Nearly seven and it is still dark; a heavy frost has settled upon Crooked Eddy. It is twenty-nine degrees, and I have half a dozen freshly tied Red Quill Emergers waiting for the fly box. Still October, and Red Quills? Indeed, I think of the task as building hope for a better spring…

Half a dozen more for the larger Hendricksons have joined them now: wood duck tailing, wrapped Pheasant tail fibers for the slim abdomen, a wisp of fox fur dubbing and a shortened CDC wing. The heavy wire hook lets them nestle in the film while the current brings life to the CDC fibers; the trout cannot resist!

The Leonard unfurls a perfect loop, and the somber hued offering is cast. I squint to follow the hint of dun color where the light catches the CDC feathers and then it is gone! The golden arch of cane throbs with his energy as he sprints away while the Hardy ratchets my favorite song, and all is right with the world.

I have months to dream of such moments. October wanes and November stands ready. Driving out to Roscoe yesterday I viewed miles of the higher slopes, already bare to herald the gray season. Where the lower ridges adjoined the Quickway there was still some color, tones of russet with a dwindling spark of yellow or orange.

My trip was to the Fly Fishing Center, answering the call to help with their first after school fly tying class. I was pleased at the turnout, some of the children were quite young, as it is good for local kids to learn of the wonders and history of the Catskill’s outdoors. Most of the local people do not cast a fly to these cherished bright waters, and it is good to see their youngsters enjoy a chance to sample all that Mother Nature has bestowed upon the region.

Sunshine is destined to melt the frost as the day proceeds, and light those ridgelines with lingering color. I have many little tasks to compete for my attention, tying more flies in hope for springtime not the least among them. Daydreams come easy at the vise.

Clear, sunlit days are too fine for my plans, for there is nothing I would rather do than steal another chance to become enthralled with the magic of the dry fly! Despite such brilliant sunshine, river temperatures continue their decline, staying somewhere in the forties these days. Chances for that flash of magic dwindle with each degree below fifty.

Perhaps I shall dream of spring once more…

I took a few moments to update my little log book this morning. I contains the notes of my fishing days and my production at the fly-tying bench, and I have kept it since the beginning of my first full year of retirement to these Catskill Mountains. Once tallied up to date, I found that the 23rd of October, my dry fly finale which was so perfectly graced with an unexpected spark of magic, was my 100th fishing day for 2025!

I was a little surprised to find that I had managed 100 days in this year. Much of what should be the peak of the dry fly season in May and early June were lost due to heavy rains and late spilling reservoirs. That mark is somewhat of a milestone I guess, though I am two to three weeks short of my annual expectations.

The loss of the Hendrickson hatch was felt most bitterly. A few flies were seen, though I never witnessed anything like the typical hatches I have met in three decades of Catskill angling. Could better numbers of these sacred mayflies have come off during the terribly high water which left our rivers unfishable? Certainly, that could have been a factor. Flows of 5,000 to 8,500 cfs on our upper tailwaters are far beyond suitable flows for dry fly fishing. We can only wait for April with hope in our hearts!

It is not unusual for anglers to remember fondly the great seasons, and shake their heads and complain about those far less thrilling, yet that has been a very common theme this year. Don’t get me wrong, life upon these bright waters is still an incredible blessing, but we anglers do tend to look to the best days, particularly here on the cusp of another long winter.

I may add a few days to my count before autumn gives way to winter. That is mostly in the hands of Mother Nature, for she has been known to drop the curtain of winter early in November. I’ll not be expecting to find good trout sipping in the film if I do have more days on the rivers, though I would certainly greet any of these moments with joy and surprise. The most necessary ingredient is still rainfall, as it has been since late July.

Despite television weather maps predicting wholesale rainfall this week, our local forecast shows just over an inch over three days’ time. We need at least thrice that, an inch per day for three days, and none of it in downpours.

The sun will shine today, beautiful to behold, and I enjoy each moment of it this time of year. The gray season awaits.

With coffee brewed and a bit of breakfast, I decided early this morning to bid goodbye to my river for the season. I quickly tied a trio of size 16 Partridge & Pheasant Tails, gathered a prized Leonard rod and its favorite old reel, completing my plans.

It was still cold when I headed out, stuffing a sandwich in my vest as I loaded rod and reel and pulled a windproof fleece jacket over my hoodie with a shiver. The skies looked dark, and I hoped at least the wind might stay down for some of my fishing.

