My first fishing day for autumn 2023, and so I reacquainted myself with and old friend. It has become my custom these past few years to begin and end my season along the Beaver Kill. It was my first Catskill river when I came to mecca thirty years ago, and there seems to always be more water to explore.

I carried the Leonard, appropriate for these environs – the most famous Catskill fly rod for the most celebrated Catskill river. A tiny olive 100-Year Dun, tied that morning, was knotted to the long, fine tippet, the little fly remarkably visible in the midday sunlight as it drifted down the glides.

There was a trout there, strange fellow, mostly sipping though jumping right out of the water once or twice. He looked to be around that foot-and-a-half range, a very respectable trout, and I wanted him. He came for the olive a couple of times, at least he seemed to, though I failed to touch him when I tightened. Micro drag perhaps. It is the rule of law on the glides.

Since he seemed so eager to leap for his dinner, I tried an Isonychia, and later a small hopper, but he eventually decided he didn’t care to be fished for. He was the only game in town on that pool, and so after waiting for a re-appearance that never came, I moved on.

The blue skies filled gradually with clouds, and by my last hour the transformation was complete, the deep gray afternoon had little resemblance to the brilliance of morning. I thought the heavy overcast ideal to produce a hatch, but nothing more than the occasional olive showed itself on the surface.

My little unnamed pool was quiet, save for a tiny dimple here and there, fingerlings that shunned the Isonychia that had found it’s place once more at the end of my leader. No choice but to return to the little olive I started the day with and hope.

Funny how a place can gather a bit of magic, and this little nothing of a pool has held more than expected for me these past five years. I was easing downstream a step at a time when I saw it, a single healthy rise a longish cast away. Two careful steps closer as I stripped more line from the old St. George and the cast was made.

It can be tough to pinpoint a trout in open water from a single rise. This fellow was no exception, so I added a foot or so to each cast until I felt I had the right line of drift. He came for it cleanly, and the old Leonard arched as he bore away to the cries of that classic Hardy, a good fish giving his best in the chilled and freshened current of autumn.

I was surprised at his slim profile and his length, just shy of twenty inches. While he seemed fit and strong, his slender form spoke of the challenge of a long hot summer of survival in the big river. “Go, fatten up” I thought as I slipped him back into the flow.

Though the foliage has just begun to take on hints of autumn color, the rivers reflect the season in grand style. Flows are strong on the freestoners, and water temperatures are downright chilly just a week after summer’s finale. October lies on the doorstep, and my double gun is calling…

It is the latter half of the final week of September and the river too is calling me. I have not waded bright water for nearly a week, and my legs are wont to feel the rush of current once more. I need to feel the old cork of the Leonard in my hand and watch the dance of a dry fly on some sparkling run!

I feel the urgency of another season slipping from my grasp, though I still cling to hopes for an Indian Summer reprieve and for the season to steer a long, gradual course for autumn.

It was just last year that November brought a run of seventy-degree days to these Catskill Mountains: fishing the wide Delaware in shirtsleeves, can you imagine? I see no reason for truly cold weather until deer season.

Nature will give us what she will, and I will be thankful for it, whether it extends my fishing season or not. To see the seasons change in these mountains is enough!

And so, it is done. Another Catskill Summer passes into memory. I watched it go as the sun sank toward the treetops, reclined on my porch with the flames in the grill crackling and a chilled Summer Ale. After supper the western sky glowed with a beautiful red fire, saluting the finest season.

As the season runs in these mountains, summer often seems to last forever. Though there are changes in the weather day by day, it is always summer for the full breadth of the season. Spring and autumn never enjoy that longevity, with winter taking as much as a month from the beginning of spring and much more from the end of autumn.

On the river I felt the crispness of autumn in the air as the afternoon breeze rose. The life of the river seemed at ease, languid in these last hours of summer. Little stirred beneath the surface for most of the afternoon.

With no flies, no rises, I made my own sacrifice to autumn, to the inevitability of winter. I knotted a soft hackle Isonychia and swung it down through the sparkling effervescence of the riffle. Just once there was a tug, growing to a strong pull with the chatter of the reel to awaken me to the gift of life at the end of my line. He surged and sent spray flying before the hook pulled free, and he became a memory like the season itself.

In the last moments of the afternoon there were flies on the water, pale olives with bodies so thin that even a thread wrapped hook would appear twice their size, and a few Isonychia. My eyes searched the wide expanse for a feeding trout, but the handful of rises which appeared were singular acts, a last taste of summer for the trout perhaps.

Summer’s passing readily invokes the realization that winter lies too close at hand. Hope looks forward to a last month of the dry fly at most. The Red Gods, and the Catskill mountain weather will have their due.

