Seven inches of new snow lies softly here in Crooked Eddy. The temperature remains squarely at the freezing mark, unwavering over the past twenty-four hours. Winter has settled in and become comfortable here in the Catskill Mountains.

I have begun my winter work, inventorying and ordering silk, counting hooks and planning those orders. I cleaned, oiled and polished the old .30-.30 deer rifle, putting it away to sleep until next November. I even managed to craft a few more flies, that new dace pattern that sparked my imagination, for swinging winter currents as I did on Friday.

It dawned a sunny day Friday, and blessedly stayed that way. I knew that weather was coming, so I grabbed the Kiley rod and an intermediate line, then pulled my feet into the heaviest socks I own.

The fluffy alpaca wool and all of that sunlight kept me eager to make the most of the day, wading the river for nearly four hours, finally settled in myself to endure hours of cold water in something not too far from comfort. The trout seemed to have been unimpressed by the day that charged my batteries, for I found nothing to interrupt the slow, deep swing of my flies save a pair of rocks quite firmly planted in the river’s bottom. No matter. I have learned that winter’s trophy trout are rare blessings, best saved for when the spirit sorely needs them. It was a good winter’s day!

I am thinking of bacon and pancakes this morning, a little substance to warm the inner me, before I get back to those chores. Dry flies still wait to be sorted, and there are a few rods that might appreciate a polishing. My tying desk sorely needs to be excavated from the wealth of books, gear, papers and practical fly containers hiding the warm glow of that curly maple. I need to make it ready for the season’s more serious tying, and I owe the Catskill Fly Tyer’s Guild an article for their Gazette. Our editor is planning a celebratory issue, as January 2023 marks twenty-five years of publication. While I was not a Guild member a quarter century ago, I was a Catskill fly tyer and angler, so I plan to consult the archives of my memory for an idea.

I was thinking about uncasing my flintlock and visiting JA’s favorite corner of the Catskills. He reported sighting two bucks that survived the rifle season and showed up just where I had been hunting. This morning’s weather outlook was sobering though. Calling for ten degrees here by dawn tomorrow, I would expect single digits higher up in the mountains, and a noisy, crusty and slippery world completely unsuited for sneaking within handshake distance of such a whitetail buck. Perhaps some warmer air will allow a careful walk along those ridges before the season closes, though there is more snow expected for later this week.

Should have been up there as this snow was falling on the last day of rifle season, though those bucks would have moved on elsewhere with me within a mile of those haunts!

The days have remained dreary of late, though there is a promise of sunlight today. With snow arriving for a weekend visit, I will make the most of the brief hours of warmth and cheer that December chooses to share.

I am still wandering in that lengthy period of seasonal adjustment. A few books have been read, a few flies tied, but there have been too many hours spent in limbo. I am yet to begin the necessary tasks of winter, sorting flies, polishing rods, taking stock of the hooks and materials required for winter’s creations.

The Translucence Series is planned for expansion, so a careful inventory of silk is necessary. Ordering must happen sooner rather than later, as delivery takes time. As I sort my supplies, I must consider my needs for new blends to mimic additional hatches. I have tended to blend very small amounts of dubbing, as I have always done for experimental flies. Once proven however, as several have been, it makes sense to blend a reasonable supply.

There may be room for another winter fly as well. After a few months of ideas dashing through my brain, the baitfish imitation that has teased my consciousness now lies in the fly box. The Dazed Dace has seen water for the first time and will continue it’s early trials today. Though I found no quality trout out and about at the beginning of the week, I was pleased with the new fly’s appearance in the water.

It is hard to avoid drifting back in memory at this time of year, a dalliance I allow and enjoy, for it permits me to recall moments of understanding, impressions, and the spur of the moment ideas that brightened many days and never found their way to fur, feathers and steel.