I knotted one of the little Partridge & Pheasant Tails to my tippet, offering a long cast and a slow swing to the somber river. I truly had no expectation of a trout, the day being a necessary ritual to allow my angler’s soul to accept the transition to the gray season.

I walked softly through the trickling water, leaving my fortune to fate as I swung that soft hackled fly down through a favorite run, a run I will not visit again until spring. The wind obliged and I felt warm enough until the dark day and cold water began to work it’s way from my feet to my knees.

Surprise found me two thirds of the way down that run. It came as a tentative pull which evolved into a wriggling trout on the line. I smiled all out of proportion to his size. The little brownie danced all over the river, forty-degree water or not. When I lifted him by the fly I smiled again. All of eight inches, he made my day. Hell, he might have gone nine!

I did have another hookup before I finished my swings, just for a moment, after a quick tug that surprised me all over again. When the cold began to get into my bones I waded over to the edge, enjoyed half my bottle of spring water, then dug the sandwich out of the back of my vest.

I ate as I walked slowly upriver, doing my best to avoid sending waves ahead with a hope for a sign of life as I traversed the pool.

The walk warmed me just a bit, enough that I continued on toward a ceremonial last cast to a lie that bewitched me more than once this spare, Catskill season. It was then that the white orb found a hole in the deep gray ceiling of the world, just long enough that I could feel a brief touch of warmth on my cheek.

I had resigned the dry fly season, admitted last week that it had passed away early despite some rainfall and warm days. I did not expect the ripple ahead on the glassy surface of the pool, nor the white wink of a trout’s mouth taking something from the surface. I tightened my grip on the Leonard and felt a twitch of the old excitement as I reached for a dry fly.

I suspected olives, though I failed to see any, as that trout continued to rise every now and then as I eased ever closer to casting range. In position at last, I found the Adams Poster that had given me some summer luck on that water failed to draw interest. I knotted a 20 olive, one of the Trigger Point Comparaduns that have been autumn staples in more generous years, staying fifty feet away from my moving target.

The gray light made it hard to track the fly at distance, but I saw it well enough to know it had not been taken. I dried it and dabbed a touch of powder into the sparse hackle fiber tail and the freshly fanned wing. After that, I relished the chance to play the game once more!

The trout would move, and I would cast in line with the last dimple in the gray mirror of the surface, letting the drift take the fly fifteen feet past him before I dared retrieve it. Each time he rose, he would be left or right of my cast it seemed, toying with me.

At last, the odds turned in my favor, as he rose in my chosen line of drift after my fly was on the water, then came again to sip my offering. The pause and the lift was instantly blessed with life and energy!

I played him carefully, up to the limits of the tiny hook, but not beyond them. The Hardy sang each time he darted away, and its music carried me off to that special place, that land I thought I would not visit for six long and fretful months.

A fine brown trout to close the season, cradled in the net while I snapped a photo. Nineteen inches and…something. A very fine trout indeed!

Soft hackles, eight feet of split bamboo, and my trusty Copper Fox: these are the things which get me to wandering as autumn passes. Oh yes! I still carry dry flies, far too many when I know they are only along as balm to my tangled thoughts.

Swinging seems to fit my mood as it does the nature of these autumn rivers. It requires little thought: a cast repeated, the long, slow swing, then two steps downstream. There is no figuring the fall of the fly tight to cover where leviathan lurks, no manipulation of the aerial line to finesse long drag free drifts. The sun is out, the rivers rising just a bit from another missed promise, and I need a walk beside bright water. The rod masquerades to give me purpose.

As the current slides downstream the line follows, the unseen fly drifting below with some tiny quiver of life. Life searches out life, and on occasion that connection is revealed, though not expected. The swing is part ritual and part farewell.

Little hope remains for a last moment of dry fly magic. I have guarded such wistful thoughts for weeks now, as a dry September turned into a dry October. I have made my best efforts to convince myself that the mature trout have been occupied with the spawning urge amid difficult circumstances, and that those who succeeded would return to their hunting lies and offer a sublime finale to the season. My mind admits now that this will not come to pass.

Trout which have navigated another drought season’s difficulties are not looking for surface food, for there has been little available since the full blush of summer. Mayflies, caddisfles, midges; all have been notable by their absence.

