It has been a very pleasant week. Warm weather, comfortable evenings, what we used to call Indian Summer when I was a kid. Our afternoons have been in the seventies all week, and yesterday, wow, a gorgeously sun drenched eighty degrees!

Its funny how eighty can feel hot, even stifling in August, and just so perfect in October. Standing in an ice cold river certainly adds to the comfort factor, but even later, sitting on the porch with a cold Molson, the warm air simply envelops you and feels absolutely wonderful. It occurred to me that would probably be the very last eighty degree evening I would enjoy for seven or eight months.

I arose before sunrise this morning to find sixty-five degrees here in Crooked Eddy, the morning of the change. Tomorrow morning’s low temperature will be twenty degrees colder; Monday’s high thirty degrees short of yesterday’s lofty glow. And yes, there is more rain coming.

I tried wading in high water yesterday for a while, finding a hodgepodge of insects in the drift, and a few small scattered trout rising. There is a subtlety to rise forms. It takes a good deal of experience to read them accurately, for the clues vary constantly with water depth and current speed. Very large trout can rise with just the slightest disturbance in flat water, but there are clues to what lies beneath. Hydrodynamics are as immutable as all the laws of physics: a body displaces water, and a moving body will displace at least some of that water in it’s direction of motion. Sometimes that little swell in the surface film is so subtle as to be overlooked, and sometimes it isn’t there. When you can be certain of the absence of displacement, you can be pretty certain that you are watching little fish, though as with everything in Nature, there are exceptions.

I spent a little time yesterday picking and choosing which of those scattered rise forms might be worth a cast or two, figuring that a pound brown trout would be a suitable foe under difficult late season conditions. Never got one of those trout to take, most refusing to even hold their positions for an approach, but I was enjoying the day so why not indulge a bit.

When it was time to go I waded out thinking about my next stop. I pulled off along another river and watched one particular piece of water: nothing doing there. I drove on checking out several other places, finding the Friday afternoon crowd of visitors had arrived. There was a single truck parked at one of the pools I had in mind, so I pulled in and walked down to the water. There was no sign of human habitation, so I went fishing. Once out in the river, I began to look for rises, and I noticed an angler standing in the shade well upstream watching the riffle.

I spotted a dimpling rise three quarters of the way across and began to work my way out, tying one of my trusty size 20 olives to my tippet. Once I had worked my way into position, I still faced several very difficult currents, but there simply wasn’t any better position I could get into. I started working that trout when he rose a couple more times, but he didn’t seem to care for my comparadun. I switched over to a hackled pattern that gave the appearance of a smaller fly and managed to get him to suck it in, or so I thought. There was no one home when I lifted.

About this time my hackles got prickly and I turned to see that other angler had come down from the head of the pool and was slipping down the bank behind me. Some guys simply cannot understand that other anglers do not necessarily want company. He had chosen one end of the river, so I had chosen the other, leaving him to his water. He did pass me by a reasonable distance before he waded out into the river, but the effect was still the same: he cut me off from my intended fishing, which was working downstream through the tail of the pool. Thanks, pal.

I had seen one rise way over along the bank. Though it was just a soft dimple like the fish who refused my olive was making, there was that little swell that I recognized from across the river, I knew that was a better fish, and I also knew that my best plan would be to fish for the riser out in the current first. After the refusal, that bank fish sampled something again. I waited, and eventually he took another, this time several feet downstream and a bit closer to the bank. Meanwhile the refuser dimpled again and I wasted a few casts on him to pass the time, always keeping my eye on that better fish.

After about fifteen or twenty minutes, I had watched that bank fish rise maybe four times, enough to confirm that he was moving around in a triangular area of slower water perhaps ten feet long. That pocket was created by a sizeable rock a foot or so off the bank that caught the heavy current and directed it out toward the middle of the river. This was a very rocky area, a boulder field on the deep side of the river, so there was a lot of strong, fast current between me and that trout in the triangle, a difficult casting scenario if ever there was one. I cut back my leader and knotted three and a half feet of 6X fluorocarbon, then replaced the fly. I had studied the situation, and moved a few steps deeper to put myself where I could cast at a sharp downstream angle to defeat most of those intermingled currents; slack would have to defeat the rest of them.