Fly fishers will leap at the chance to debate the merits of trout flies, some firmly convinced that they need no more than a handful of classic patterns to face every situation the stream provides. One will denounce the importance of color, convinced that form and visibility are paramount, others will swear all of it is rubbish, and presentation alone brings trout to their nets. Though I love the classics and their histories, I am long convinced that our trout are changing, and that one of the keys to successful fishing is to continue upon the paths of those historic anglers to improve our flies and our skills upon the water! Our angling history was peopled by seekers! It is my own appreciation of angling history that brought me here. I attempt to honor that history by my own humble efforts, and the quest keeps life fresh and invigorating!

Ah, there is warm light in the sky. Time for breakfast and assembling gear. Soon cane will flex and the Dace will be released to explore a December river…

Shivering in my boots, I cast the line far, out near the limits of the classically tapered bamboo rod’s range, watched the fly touch down gently despite it’s size and weight, and began the long, slow swing into the second season…

For the first time in a month, I sat down at my bench this morning, fixed a hook in the vise, and started the thread. These were not dry flies, the jewels of my passion. No, they were destined to sink and swing slowly through the cold winter rivers that I will call home for the next six months. The idea is to offer a fly that quivers with life, one that does not need twitches or a retrieve to speak to the trout of life, and vulnerability. One, the fly I named the Copper Fox, brought my largest Catskill brown trout to the net in the bowels of winter, and much is expected of it this year.

As the rain beat harder on my metal roof this afternoon, I poured myself a bit of bourbon to welcome winter and it’s helter-skelter, fish when the ice releases ways. It is a smooth Kentucky whiskey, a gift from one of my best friends two years ago, and a change from the single malt I reserve to toast high points of the season of the dry fly. I tied three more Copper Fox to finish my day’s production, and set my tools and materials aside.

My surrender to the inevitability of winter is complete. I ventured out yesterday, cheered by the bright sunshine and blue skies, taking just a reel with an intermediate line, and without a box of dry flies.

I thought I had donned enough insulation, but when the sun vanished after a few minutes of wading I quickly became cold. Most rivers remain high and colored from last week’s rain, and with today’s short burst and more to follow, I cannot say when I might wade and cast once more. Such is the nature of winter in these mountains. Opportunities come when they will, with days perhaps, or many weeks between. Eventually the ice will arrive and even this slow, swinging substitute for fishing will cease.

There is a new pattern flitting through my brain, though it has yet to take form. Snaps of concepts and ideas have been flirting since September, a dace with that wonderful movement, but such things cannot find life while the dry fly season reigns. I should sit down and work it out, now that winter is upon us. Soon…

The calendar has turned once again, and I have meandered about the house, taken a few river walks, read a few books acquired over the course of the season. The rivers call me now, as the morning begins to betray the day’s gift of sunshine, and I ponder the chance to wade strong current again for a few hours.

The warmer days have been wet, tired and gloomy, so the sunshine is not a gift to take lightly.

Other than within the world of my reading, I have thought little of fishing, still tearing myself away from the throes of season’s passing. This was always a gentler time during the Cumberland Valley years, for I knew that my fishing would continue through winter. There might be hiatuses, yes, when a series of cold fronts poured over the mountains there might be a week or two when the bare trees rattled with ice and wind, but the normal weather days still invited visits to the limestone springs.

Sunlight was always the key to winter thrills there, for it activated the water weeds and their oxygen spurred activity among the food chain. On any winter day a visit to the stream might reveal the soft ring of a rise. A quick adjustment to leader and tippet to offer a midge or tiny olive before opportunity evaporated in the sparkling winter air, this was the task of the winter angler in the limestone country. The reward might be a hefty brown or rainbow as eager to take advantage of the surface opportunities as I!

I brought the dream of winter dry flies north with me when I retired. I have learned that it may live only in memory amid the grand beauty of our Catskill rivers. I still cling to a vestige of hope, shunning logic and experience. All it takes is one rise! The closest I have come was an afternoon in the beginning of spring, the 27th of March, as I watched a handful of little olive duns bouncing down a Delaware pool. The rise came, I quickly knotted a fly, and my devotion was rewarded. That foot long brown trout ignited my season, though weeks would pass before I would find a second riseform on the surface of any Catskill river.