Alas, bright waters still pull at me, drawing me near despite my realizations, despite the evidence a spare season has piled before me. It is hard for the soul to let go, to release something as magic, as glorious and entrancing as a Catskill dry fly season!

It seems time to concede the dry fly season, for it has been too many days since I last encountered an opportunity to take a trophy fish on the surface. It is something I am loathe to do, but, wading rivers in the forties amid thirty mile per hour gusts yesterday seems to have battered that realization into my brain.

I swung a fly yesterday, the only presentation anywhere close to practical with the wind blowing upriver against the weak currents low water creates. I spent a good bit of my time laughing at the worst of the gusts the Red Gods hurled at me. Any observer would have thought they watched a crazy man, bracing against the wind and cackling as he leaned into the wind simply to stand there and laugh. This was not the first time I have laughed in the faces of those Red Gods.

I have seen fishers cursing and stomping, some kicking the water when things failed to go the way they wanted. Though I feel the loss of an opportunity when a hard-won take is missed, I do not curse the river or its gods. Fishing does not put me in the mind of curses or destruction. Fishing is my light and my salvation.

This was the kind of day that comes along through every season; a day where I simply needed to find myself amid the glory of bright water. Such days are not about any expectation for catching trout, they are about a balm for the soul. As it turned out, an unexpected reward appeared amid my fits of laughter in the wind storm.

The gusts were blowing the old Orvis bamboo rod upstream in my hand as I attempted to swing it gently down and across. I had just regained control of rod and line when a quick tug slipped the loop of loose line from my fingers, and I raised the rod to feel it throbbing with life! For a time, I could not tell what fish I had hooked, for it darted and splashed, disguising its form and color as I worked it closer, only to give line and let it dart away.

Finally, I drew it to hand, a lovely wild rainbow trout perhaps fifteen inches long, brilliantly colored and showing no signs of the stress of our long summer drought. I removed the fly and smiled to watch him dart away in the clear, wind tossed flow. I think I even smiled at those Red Gods briefly…

The Weather Channel’s TV maps were impressive, with large blocks of greens and clusters of yellow moving across the entire Catskill region. It looked hopeful, but I could not help but notice that my little section of Hancock didn’t look very wet at all early Sunday morning. It did rain, but there really wasn’t much of that beautiful airborne moisture falling. Checking river gages across the Catskills, I found them static, with even small streams registering little or nothing.

With some evidence of overnight rain and a passing shower here and there this morning I looked at a couple gages again with fitful hope. One river showed a rise of five one-hundredths of an inch. If you were wading that reach and that entire rise happened over a period of thirty seconds, you would never know the water level had changed. Fooled again!

I was planning to begin my grouse hunting season this morning, but those light showers proved to be just enough to dash those plans. If you hunt birds with your feet instead of a bird dog, your chances of flushing a bird or two in range are much better with dry crunchy leaves. You walk slowly through the cover, stopping every ten steps or so and standing still for half a minute. When you move, you take one step with your gun ready, making as much noise as you can. The Ruffed Grouse is a smart, cagey bird and will often sit tight and let a steadily moving gunner walk right on by, flushing behind him or not at all. The stop and hold tactic tends to make them nervous; supposedly they don’t know where you are if they can’t hear you and begin to question whether to fly or not.

I can’t say what the birds are thinking, but I know that the stop and hold style of hunting is the only way I get any flushes which occasionally offer the chance for a shot. Most of the grouse hunters who actually bag a few birds during the season hunt with a good grouse dog. The birds still have the advantage over these hunters, but a good dog at least gives the gunner half a chance. Dogless hunters like myself , more or less just like taking our favorite shotguns for a walk in the autumn woods.

With my grouse opener put off until tomorrow, I have taken that old T&T Hendrickson out of the rod rack. The CFO wearing the number five Bamboo Special fly line is sitting right here beside me, ready to take full advantage of that five one hundredths of an inch of new water flowing downstream.

I found a dead October Caddisfly on my porch the other day, guessing it had been attached to my waders which had hung to dry overhead. I tied a couple more of my CDX patterns yesterday just in case. Sadly, that is a fly I cannot tie the accurate matching pattern for due to the lack of the right feathers. To tie them right, I need large, darkish orange CDC puffs, something I simply can no longer find. One of yesterday’s flies has a flourescent orange puff tied over a pair of dark khaki puffs, my best hope to get a decent color effect with daylight shining through the composite wings. Perhaps I will tie one more of those. I have had success with multi-colored CDC wings on various mayfly patterns, Maybe tying another will boost my confidence when I cast that fly at a likely looking hide. The best fly is usually one you can fish with confidence!

