sky? Yes, when the magic of bright water and the spirits found in vintage fly tackle are stirred in the same pot!

It is raining now in Crooked Eddy, the downpour gaining strength as I write. Perhaps the thunderstorms predicted for this May morning have spun from that same brew.

I was on my feet early yesterday, shaved and showered and off to the doctor for my regular checkup. Still old, still breathing, and thank God still fishing. Since it was a gloriously bright morning, I decided to wander over to the Beaver Kill early. I was thinking caddis once again, having tied another half-dozen to add to the box. I found the river ultimately quiet, even it’s heavy runs looked more the gentle glide. I didn’t see a bug. I did walk several hundred yards of riffled water, sure I would find some little enclave of active insects and the vision of a riser, but it was not to be.

I wandered a bit, settling on another river and readying the Leonard and my Hardy St. George for the hoped-for goal of a rising trout or two. There is something I like about fishing tackle with a history, even though I am not privy to the details. My Leonard is a Model 66H, pre-fire to those interested, a rod that dates from the same span of the fifties as I. The St. George is a decade older; the stern hand of experience to keep the youngsters settled down when the games afoot.

I found a very small number of the little shad caddis though it took a while for any corresponding sign of life from the underside of the film. Wild trout are not showy in low water under bright skies. The little trout will make a quick pop and take a caddisfly that is dancing right above his living room, but the older, wiser gentlemen and ladies of the pool remain subdued. Patience, as always, became the order of the day.

I was hoping for some sort of a hatch, spinner fall, anything to change the game as I wiled away the long hours of midday. I had gambled that a few straggling mayflies might appear and give me one chance, and thus that magical repetitive nature of lightning came into play.

My prayers were answered then by the Lady herself, and I found something far more interesting than the once or twice risers scattered about the pool. One very good fish cruising his sanctuary, a lair apart where the mystical currents helped him detect any fraud, established himself in my consciousness and I set about the game in earnest.

My foe was the epitome of the selective trout, and with live and spent caddis and a few small mayflies thrown in, he chose carefully. The challenge with a cruiser is doubled, no, perhaps I should say the challenge is squared in the mathematical sense. He sips an unseen morsel, and the angler casts. When he sips again, he is invariably in a different location, and the cast must be adjusted for new tricks of the currents, always with the knowledge that he likely moved as soon as he took that last insect, and he might have come closer. Line him, even most gently with a bit of leader, and he is gone forever!

So, this is the game we played. Once I saw enough of the somber-toned Lady H mayflies, my choice of fly was set, and I knotted a fresh 5X tippet and size 16 100-Year Dun.

We had played the game for an hour or thereabouts, the trout casually filling his belly, and I seemingly casting delicately with the old Leonard to somewhere he wasn’t. The tension increases with each cast, each fruitless drift, for the risk of ruination mounts. My thanks to the smoothness of that classic old rod, for it allowed me to put nothing but fly and leader near him as softly as air, so the game could continue.

Patience, and the grace of the Lady, finally turned the game in my favor. Though the hatch wasn’t heavy, there was that little pulse of flies Nature often provides; enough duns to quicken the pace of the feeding fish and cause him to choose a preferred spot to take best advantage. Moving still, but restricted now to a much narrower lane, my cast places my Lady before him once, twice, and a third time…

The lightning struck me as I raised that ancient fly rod and felt the power of my foe, stripping line as fast as possible while he compounded his error by coming out and away from the cover that would have defeated me. Turning, he darted away and coaxed a lovely tune from that long silent 1940’s Hardy.

Wading deep, surrounded by boulders, and tied to a bolt of lightning by a spiderweb, those sensations are the reasons we become anglers for life! I rejoiced with each musical run, turned each rush for cover, and thought I had him once. As I raised the net, he used my own momentum to launch himself back out of the bag and start away anew! He bored hard for the snag that would smash my leader and win his freedom, and I brought every bit of power that rod possessed into one menacing arch. He boiled inches short of freedom and turned.

When I drew him close that second time, I made sure he was ready, and netted him securely. The bag sagged with his weight, keeping his flank in the water as I twisted the little fly free. Twenty-five inches lined up along the measuring scale of the net, heavy bodied and gloriously colored, I estimated him to weigh in the six-pound range. I thought of the camera, but the fight had been hard, and low flows in wide pools don’t have the highest oxygen levels even when the water is perfectly cold. I turned him back instead, and he set himself behind a rock there at my feet.

Watching my steps, I backed away in that hip deep water and took out my camera. Submerging it, I chanced my guessed alignment would capture him as he finned slowly there, recovering. I can’t see anything through the little viewfinder when the camera is under water, so I changed my alignment and took a second shot.

After watching him for a few moments, I touched him lightly with my staff, smiling as he darted off toward his sanctuary. I thought then about doing the same.

It seems the wonder and the magic of the Hendricksons has passed for another year. They visited very little with me. Yes, there may be encounters, brief appearances on the Upper West Branch, but the true glory of it all is done.