The sun has spread over the ridges to the southeast now, and there is a pleasant glow in the small windows in my tying den. My thoughts drift to the rivers, still high from this week’s rain. It is twenty degrees in Crooked Eddy.

As I adjust to the end of my dry fly season and my daily love affair with the Catskill rivers, I have yet to wipe the dust off my fly tying vise and give serious thought to the next long stage of angling, though that time is nearing. There have been a few passing thoughts bouncing around in my head, though they have clearly fallen short of inspiration. Fly tying, and more specifically pattern design, require inspiration; that moment when thoughts and ideas suddenly crystallize, and a new design is born!

Mood can be very important, and it can be difficult to find just the right frame of mind to take out the fly boxes that accompanied me during the past season and sort through their contents. That is certainly one of the best ways to begin, for certain flies are tied to memories, memories that drive inspiration.

My angling library is varied, though many of the volumes that merit annual revisiting lie in the realm of older classics. I pour through the thoughts and revelations of Gordon and Hewitt, Shenk, Marinaro and LaFontaine, for there are always fresh clues that kindle new thoughts. Though I read a bit throughout the year, winter reading is a concept that finds itself at home in a Catskill winter.

Inspiration for the designs I call the Translucence Series came simply, as often the best ideas do. I was fishing my old, reliable silk dubbed sulfur dun one bright summer day and, as I paused to fluff the CDC wing, I noted the glowing translucence of the blended yellow silk body. That moment evolved into a system of blended silk dubbed flies tied on Daiichi Crystal Finish hooks with pure white tying silk, and the results of those experiments have caused the bag of my landing net to sag deeply. Reserved for difficult trout on generally bright days, these patterns have solved problems I have often encountered.

I have a few goals this winter, expanding the Translucence Series among them. I need a new terrestrial, something special to turn to on the toughest summer days, and that one will take some thought, as well as a thorough consultation with my Cumberland Valley history. In truth, there are a few one-off patterns nestled in my fly boxes that might fill that need, for they were tried quite briefly. Those deserve a significant trial on the water, as does any sound design. For now though, I am still working up to beginning that beneficial task of sorting.

One of the benefits of winter reading comes when the tales of other anglers from the past ignite my own memories. There are thoughts that occur only on the water, often in a moment of consternation during a duel with one particular trout: the character of the light upon the water, the subtle impression of a crippled fly as it drifts into and out of my sight, a closer glimpse of some subtle clue that suddenly becomes a telling riseform!

Winter has just begun, and there is ample time before us to delve into the quiet, indoor world of the angling art.

Sitting on the mountainside half an hour before sunrise I can hear the music of the brook below. It’s tone seems even more crystalline than usual in the frozen air, and it brings a smile to my face in the darkness. Many months will pass before I return to watching bright water while listening to it.

As I sat, I thought about the winter before us, saying a little prayer that it is milder than the last two, and wetter, with a penchant for lighter snowfalls and rainfall perfect for recharging the aquifers that feed the mountain springs and filling reservoirs. In short, I asked for a floodless year, a year with ideal flows for wading trout rivers great and small.

It would seem only fair that spring arrives early and with those ideal flows, for the later months of the season remain in question. New York City revised their schedule for repairs to the Delaware Aqueduct, cancelling this past season’s planned drawdown and planning it for 2023. They still have not provided the public with a clear description of just how this will affect our Catskill rivers, and angler’s fear this could turn out to be the summer of our discontent.

Much will depend of course on Nature’s plans for the season. Though we cannot tell how much stored water will be surplus from NYC’s rather vague official press statements, certainly an excessively wet season will mean higher discharges for longer durations. Our best bet for a long and enjoyable dry fly season would seem to require a normal water year, whatever that is. With blissful long weeks of summer trout stalking in jeopardy, a particularly sweet, perfect spring season would be coveted desperately.