At last I made a pitch with the olive, something I could see to check my drift. It alighted near the top of the triangle and floated perfectly for about half the length of the triangle, then those wonderful currents pulled the slack out of my tippet and skated it away. I changed the fly, figuring that my trout may have seen that skating display, though he had risen around the middle of the triangle prior to my cast. I waited, he moved downstream and rose again in the wide bottom of the triangle. I directed this cast further down the pocket, knowing I could only expect about four or five feet of drag-free drift. The fly dropped in the middle of the triangle and drifted perfectly down to it’s bottom without a take.

I didn’t check my watch, but I probably spent half an hour or so in this wait and cast mode. That trout wasn’t rising often, and he kept cruising up and down in that triangular pocket along the bank. The olive went untouched, as did an ant I offered him, so I thought that a different small terrestrial might turn the tide my way. I opened my vest’s fly pocket and dug around, finding a little size 19 Grizzly Beetle that made me smile. The trout came up again, two thirds of the way down the pocket from the rock, and I laid the little beetle in there. The drift looked clean, but he didn’t take. I picked it up gently and cast again, placing the fly a bit closer to the race of current that formed my side of the triangle, dumping some extra slack in the leader to ensure the drift. Game!

He was surprised when his snack pulled back at him, as was my “neighbor” standing down river when the ratchetting of my Hardy drew his attention to the bow in my rod. The trout stayed in the heavy current, dangerously close to a big, sharp edged boulder that would make short work of that 6X tippet, but my trusty Paradigm allowed me to keep a measure of control, finally leading him to the net after a spirited exchange. My bank sipper turned out to be a deep, buttery eighteen inch male with his spawning kype already formed. I twisted the beetle free with my forceps and slipped him back in the flow. I hope he fathers a bunch of strong, challenging wild trout for years to come!

I backed carefully out of my somewhat precarious casting position, and the angler downstream asked if it was a good fish. “Yes, it was a nice fish” I answered. With no other rising trout in sight, I backed into shallower water and decided to fish the short section of river bank upstream on my way back to the walking path. The 6X was removed, and I knotted my cricket to the remaining 5X, figuring that a choice meaty terrestrial just might tempt a trout that wasn’t snacking just yet. Working upstream and back to the middle of the river, I spied one nice bubble at the edge of a sizeable rock that brought an instant grin.

A cast, a take, and a screaming reel: a perfect way to end a gorgeous Indian Summer day!

I have managed to find a couple of nice trout this week, what may indeed be my last taste of dry fly fishing for the season. Our rivers remain at much higher flows than expected for mid- October, and what fishing I have located has offered a lesson in the magic of currents.

On Monday I spied a lone ring in deep water and, upon closer inspection, found a fine trout cruising around in a pocket of quick, intricate currents, sipping tiny mayflies of the blue winged olive persuasion. The currents were in a word, insurmountable on their own. Was that enough to set the stage for a wonderful challenge? No. Was the wind blowing and swirling perchance? Of course it was!

This was not the first time I have amused myself for a few hours trying an impossible trout.

At intervals I would relax for a moment and scan the wide expanse of water within clear vision. Not once did I detect even the slightest evidence of another feeding fish. I do love a challenge, but I would have easily conceded in this instance and moved on to another riser if there was any hope of one.

I had decided that this fish was not going to be taken under the existing conditions half an hour into our engagement, but he was persistent and I took that as a slight glimmer of hope, for I have caught impossible fish a time or two. Not this one though.

I realize that the currents in a receding river change constantly, though when one recedes as gradually as our Catskill rivers have this month, the change is extremely slight during the course of any given afternoon. The winds of course are another variable, and there is no predicting whether these myriad swirls in direction and changes in velocity might come together with one suitable cast in one golden moment, and send my tiny dry fly right down the pipe on a perfect drift. Some intrinsic faith in serendipity helps to keep me amused when fishing is at its toughest.

Tuesday dawned as Monday had, with a thick gray mist of cloud cover. Here in Hancock it is normal for our morning humidity be be at or near one hundred percent, even in the winter. Life at the confluence of rivers begins with misty mornings on a very regular basis. By late morning the sun had burned of that haze and lit the autumn colors of the mountainsides, making the bright, clear water truly sparkle. I cannot help but be thankful for days like this.