In an odd spring such as this one, I am often left wondering what became of them. Certainly, they did not issue from the waters I called home, not in the staggering numbers sweet memory cherishes. I suspect the overall mild nature of winter coupled with the warmth of March chided them from their sleep to trickle off during the high water, leaving only a remnant guard to greet faithful wading anglers such as I. I pray only that they found success in seeding their next generation.

And so on to May, and the flies whose colors mimic the emerging vegetation: the bright green of the Shadfly, the varied yellows of the sulfur clan and the pale ghosts we still call March Browns!

It is raining now in Crooked Eddy, on a cold May morning in these Catskill Mountains. The rivers will be grateful for the rain, both freestone and tailwater alike. New York City you see has begun their game anew, hording water until the first of June until they can flush it down the Delaware en masse if they choose to finally make their aqueduct repairs this season. If not, well, they’re only fish and fishermen.

Tailwater flows have been dropped suddenly to summer low flows, so our difficult trout will become more difficult, scurrying from the assault of anglers the prime days of May inevitably bring. There are those who shall insist upon boating the scant depths of these rivers, adding to the fray, shouting “walk and wade trips, no way!” He who finds an unmolested trout first may catch it, while he who wanders second, or one hundredth, shall not. Pray for rain I say!

Last evening I settled in and enjoyed a wee dram in homage to the new season. It has begun with challenges galore, though the first entry in the log was a serious contender. Wild trout more than two feet long are not to be taken lightly! Today I will see to the fly boxes once more: Shadflies, sulfurs, March Browns and the big bright olives. There is always one Hendrickson box that remains in my vest far beyond it’s expiration date. Call it sentimentality or homage, the manifestation of my annual reluctance to accept the passing of a friend.

Ah, the tricks those Red Gods love to play upon helpless anglers! I received a call from my friend Dennis Menscer yesterday to ask if I was going fishing. Of course, I was. He then asked me if I would mind taking a buddy along. He did not feel up to going fishing himself, and as usual he has a lot of work in the rod shop.

I was happy to meet Kevin, feeling confident that a friend of my friend was a good angler and a good guy. Kevin was on the last day of a visit from his home in Massachusetts, and as the day evolved, we found we had other people and other rivers in common.

Before I drove over to meet him, I had tied half a dozen of the dry flies that had brought results the previous day. I had already tied several to add to my boxes while editing my column for the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild Gazette. I was hoping to meet the same hatch I fished on Wednesday and wanted Kevin to enjoy his last afternoon of fishing in the Catskills. I did mention that the winds where we were headed were forecast to be out of the North/Northwest and 10 to 15 mph, adding that the reach of water ran East/West. Sometimes forecast is a dirty word.

Kevin and I got along very well, talking as we walked along the riverbank. Conditions looked reasonable upon our arrival, and we took a few moments to cast each other’s fly rods and continue our conversation while we awaited the hatch. I carried a vintage Thomas & Thomas Paradigm, and Kevin a Dennis Menscer rod I was not familiar with. We shared our praises for both of these fine bamboo rods, and Kevin mentioned he “knew those guys” at T&T, as the company is more or less in his backyard.

It wasn’t too long after our casting session that the winds began to build, and things got out of hand very quickly. At one point, we were sitting on the bank talking for half an hour or more, while those winds continuously blew big rolling whitecaps upstream. It looked quite impressive on that normally quiet pool, at least if you are surf fishing.

I learned that Kevin is the guy that Dennis designed his eight-foot two weight rod for. I have mentioned that rod before and how the fellow who ordered the first one fished schoolie stripers with it, and yes, Kevin confirmed the rod is still going strong.

The wind did calm somewhat later on in the afternoon. There were some mayflies coming off then, but the trout decided they had better things to do than hunt the mayflies on the surface intermixed with all of the seed pods, leaf litter, etcetera that the wind showered the river with. We both gave it a try, casting to a one-time rise here and there, even though it was clearly not a fishing day. I even hung in there a little later after Kevin waved and headed back to Massachusetts.

I have attempted to fly fish in winds in excess of fifty mph more than once. I can recall a spring day chasing steelhead on Elk Creek near Erie, Pennsylvania where one gust pushed me backwards right to the brink of falling backwards into a deep, fast, bouldery steelhead run. Hey, we’ve only got so many days.

If you notice a guy standing in or along a Catskill river, laughing at windblown whitecaps rolling up stream, that just might be me. Wave before you use the sense God gave you and head back to your car.

One week into the usual unpredictable season of Catskill hatches and I have been working on getting my instincts back into shape. I wrote early yesterday about my plan for the first truly warm morning. I realized that, with the stormy forecast and the heavy overcast at daybreak, my plan wasn’t going to happen. I tied a few flies and put them in a new caddis box; and then the sun broke through.

I figured it was just another tease as I made breakfast, but that sunshine hung around and I got myself into gear. Maybe I could make something of the morning after all.

It was ten o’clock when I stepped into the river in my shirtsleeves, already seventy degrees, and yes, there were a few caddis flitting about. Oh yes, there was also a splashy little rise out there near mid-river. I love it when a plan comes together.