I close my eyes and picture the soft, sunny afternoons of October, the first grouse walk on the mountainside, and the dainty rises of big autumn trout in clear low water. It is a deliciously beautiful season, but brief, the mountains on fire with the last glory of the forests.

I have kept an eye on the water temperatures, looking for that eventual trend when daily peaks drop into the ideal range for trout. The seventy-degree sunshine offers a very pleasant afternoon on the river, at least if the Catskill Mountain winds lie down.

It is forty-five degrees here in Crooked Eddy, perhaps an hour past sunrise. The wind forecast smiles with that enticing “5 to 10 miles per hour” tale that tends to draw me eagerly to the big river, but forecasts here often deceive. Local weather forecasters have a nice track record for temperatures and rainfall, though mountain winds seem to be their Achilles heel. Days are often a few degrees warmer than the forecast during clear weather, and that warming gets the air moving unpredictably, I guess.

There are plenty of Isonychia dries in my fly boxes, along with some Hebes, olives and ants. Any of those can appear this time of the year and tempt a good trout to the surface. Our Delaware rainbows love the isos and will come through the fast-moving water of the deep riffles to eat one, so there is always a chance for a surprise jolt even on the days I find no rises on the rivers’ wide expanse.

My eight-and-a-half foot pentagonal fly rod sits ready in it’s tube. It tends to find it’s way to the Delaware this time of year. Pittsburgh rodmaker Tim Zietak made this rod to order for me some years ago, with the big Delaware in mind. It seems happy casting either a five or six weight line, depending upon my mood and that pesky wind forecast. There is an early CFO IV reel nearby, spooled with one of Wulff’s Bamboo Special fly lines. This line carries a WF6F moniker, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. The front taper is extra-long and fine, taken from Lee Wulff’s Triangle Taper, which blends into a longer middle section before quickly tapering down to a very small diameter running line. In casting, I find they feel like a cross between a typical weight-forward and a classic double tapered line. They are very much a caster’s line.

The big pent really shined with that Bamboo Special on a windy afternoon on the lawn recently, laying out a long leader to 75 feet with little influence from that gusty wind, and I am anxious to try it on the water.

It is just about the right time to change over from my summer chest pack to my vest, but I may delay that until these final days of summer pass gently into memory. I mean, why change a good thing? I do need to change out the leader on that bamboo line though, something I should be doing rather than thinking about. There is time though, for the afternoon is hours away.

The pace of an angler’s seasons changes as do the hatches and rivers, winds and weather. In spring the urgency of our release from winter’s clutches drives us to be out early and stay late, even though spring hatches tend to be midday affairs. Summer can go either way, as early mornings call during certain weather patterns and afternoons in others. Many still remain committed to fishing that last hour of daylight on into summer, but I am more of a daytime angler these days. I enjoy the natural beauty of the rivers and their sheltering mountains in daylight and searching for subtle clues which sometimes lead me to fine, old trout hunting stealthily. Late summer and early autumn is definitely an afternoon situation for me. That is when the seasonal mayflies are active, and I simply love the golden character of afternoon sunlight at this season, as it brings fire to the changing foliage. Retirement is a blissful thing, and I give thanks every day for it!

Though the Autumnal Equinox won’t arrive until next Saturday, the change here has been most apparent this week. Nighttime lows here in Crooked Eddy have reached the forties these last two mornings, and my furnace was running a little overnight.

There was plenty of sunshine this week, bright afternoons in the 60’s and 70’s. Though pleasant and beautiful, those were not the choice afternoons for fishing. The mayflies that had shown well to begin the week seemed to shy away from that bright sun, even though it’s heat was tempered by the cooler air. The winds picked up too, as I closed out the week, strong enough to keep the trout’s noses well beneath the rippled surface.

Angler’s seek explanations when the precious days we enjoy on the water aren’t as eagerly partaken of by the trout. Most of us provide our own. Call them excuses if you will, or reasoning and analysis, but the fact is that if we understood everything about Nature and wild creatures, we wouldn’t find them nearly as compelling as we do.

For me, the magic that makes everything work as it does draws me in hook, line and sinker. While I love thinking about it, pondering the intricacies of water temperature, light, wind speed and direction, and all of the variables that affect my fishing, I am glad not to have all the answers. Think of all of the wonderful conversations with friends and contemporaries that would never take place if we had all the answers. Imagine a life of fishing without all the little breakthroughs when we find a new fly or make a perfect cast and hook that old trout that has vexed us for several seasons.