The winds were weaker and more regular, and calm conditions add to the feeling that fishing is going to be better. The currents had calmed somewhat too. I wasn’t in position long before I spotted that first little ring, yes, right back there in the cauldron of tricky currents that had so completely befuddled my best efforts the day before.

These were new currents, the river’s flow had dropped something like eight percent from the day before. Would that be enough to make those bedeviling current tongues more tractable? I hoped that it would.

My trout performed as he had on Monday, moving about the “cauldron” and sipping an insect here and one there. The rise forms varied constantly, everything from subsurface stirrings to the occasional nose above the surface take, bringing doubt as to whether he was taking just the sparse olive mays, or sampling various tidbits from the drift. I was perhaps fifteen minutes into the game when he tipped his nose up and let my little olive comparadun slide into his mouth.

I cannot be sure whether my timing was off by a critical microsecond or two or if the tippet hit his lip and caused him to begin to reject the fly he had just inhaled. He sort of twitched his nose as I was coming tight and my fly caught nothing. The refusal is a very hollow victory. It tells you there was something right about your fly, but that one or more other things were wrong.

We continued the game for some time after that, complete with fly changes, and perhaps another late refusal when my tiny spinner ducked out of sight and then back millimeters before the rise came.

Different flies, the same original fly, nothing changed the odds in my favor. I had made subtle shifts in position for a couple of hours of fishing, still convinced that a downstream presentation was the only suitable approach. Monday’s flow had made it the only possible approach, and I had steadfastly stayed the course. Perhaps I was wrong, too set in my ways, and I considered that the flow had been reduced so I could not assume a different approach was impossible this afternoon.

I eased out of my casting position, backed into shallower water and downstream, working back into the deeper water to the side of that trout’s feeding ground. I wasn’t able to wade into that side attack zone twenty-four hours earlier, but this time I could, and I did.

The trout had taken a break as well, and when the rises resumed, he too had relocated slightly, lining himself up in a direct thread of current. There was a little flurry of mayflies bouncing down that thread of current, and he had decided to take advantage of serendipity, as did I.

I had knotted the original little olive comparadun to a new tippet after my relocation, and went to work to find the perfect drift. Within fifteen minutes we had both found a rhythm and finally completed our engagement: I cast, he rose and accepted my fly, and I tightened exactly on time and was rewarded with a hard pull down toward the rocky bottom of that cauldron.

Like all wild trout, he used the currents to his advantage, and I used the fly rod and my experience to mine. Dipping the net to slide him into it, I marveled at his heft and his deep autumn coloring. This was a nice wild brown trout, a quality fish to be sure, though he wasn’t in danger of pushing that coveted twenty inch mark. Well earned to be sure, and well appreciated.

Of course I scanned that wide expanse of water before retiring for the day, but it seems that my friend was once again the only game in town.

At last an opportunity to wade bright water! Though the forecast promised clouds alone, the sun shone brightly in the bluest of skies: a welcoming!

I found my favorite little stretch of the river quiet and walked alone by the path, stepping in where the clear, cold flow bubbled over the black stones, eager to fish. This tiny run holds great memories for me, battles won and lost, amid the wonder of new water and the glory that is spring. The variety of holding water in this brief environment convinces me that trout should always be present.

There was no hatch to bring trout to the surface, not that I expected one, and I knotted my cricket to probe the various holding lies before me. I worked upstream slowly, thoroughly, joyfully embraced by my surroundings: alone on bright water with bamboo and the dry fly. As I moved up I began to make a few casts to the side and down, drifting the black fly through the same areas I had covered from below. With the different angle, the cricket floated back deeper in the shade, less than six inches from a pocket in the bank and I found a response! So often this is a game of inches.

The brown pulled hard in the fast water when I drew him from his hide, the old rod bending into a deep, wide arch. I enjoyed every moment of him.

In the net at last I admired his dark coloring, a product of shade and those black stones. Not a big fish, perhaps sixteen inches, but as welcome after my long hiatus as any trout I ever encountered.

I worked carefully through the pool upstream, sorting through each bit of cover and shade, though it seemed that brownie was as alone there as I. One angler, one trout, joined on a perfect afternoon. The dry fly season continues…

That seems to be the sign posted at the entrance to October, at least for me. Twenty-one inches of rain during July, August and September wasn’t enough it seems, and so the rivers remain high, too much so for the wading angler.