Though I walked the mountain this morning with snow crunching beneath my boots, it was a glorious day that warmed gently. Back home in midafternoon, I decided to take my first river walk of the season to enjoy the best of the fifty-three degree sunshine, though the chill returned as I reached the shadows of Point Mountain. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we are promised another gorgeous day, with a bit of rainfall overnight and Friday. The rain is right on schedule to refresh the rivers, and Sunday offers more. Maybe my little prayer did some good!

Barely mid-November, and snow lies on the slopes of the Catskills. Days ago, seventy degrees and sunny, and now the majority of the days this week will huddle in the thirties; ah, changes! There is no plan for fishing right now. Perhaps a little warming trend will pass through come December, before the ice grips the rivers and makes the change complete.

I tented the drift boat just in time, feeling certain that the region’s first forecast snowfall would come to pass. That has become an annual ritual of surrender. I have tied no flies for the past ten days, there being no urge to wet them. Well, that’s not wholly correct. The urge remains, though the time has come when judgement of the conditions and the inevitability of season’s end conquers all.

I have an old friend who long ago moved to Florida, planning to fish year-round. The Saltwater game is exciting when in play, but my dabbling found it to be very much a feast or famine affair. In all the wild and endless arena of the ocean, it can be rare to find the fish you seek in the fishing location you choose. In trout rivers, there is some comfort in knowing they are there. The hunt remains electric, for the experienced angler knows his quarry is always close. The game requires adapting to the moods of the fish, the temperature, clarity and flow of the river, for we know there will be trout just a cast away. That makes it very much a mental game, until winter.

I miss the urgency of that mental game in winter, though it continues without rod nor reel nor bright water at hand. Thoughts turn back to specific moments, those where the correct decisions were made, and those where they were not. Pondering the merits of the choices not made, assessing the flies offered, casting positions, time of day; all of this keeps the mind connected through the months of ice and snow.

One of the joys I find in reading classic works from angling history involves recognizing and comparing the mental processes. More than a century ago, Theodore Gordon was considering the words of Englishmen like Halford and assessing their approaches to the same problems, as I might assess Gordon’s approach to a situation encountered last week, last season, or a decade ago. We have much more in the way of science today, yet the same puzzles are revealed on the water, challenges to be met by a solitary angler with his tackle and his wits. Observation of the moment still means more than all of the data collected!

The odyssey of our warm November is departing on the tails of the tropical storm they called Nicole. The rain is welcome, though it seems there will be less of it than once surmised. Days ago, the call was for two to three inches, down to an inch and a half yesterday and now halved again. Frosty mornings have returned, though we may see sixty degrees yet today; and once more tomorrow to start the weekend. Fair warning though, for there are snow showers in Wednesday’s forecast; and yes, the angling season has finally come to it’s conclusion.

I wandered the rivers last week, enjoying the seventy-degree weather and sunshine, knowing there would not be a third last hurrah, and now it is time to bid the magic times a fond and grateful goodbye and accept that winter is coming. It is time to store my tackle and organize my tying desk, for there are days to spend with Hewitt and Gill and Connett, hours to retreat once more into the soft glow of the Golden Age, and wait…

The dry fly season of 2022: April 15th through November 7th – may it rest now fondly in memory! I credited even that last day to the ledger, for there was a single splashy refusal to a cricket tossed out on a whim amidst the gale, and thus an opportunity. Nearly seven months of magic this year, and that after the sizeable flood that all but erased it’s beginning and the drought that devastated our beautiful Catskill summer. It was a season that proved difficult in various ways, for those natural events are not kind to the insects that provide the spark for the magic we seek. The rewards were fewer and farther between, but Nature revealed her largesse in other ways!

The rain comes hard on my metal roof just now, giving me hope for something more than the diluted forecast has offered. I know the trout will fare better with good flows as we enter the long, cold halls of winter. Here’s to more rain, less ice, and a few brief but functional warming trends to relieve the monotony of the off season!