We are two days into the second week of October, and it is thirty-seven degrees here in Crooked Eddy. “Abundant sunshine” is expected after daybreak, though without the punch it has been packing. Our high temperature is expected to be a cool, breezy fifty-three.

The rivers have a little bit of flow this morning, and no doubt some color; the change is felt even here at my desk.

Tomorrow may bring the first freeze of autumn. The warnings have already been raised. There are no seventy or eighty-degree days in our ten-day forecast this time, no return to summer lethargy. The woods are calling, adding their entreaties to the rivers’ voices.

Ah, the gift of precious rainfall! It makes me want to stalk the rivers, to close my hand around the cork of a classic Leonard rod and cast a dry fly to a subtle rise. I wish to fill my lungs with the first chill air of autumn, to take the full measure of these last days of the season!

I have laid awake for hours overnight, listening to the rain.

I fished in my rain jacket yesterday, ready to welcome that life giving elixir, but though the clouds gathered and the winds rose in gusts announcing the arrival of the front, the day remained dry. Like it the evening brought no relief, and a last look outside before bedtime still revealed a dry landscape.

It was after one in the morning before I awakened to the gentle patter on the rooftop.

We need several days of this, long, gentle soaking rains to replenish the rivers and the aquifers that feed the high springs from which the rivers are born. Once more, we will not get what we need.

Fishing has been, well, about as difficult as it can be. On a few days I have seen no signs of life at all. Bright sun and low water is neither friendly to the trout nor the angler. Others, like yesterday, have proven that trout still swim in these ribbons of dampened gravel that pass for our Catskill rivers.

There was an opportunity, and that gave me some heart as I count the last days of my season.

I carried an old friend, my Thomas & Thomas Hendrickson. It is a favored rod, and one that has not seen too many days upon the rivers this year. It’s casting refreshed my mood, as the line glided gently far across the water at my beck and call.

I saw no more than a handful of insects, perhaps a caddis or two, but I did find a random rise now and then to my delight. The breezes seemed the most likely bearer of the gifts those trout rose to meet, and my first choice of a caddisfly found replacement with a beetle. That fly would be the choice… but only once!

My casts were searching, prospecting for a moving trout after repeated drifts to his rise brought no response, when one brought a hard, nearly immediate take. My surprise was telegraphed through the cork by my hand too quickly, and I touched nothing. No fish would make such a mistake again.

I kept at it for several hours, changing flies and tippets, scanning the wind tossed surface whenever the gusts swirled across the river, but there would be no encore, no second chance. With each burst of wind through the trees I ached for the touch of the first rain droplets, dreaming of a misty rain and tiny olives mayflies drifting on the surface. Dreams can delight, and they can torment.

The rain seems to have stopped now, leaving only the dripping sound from the eaves.

It is half an hour past sunrise on the second day of October, and it is 37 degrees here in Crooked Eddy. It is most certainly autumn, though yesterday’s high temperature well exceeded it’s forecast.

I fished yesterday, carefully and thoroughly along a long reach of river, though my flies found no interested occupants despite the prevalent cover. It has been such a year upon the rivers of my heart.

I carried my Friendship Rod, and it cast a long, beautiful line as I prospected the cover from mid-river, despite the breeze which switched compass directions halfway through the afternoon. Far off delicate presentations completely ignored told me a story: the trout were simply not there to be tempted.

I continue to read the same reports: olives; olives and Isonychia! Funny that my eyes see only leaves upon the surface of the river. On my last visit to the big river, the mighty Delaware, I had the reach selected mostly to myself, though my gaze was uninterrupted by the rise of any trout. Another day, another hour? Well, Nature is capricious we all know.

Usually come October I am haunting different waters, visiting after midday to catch a brief rise to sparse little olives or to toss a late terrestrial to a bankside swirl, but there is no crystalline flow through some of my favorite reaches, just sun-bleached cobble. The mind tells the legs to walk farther, but the body feels only the ache of age in those limbs without the spirit’s refreshment.

It is the kind of season where patience may not be rewarded, at least not in the way we seek. The reward may be as subtle as the glint of afternoon light on the river. I know better than to take October for granted. Regardless of the gifts bestowed, or withheld, it is the last heartbeat of the dry fly season.