I have spent some time in the mountains, chasing the ruffed grouse that have denied me a shot. I even had a great afternoon hunt with JA and Finley! I have to say, that sweet girl worked hard and put up some birds for us, but the ruff is legendary for it’s ability to avoid the clear lanes through the forest where a hunter’s shot column might intercept their escape. The early season is the most beautiful time to be in the mountains, but all the leaves make it doubly hard to swing true on our most regal game bird!

There is great joy in watching a good dog work though. Her efforts clearly show how much she loves it. Excitement all but boils over when she sees the guns and the orange caps upon our heads, but she gets right down to business as soon as we pass the eaves of the forest. Hunting close, coursing through the cover, JA rarely uses his whistle to direct her. Thank you Finn.

There is no doubt as to why the rivers have been slow to return to wadable levels: the mountain slopes are literally dripping, as if all the ground was one great spring head. And so I wait while this last month of the dry fly season withers.

As long as our Catskill summers last, I still regret their passing. Would that this glorious season lingered for half the year! And yet, October has always been my favorite.

Each morning I peruse the stream gages, hoping that a day has arrived when I can pack my waders, a reel and an old cane rod and depart. It seems an interminable amount of time has passed since my morning vigil brought good news.

It is warm this afternoon, and I can picture myself wading in the sunlight… the Beaverkill, perhaps the Delaware, scanning the wide river for signs of a rise. The sun is warm on my shoulders, as I spy a gentle disturbance along a shaded stretch of bank. The approach is calculated. I work into position, all the while keeping an eye toward the surface for some hint of the bit of food that caused that resting trout to stir.

The cast is long and smooth in the still air, and the loop unrolls to lay the fly delicately above my target. I have no need to see the fly. A rise, any rise will mark success.

The ring is gentle, there for just a moment then gone, but I raise the rod confidently and feel the power as a great fish churns the shallows to a boiling tempest! The fight covers the entire flat, my reel screaming with each run into my backing, but at last he is mine!

High water cannot keep me from dreaming.

I missed a lot of fishing through the first week of autumn. Between high flows and blustery winds, it has been downright inhospitable for the wading angler. The rivers have been dropping slowly and I decided to begin the task of finding some interested trout yesterday, cane rod and dry fly in hand. The wind would prove to be a factor once again.

The first pool I visited is a newer destination for me, as I have prospected that water for the past couple of seasons. I have yet to enjoy any kind of significant hatch on that reach, though it seems to have everything a mayfly and a trout would wish for. I return as I did see a good hatch of Hendricksons in the early season two years ago. The winds were blowing thirty miles per hour that day, the gusts even stronger, when I spied the big duns from the bank. A couple of good fish were pounding those duns out there in the fray. I waded into the high, roily flow and tried to cast, but it was hopeless. The pool has been filed away in memory though.

Yesterday the forecasters called for NW winds from ten to fifteen miles per hour. They were off the mark a bit, something that has been commonplace all season. The river was high, too high to get close enough to the single rise I saw and make any kind of presentation. Winds like that will put some terrestrials on the water, and I offered a big meal with that in mind, but that lone riser never returned to the surface. Eventually the wind and the current chased me back to the car.

I visited another relatively new haunt next, hoping the curves and bends of the river valley might shelter the water a bit better. I have fished this pool in high water a number of times, so I was able to at least get to the edge of the better holding water. I was hoping for some decent activity, fondly remembering my first October there catching nice trout sipping ants. Too much blow and too much flow today, so there was no quiet water for that kind of fishing. I did spy one rise out in the current, and found a nice brown more than willing to take my fly. He fought well in the heavy current, putting a deep bend in the old Battenkill, and testing Dennis’ repair. The rod is sound my friend, and it’s nice to have it back on the water.

Orvis made a lot of bamboo fly rods during their heyday. Curiously, most of them are rated for heavy fly lines. It is not uncommon for most anglers to drop down one or two line weights from those ratings and enjoy a fine casting trout rod. My old 4 3/8th ounce Battenkill is marked for a DT7 or WF8 line, and I fish it happily with a WF6. Even in strong winds it casts that line with authority. This was the right day to have chosen the Battenkill.