As the rain fell in earnest, the last soft rings vanished with the parade of miniature wings that preceded them. Imagine, a touch of dry fly fishing in November!

The opportunity was brief, and perhaps as preordained, I had left the one fly box containing the sub sized olives in the car. There were my trusty autumn twenties and twenty-twos handy right there in my vest, but they proved as useless as an anvil for tempting those sipping rainbows. Still, it was a wholly unexpected chance to play the game once more.

Brilliant sunshine and otherworldly temperatures have prevailed since then, laughing in the face of a typical November in the Catskills. Yesterday I had to succumb to the lure, standing in the middle of the mighty Delaware in my shirtsleeves. Just your typical November day…

Another like it is on tap today, the sun already blinding me through the curtain covering the window above my tying desk, and though I know I shan’t find any of those tiny olives nor soft dimples in the film, I cannot resist.

I carried the dry fly rod yesterday, my Dennis Menscer Hollowbuilt, strung up for one last chance to loft the dry fly over bright water. I ended up disgracing that sword, swinging weighted soft hackled things beneath the ripples where the run deepened, for such a weapon is destined for grander things. I simply had to enjoy the pleasure of casting in the sunshine under those brilliant skies!

Hope tells me there ought to be some remnant band of mayflies, some rouge group still clinging to the stones and ready to hatch now as Nature has raised the water temperatures once more, though my mind tells me otherwise. The winter rod would be the better foil, for it has proved its capabilities when called to deliver tiny dry flies to take advantage of miracles.

The frost is heavy this morning as I awake and make my way down the stairs. So many mornings I have felt the anticipation for the days’ fishing, but now that feeling is quelled. This week, November comes calling, and I will park the drift boat and prepare it for winter.

I will sort through the myriad items that have acquired temporary homes on my fly tying desk and store most of them away, including all of those Gordons and Hendricksons hastily removed from my primary fly boxes back in June. These flies will be returned to those primary boxes, the Wheatley’s that will not find their homes in my vest pockets until April. Along the way, I will make notes as to the patterns that will be tied during winter, when that irresistible urge strikes me to touch something of spring.

The mature wild brown trout of the Catskills are either spawning or recovering at this time of year, and it is now that I table my desires to be on the rivers daily and leave them to their rest. Depending upon the particular character of the onset of winter, I may welcome a handful of days to return to walk the riverbanks and swing some description of a soft hackled fly through the glides and runs ones they have regained their strength. Winter shall decide my fate.

The field will call to me this month, more so once the fever of my fishing passion has diminished a bit. It is hard just now, in this season of withdrawal. Yesterday afternoon was gently warm and glorious, yet I stayed inside to fight the terrible urge to take up my rod and reel and walk the rivers. It is easier if I sit quietly and ponder the morning frost. The morning sun has climbed the mountains to the southwest and lights the curtain here in my window. From it’s appearance, it could be summer, for it still holds that warmth and color, not the cold, austere light of winter.

Looking forward, November’s first week looks to include a parade of afternoons in the sixties, and that will make my transition ever more difficult. Fine weather is meant for fishing after all!

I always encounter someone who speaks of trout rising in November, yet I demure, I maintain my withdrawal. Surface food is beyond scarce at this season, and I leave the recovering trout to it. Invariably I shall not harry them as they forage for nymphs upon the bottom. They have provided a long and beautiful season for the fly fisher, and richly deserve the chance to prepare for winter unscathed.

I have collected a few books during the season, older volumes to join the list of my winter reading. I am not there just yet, for the good weather deserves to be enjoyed afield. There will no doubt be many long runs of icy, frigid days when a short walk about town will be my only respite.

Thoughts of better days shall be recalled to sustain me as winter marches slowly on. Many cold mornings will be spent tying dry flies, their fate being such that they shall not see bright water for months. Each must wait to entice a trout, as must I!

As I ponder the long months ahead, I dream…