I love walking past certain reaches of water, looking carefully and studying the currents and conditions and knowing that a trophy brown trout simply has to live and feed there, even though I have never seen a rise, a shadow of movement in the deep, or any tangible evidence to support my belief. I have had that feeling about a lot of places on a lot of rivers and streams during the past three decades. Some of them have never given up their secrets, nor let me even know if they hide any secrets. Thankfully, there are also those places that have… and that helps keep the magic alive!

It was one of those days that seems unable to decide upon a course. Clouds and spitting rain, then sunshine breaks through. Ten minutes later another mass of clouds drifts through and the rain returns. These can be good fishing days, and this particular one was.

I saw more mayflies than I have seen since early May and found a few good trout that were interested enough to come to the table. Weather is changing here, as summer rapidly wanes, and autumn comes nigh the doorway. Once this morning’s rain passes, the nighttime lows will dive into the low fifties, even the forties, with the daytime highs through Saturday in the sixties. We have come to the final week of another Catskill summer.

Amid the recent hatches of mayflies, I have found something new, and taken the time to craft a dry fly to fish the hatch effectively. Sunshine can offer wonderful detail to the eye, but it may also deceive. The dark wings of mayflies may appear quite brilliant when lit by the sun, backlit as they often are by the reflection of that sunlight from the surface mirror. The entire fly can appear lighter in color when drifting by. I became aware of this new mayfly color phase by chance encounter.

Fishing one afternoon a week ago I was wading down river when I felt something touch my hand. I looked to find a mayfly there, and quite a curious specimen. The wings of this size 12 mayfly were immediately familiar – Isonychia, but the body appeared tannish rather than the oliveish hue of a freshly hatched dun or the darker claret tone we are accustomed to. The claret color did appear, but only as a fine ribbing along the abdomen. From that moment forward, I considered there was more reason than sunshine for the pale appearance of many of the larger flies I had been seeing on the drift and in the air. The next morning, I hastily tied a single tan 100-Year Dun, size 12, with a claret thread rib on the abdomen.

My typical claret bodied 100-Year Dun has been fishing well since the Iso’s began to appear in late August, but it wasn’t the answer during Monday’s variable weather, when more flies were about. I knotted that lone tan fly, the pale iso with the claret rib, and gave it a try. September Bronze pictured above was the best of five trout that fly brought to hand, two of them exceeding that magic mark of twenty inches! That fly still rests in the foam of my summer chest pack, though it is so well chewed as to be barely recognizable.

Suffice to say that dubbing has been carefully blended, and a half dozen flies tied to be added to the Isonychia patterns I carry.

The heat wave is passing with today forecast to reach the upper seventies, and the trend for next week includes rainfall and cooler temperatures. Hopefully, our rivers will be in fine shape as mid-September passes, and we embrace the end of another Catskill summer.

Late summer fishing has remained challenging, yielding a few precious moments casting Isonychia dry flies to sporadic risers. I look forward to the coming week for more of the same, particularly if the predicted rainfall comes in measured time and feeds the entirety of the system. I have been anxious to return to the Mainstem Delaware, something I do each September, and the Beaver Kill calls as summer wanes and autumn appears. It is this historic river that draws my first casts each season, as well as my last.

Yes, there is no escaping that the season’s last cast is in sight, though I hope for nearly two months of approach time, time to exhaust the urgency in my spirit, to prepare for the transition into winter.

The Catskill Rodmakers Gathering is in full swing this weekend, and next Saturday I will take my turn as guest fly tyer at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum. It will be a special experience to sit at the old oaken table that has hosted dozens of the legendary Catskill fly tyers. Behind my shoulder, a cased display tells the tale of Theodore Gordon and houses the flies that inspired my 100-Year Dun. I hope that Theodore approves of my modifications to his style. Wouldn’t he be excited to see the feathers on a Charlie Collins dry fly cape!

I think he would be surprised to see the healthy supply of Wood duck flank as well, since they had become nearly impossible to obtain in his later years. I think he would appreciate the long, still pools ripe with cold water if he stalked one of the Delaware tailwaters. Imagine fishing his Neversink below the dam, fooling big, wild browns with delicately hackled flies tied on size twenty hooks. I have a feeling he would be out there all summer long, enthralled with the challenge, as I am.

There is an unfished special edition Orvis CFO sitting here within arm’s reach, it’s spool wound with a double taper four weight line woven of classic silk. The line was a gift from a friend, and I promised myself to fish it this summer. I think the old Leonard 50 above is a perfect match. I clean my standard fly lines each time I take them fishing, so I expect I can transition to the dressing, drying and respooling responsibilities of fishing a classic silk fly line. In my mind I can hear the soft whirr of that line as it passes through the tiny snake guides of that classic cane rod, sending a little olive 100-Year Dun across a smooth bright Catskill flat!