With no more rising trout encountered, I found myself back on the road again, this time visiting an old haunt. I used to fish Lower Mountain Pool quite a lot in earlier years, finding some solitude beneath the mountain’s slopes, and a few good browns among it’s varied currents. Springtime crowds drove me elsewhere years ago.

I waded the strong current to access my old favorite reach, water that has surrendered some fine trout in the past. I worked the area thoroughly this time, fishing the edge of sun and shade and the pockets of deeper water behind each sizeable rock all the way to the bank. My fly drifted without interruption.

One final drive found me watching the river from the pull off, then wading in to a never fished reach of a pool I fished often nearly thirty years ago. I made my way out into the main channel with the water lapping at my vest pockets, until the next step became too deep. The winds had calmed somewhat since morning, though the gusts were still a factor. A heavy rise greeted me, tight to the bank of course.

I let the old rod work, pitching the big fly out there, but the light 5X tippet wasn’t willing to unroll properly at distance in that wind. My fly drifted down a foot and a half from the bank, unmolested.

I reeled in my line and set to work on the leader, cutting it back, then knotting a fresh four foot section of 4X fluorocarbon in place. The total leader was a tad shorter now, around twelve feet, and I knew it would deliver that chunky dry fly all the way home.

I waited for a moment between gusts, then lofted the line for a cast. The fly shot in tight this time, under the tree limbs, and nestled in the softer water less than half a foot from the bank. I extended my drift, and it was not until the fly was on the verge of dragging that the little blip in the surface signaled the take. The Battenkill bowed heavily as I lifted sharply and pulled the hook home!

The rod was bouncing in my hands with each heavy head shake, and I had no doubt I had found the kind of trout I was searching for. I stripped line as he came out into the current, catching my first look when I pulled him into full sunlight, a brown that would easily go twenty inches. I worked the reel handle when he turned away, trying to get back all that excess line I had stripped in so I could play him from the reel. My next thought was to work myself back into shallower water where my footing was sound.

I have made that maneuver many times while playing a big trout, and it usually works out just fine. In unfamiliar water, with a strong flow, I had to grab my staff and turn upstream to start back. The brown moved closer, enough that the rod nearly straightened for just a moment. I dropped the staff and stripped some line, pulling it tight to my foe again, but the damage was done. I made it back into shallower water, the trout still battling at the end of my line, but when I tried to work him closer the fly simply pulled out.

I saluted the old warrior, wondering how many other anglers had he outlasted on this historic river. I had a good section of bank to fish, and I felt certain I would have another shot at the catch of the day. As I worked down river the clouds gathered and the wind grew colder. I felt my chances escape with the sunlight.

Each encounter with a fine wild trout becomes sweeter as the season wanes, for I never know which rise to my dry fly will be the last of the year. October still holds promise, but these last days of the dry fly season will pass far too quickly. I will cherish each moment that the golden autumn sunlight warms my shoulders, each cast along bright water, each drift and take until winter comes.

I paid a visit to my friend JA yesterday, toting my bird gun instead of my fly rod. The wind in the mountains was blustery and carried a chill despite the sunshine when I found him sitting on the deck, relaxing for a moment after an active weekend. Our goal was to sharpen our eyes and our skills with October’s grouse season on the doorstep, but the talk of trout and dogs and birds and deer was as welcome as that first report of the shotgun in the crisp mountain air.

It has been a good summer. We fished together quite a lot, tossing whatever dry flies we had tied and exchanged to those wonderfully wild Catskill trout. We both cast fine bamboo rods, and JA enjoyed the distinct pleasure of taking trout with the rods crafted by his own skilled hands. That is an art that I covet, yet we must all know our limitations. More than thirty years of arthritis warn me away from the countless hours of hand planing, straightening and wrapping required to craft such a wand. Sadly I know that passion does not overcome the pain.

JA set up the trap and I reacquainted myself with the Model 101. As expected, those first “birds” flew past unscathed, but I concentrated on my gun mount and swing and improved my score somewhat. It is a simple thing to watch that spinning bit of clay puff into dust and fragments at the gun’s report, but immensely satisfying. JA is a practiced wingshot, and scored well as we traded places.