With nervous energy hampering my efforts, it took me a few moments to knot the size 18 CDX to the 5X tippet. Every time I missed the hook eye with the breeze vibrating the end of that tippet, I expected the flies to vanish and that rise to cease. That is after all the kind of thing that happens out here on the rivers.

Once I was ready, and waded into a casting position, that trout made another splashy little rise to a caddisfly, so I offered him mine, a pattern I kept very confidential for more than fifteen years, the one I call simply CDX.

Little splashy rises tell a lot of anglers they are watching a small trout, sometimes they don’t even cast to them. I consider everything that’s involved, and I felt pretty confident that I was casting to a quality trout. My confidence was rewarded with a solid take and a hard run. The lithe arch of the honey toned bamboo was quite beautiful in the morning sunshine as the little Adams reel sang it’s salutation to the day.

A nineteen-inch wild brown trout puts a great perspective on an angler’s day, there is simply no denying that. There is the simple electric pleasure of fighting that fish and sharing his energy, made more poignant by the anxiety of fumbling with a vibrating tippet and a tiny hook eye while expecting the magic of the moment to vanish before your eyes.

My day was made, my instincts concerning that first warm spring morning were proven correct, and I had managed to arrive just in the nick of time. I could have happily walked out and found myself an extra cup of coffee, but then I saw a soft rise across the river.

Ah, the wonder of the soft, subtle little rise! Such moments make the spine tingle and the hairs stand up on the back of your neck if you’ve been doing this for awhile, though the initiates often think small fish that aren’t worth the trouble of working into position to explore the possibilities.

I was working into said position, carefully navigating deep, fast water while the Red Gods awakened and quickened the winds. There was another soft rise, but this time the tip of a nose was betrayed, and the electricity just made me stop and shiver!

I tried a cast or two and the wind blew harder, so I worked my feet slowly upstream until I could see a shallower patch of even stones on the bottom. I settled my boots into that spot and made sure they had good traction on the bottom. That little adjustment got me about two yards closer and gave me enough of an angle that would let me put a touch more power into my cast to overcome the crosswind.

The cane flexes smoothly, the loop unrolls, and the fly alights on that narrow band of slow, smooth water across the rush of current, and drifts…

A soft ring marks the spot where the fly was drifting, half a breath is inhaled and that quick, controlled lift connects. You feel that surge, and you know this fish is special. The trout fires away from the bank and his power joins the power of the current, and then it is all about line control and getting him on the reel. The concerto begins as the soprano notes of the click pawl drag rises above the thundering orchestra of the rushing river!

I managed each run just well enough. When I had some semblance of control, I began the careful trip back to the shallow side of the river. Control is, well, a relative word I guess, when you are connected to more than two feet of wild energy by a 5X tippet and a lithe, tapering shaft of grass bucking wildly in a menacing arch. Finally, the deed was done, the net dipped and I lifted his weight from the water, twisted the little hook free from his hard lip.

I dipped the net there in the shallows and worked his bulk into alignment with the graduations along the centerline of the net bag, reading twenty-five inches before I slipped him back to the cold crystalline world he came from.

My thoughts returned to last April, just more than a year ago, when I stood in these shallow margins of the river and snapped a quick photo of another leviathan. Friends?

This first weekend allowed for a little recovery from five days of fishing to begin my dry fly season and, now that it has passed, it’s time to get back to work.

Yes, I love retirement! For six to seven months each year my weekday job is fishing bright waters. As I get older, I feel the rigors of the job in my bones most days, but I’ll get back in shape before too long.

My tools are ready in the corner, that lovely old, impregnated Thomas & Thomas Hendrickson is always up to the challenge. Funny that some anglers don’t like impregnated bamboo. They complain they feel heavy to them and similar grumbles. Yes, some Orvis rods feel a little heavier and have a slower action, and my 8 1/2-foot Wright & McGill Water Seal needs a line weight heavier than my 8642 Goodwin Granger, but they are quite pleasant and capable fly rods. The T&T’s are really special though!

In their vintage catalogs, the company described this finish as a light impregnation, and that suits both in color and demeanor. My Hendrickson weighs just 3-3/8th ounces, quite the lithe eight-footer, taking a five weight line. I like the freedom from worry when fishing on a rainy day, for there is no concern about some unknown scratch in the varnish allowing moisture to seep into the cane. Back there in the seventies, Thomas & Thomas offered a choice of finish on all of their rod models, either their faultless varnishing or this light impregnation.

My vest is still fully loaded with Hendricksons, though there are signs that the hatch may be waning already in some quarters. Such has been reported on the Beaver Kill. I’ll be sure to have a well-stocked caddis box along too, but I still wait for a truly heavy and memorable hatch of my favorite mayfly.

The warm spell ignited yesterday demands I take the light rain jacket, for some portion of this coming week is fated to bring showers and even thunderstorms. Funny how quickly we have gone from chilled-to-the-bone cold to muggy.

I’d love a sunny morning to stimulate some spinners or a nice caddis hatch, but it isn’t looking like that kind of day.

Well, it’s half past six, time to get everything together, make a good breakfast to last me through a long day on the river, and concentrate on the job ahead. Here’s to a job hopefully well done!