September is the time to steal a few days with a friend. JA and I have had little time together on the river this season. I keep telling him that I need to teach him how to be retired. He’s a slow learner, always finding far too much work to do. A lot of people seem to share that affliction, the inability to relax and enjoy after a long working life. I confess I never experienced that malady, embracing the joy of retirement with open arms. There are after all so many lovely pools on so many wild and beautiful rivers…

I felt an urgency as I gathered my tackle and headed for the river yesterday, though I didn’t really expect the fishing I hoped to find to begin until afternoon. Hurry when you must I guess.

I was looking for another shot at a big brown that had overpowered angler and rod and cut me off two days earlier, and though experience tells there was no good reason to expect a rematch, I still felt that urgency.

I reached the riverbank with my rod already rigged, the 100-Year Dun Isonychia clipped into the nickel silver ring of the hook keeper. I started my slow walk into the wind, finding the river cleared from the previous day’s runoff. It was just about Noon when I reached the run, and began to slowly scan the current for signs of life.

I could see a few flies in the drift, and occasionally one on the wing, but there was no sign of a rise.

Before I waded into casting position, I flicked a few casts into the gradually deepening flow. Better to hook a trout then step on one, should there be something sheltering near one of those rocks on the bottom; waiting.

I had readied myself, wishing to relieve that urgency, so at last I made the cast I had been waiting two days for. The fly alighted, cocked perfectly, setting low on it’s hackles as it bounced down current. I felt the tension in my back and shoulders begin to ease and then the river erupted in a heavy spray of white water. He came for that fly as if he too had been waiting two days for it’s return. Some things are simply meant to be.

We had a time there in the deep, frothy currents of the run, my vintage Thomas & Thomas Paradigm fully arched with the strain, connected to all of his power and life force, the ratcheting screams of the old CFO rising above the sound of wind and rushing water! It was as I had imagined it would be.

At last I led him to the edge of the river and the waiting net. His flanks were wide, colored a deep, time polished bronze, and his belly glowed with that dark, old gold. He was beautiful and worthy of all my admiration as I twisted the fly free from it’s hold in his lip.

My net shot net awry, the camera screen flashing battery depleted when I pressed the on button. I have only the picture in my mind, thus I have shared another in homage to this warrior.

He shot back to the safety of the run as soon as I slipped him free of the mesh, big and vibrant and still sure of himself despite our second meeting having gone my way.

I began casting with vigor after those moments passed, covering all of the fast water of the run and the tail of the riffle above, conscious of a gathering cloudiness in the water. By half past one, the river was brown instead of clear, and I could not see my boot when standing knee deep in the flow. There were no rises visible anywhere.

The sky was clear and blue to all quarters, and there was no chance some downpour on the mountainsides had rushed dirty runoff down some upstream tributary. No, this had to be some devilment of man.

I walked out then, concerned and angered that some miscreant would foul our beautiful river this way, my spirit as clouded as the water just a short time after it’s uplifting in the run.

It is a wonderful thing to have chilly nights, cooler days and copious amounts of rainfall! Here we are at the end of August, the month so many anglers refer to as the dog days, and our rivers are flowing cold and beautiful through the landscape. The freestoners have plentiful flows and the tailwaters will bring a chill to your bones. You can see the insects coming back!

Though I love each day I am blessed to wander these Catskill rivers, that hasn’t been the case throughout this summer. I remember fishing during what amounted to the best part of the summer sulfur hatch on the West Branch Delaware. The flow was elevated in the upper river and on one seemingly perfect afternoon I saw little in the way of mayflies of any kind. Rain runoff mixing with the release flow had raised the water temperature to 54 degrees there, and that is cold by normal standards, but this area usually advertises downright frigid water. I am not a scientist, so I cannot say why the sulfur and olive hatches continue for two to three months past their normal freestone time frame, but the hatches certainly thrive on that 47-degree water. The extra seven degrees that day demonstrated just how precious the frigid flow can be.

I sought out some fast, cold tailwater flows again on Tuesday, and was rewarded with an hour or so fencing with several very active trout. On an afternoon with rapidly changing sky conditions, cloudy one minute with peaks of golden sunlight the next, I found a small hatch to draw me into the fantasy.

A couple of trout were slashing the surface of the run when I arrived, and I could see a few wings on the surface, mostly small pairs awash in the turbulent flow, but here and their I caught a glimpse of larger wings. Immediately I cast my old friend the Isonychia into the fray.

Chasing those slashes failed to produce a hookup, and I reasoned that those fish were simply moving too fast, probably chasing the big swimming nymphs up through the moving water. Being a hardened dry fly fisherman, there was no way I was going to fish underwater. I felt confident that my 100-Year Dun would tempt a few of the better trout to the surface.

I concentrated on the softer seems close to the larger rocks that I could just barely make out beneath. The river was coloring up somewhat, and seemed to rise slightly, and I suspected there had been a quick cloudburst somewhere on the mountainside that hurried soiled runoff down a tributary. Watching a heavier rise in one of those calmer seams, I targeted several casts there and reaped the benefits with a solid grab and a heavily arched, bouncing rod tip!

My foe wasn’t inclined to leave that deep, fast water to make a long run like a pool dwelling brownie, so I had to win the fight on his terms. That T&T cane throbbed each time he gave me a glimpse then dove again. When finally reduced to possession, that foot and-a-half of brown trout was absolutely gorgeous, displaying a deep polished bronze flank littered with brilliant dots of crimson.

Continuing with my plan of fishing along the calmer seams, the next and larger taker offered a similar challenge, fighting deep and long until the flexible power of the vintage bamboo finally subdued him. By that point the hatch seemed to turn toward a predominance of smaller mayflies. Catching a glimpse of bright yellow clued me into tying on a Hebe version of my 100-Year Dun which accounted for another pair of brownies, these significantly smaller like the flies themselves.

When I saw the wings of a larger fly once more, I changed back to my friend Isonychia. Continuing to cast to those seams, I witnessed a flash of bronze as a nose jutted through the surface attached to a huge gill plate. The fly drifted perfectly once, then twice. The third cast was the charm, or perhaps the curse.

The fish took solidly, and I raised the rod into a perilous arch. The cane throbbed, but the trout refused to turn my way. He powered straight down into the froth and cut my fluorocarbon tippet like it was nothing. Ah, I hope we meet again leviathan! Would that your fondness for the 100-Year Isonychia will lead you to my net as summer wanes…

They weren’t always so hard to find, those beautiful big claret colored mayflies, but the past few seasons I simply have seen very few. Under normal conditions, they are not overly obvious despite their size, typically a size 10 in June and size 12 come September.

You see, the Isonychia bicolor isn’t prone to showy hatches and long surface drifts through placid pools. The book on them says they prefer to crawl out of the water on a rock and hatch in the air. You can find their spent nymphal shucks on the rocks if you look for them, long and slender with a white stripe down the back. That racing stripe gives anglers another clue, for those nymphs are fast swimmers!

There are times when Isos will rise to the surface, hatch and drift on top like the majority of our big Catskill mayflies, and they can be magical. I recall a day some two decades ago when they were everywhere from ten in the morning until four in the afternoon. Ah, that was something to behold!

Most of what you will read about fishing the Isonychia hatch will tell you to rig up with a wet fly, the classic pattern being the Leadwinged Coachman, and swing and twitch them through riffles and runs. That’s good advice and brings to mind the absolutely massive rainbow that erupted from the Delaware one morning with my own Leadwing fixed in his jaw. His scorching run left me breathless, and sadly fishless as the hook failed to hold. Yes, wet flies and nymphs for the swimmers, but I am a dry fly fisherman.

I fantasize about another day like the one long ago, with phalanxes of big claret duns bobbing down the surface of a run and big trout rising greedily, but generally I simply tie on an Isonychia pattern during the times they are around on Catskill rivers, otherwise known as June through October. If I am going to prospect for good trout on a cloudy day during that period, a size 10 or 12 Iso is a good bet when there isn’t any other hatch going on.

Yesterday was the first high summer day that looked and felt more like autumn had arrived. The rain threatened, though didn’t fall until the drive home. I got deathly cold, being unexplainably underdressed for the conditions, and I caught a couple of nice brownies on an Isonychia 100-Year Dun.

There were a few scattered rises where a riffle became a run, and I worked that run for perhaps an hour with my little 7 and 1/2-foot Orvis Madison. There was a quick plop as my fly bounced past the protruding tip of a rock, and I set the hook into a good fish. He showed no intention of leaving the tumbling currents of that run, but the pull of arcing bamboo finally convinced him. At nineteen inches, he was the first and largest fish of the day.

I kept hitting every spurt rise that popped in that fast water, all the way down until it smoothed out into a deep glide. Those trout may have been moving, chasing some of those swimming nymphs, or even swiping at the few tiny olives that persisted throughout the afternoon. I didn’t get another hookup until I landed my fly above the rapidly dissipating ring from a soft rise in the glide. While not as large as his predecessor, he put up a respectable fight against the short bamboo rod.

Were those two brown trout taking the invisible mayfly? Can’t be sure, though they certainly took mine!