Throughout our target shoot, we could hear the barking from the cabin. Finley the Lab knew what those shotguns were for, and she was more than ready to hunt up some real birds for her master. She wasn’t at all happy when left indoors while the guns boomed. After cleaning and casing the guns and picking up unbroken clays we took that noble dog for a walk through the grouse covers.

Her exuberance was clear, for she smells the same autumn air that we do, in far more intricate detail, and she knows what the guns and orange caps mean. It is nearly time! As we walked, Finn worked the covers close at hand, never straying far from her handler and best friend, and always responsive to his whistle despite her pent up excitement. Grouse, woodcock, ducks or pheasants, Finley hunts and retrieves them all: one impressive lady.

My legs were tight when I arrived that afternoon, too little time along rivers of late, but they loosened as we climbed and coursed through forest and field. October promises crisp mornings afield and sundrenched afternoons along the water, perfection in a word!

The rods and guns are ready, Finley is certainly ready. Judging by the afternoon’s shooting, JA and I are as ready as we are going to get. May the birds flush in the clearings and the rivers bring forth the autumn hatches and the last rising trout of the season. I feel certain that JA will shoot straight, and I hope that I might swing true at least a time or two this fall. Roast grouse would be lovely, as would a nice pelt for tying winter soft hackles. There is strong magic in flies tied with the fur and feathers harvested by the hands that tie them!

I hear them outside my window as I write this morning, the howling winds of autumn! We are braced for heavy rain once again, though we neither want nor need it. This week has featured a rolling forecast, with that threat of rain moving into the future day by day, and today seems to mark the point where reality catches up with predilection.

Summer’s last kiss came with a warm but rushing wind yesterday, as my best friend and I tried to get a few hours more fishing out of his seasonal visit. Between us, a single trout was raised before we surrendered to the inevitability of the swirling gusts. I surmise that splashy greeting was a refusal born of an imperfect drift, with those winds as much in control of our fly lines as we were.

We had enjoyed a gorgeous day on the Neversink when Mike arrived on Monday: perfect air temperatures, a hint of breeze, and clear, cold water beneath the bluest skies! It was so perfect, the trout took a day off to travel and relax. In a pool where I stalked a dozen risers just a week before, we found no evidence that a trout of any size even lived nearby. I can only assume that the rush of high water separating those two trips caused the trout to relocate and modify their habits, for the measurable conditions on each of those days were nearly identical.

We visited a couple of different pools, finding barren water at the first location, and a lone angler walking the bank at the second. We left him to his sport.

Mike had his heart set on a float trip, though the south winds made me shy from heading my own boat down the upper mainstem of the Delaware. I made that mistake once on a southeast wind, dragging my boat more than a mile back upstream when the winds turned due south and intensified. Mike cajoled guide Ben Rinker into a day’s fishing and invited me along.

We covered some beautiful water and fished hard most of the day despite the lack of fly life and rising trout. Ben worked his usual magic on the oars to position us for success when a few risers appeared late in the afternoon. Mike managed a pair of trout, and I had one halfway to the boat when it shook free, all smaller fish, but welcome. We fished a lot of prime cover throughout the day, but the high water seemed to have caused the trout to relocate from their summer haunts. Still we enjoyed the challenge and good company. I had not fished with Ben since June of 2015, and our reacquaintance was welcome.

So summer passed away without the epic catches I hoped for. Change is a constant on rivers, and even the most successful patterns succumb to it. I had hoped that the great fishing I had enjoyed would hold until Mike arrived, but it was not to be.

So what will autumn bring? Judging upon past experiences and this season’s dearth of significant hatches, I expect that rising trout will come as a premium, earned through hours of observation and careful stalking, at least if the more typical low water conditions return. If the eventful rainfall episodes continue into winter, well, I prefer not to ponder that eventuality.

I am a dry fly fisherman, my choice and my passion. The encroachment of late autumn and the inevitability of winter may force me to angle below the magic surface of bright water, but I will fight that turn of the season with everything I have, wringing each spectacular moment from these last weeks of the season of the dry fly.

Alas, the rain has arrived…

I took a few moments just now, sitting on the porch with a chilled draught to enjoy the evening sunlight. Appropriate for this very damp year that a cloud quickly obscured that sunlight and paused to offer a little squall as I sat and drank. As of yesterday morning’s tally, the Catskill watersheds have received 18.77 inches of rainfall this summer, 173 percent of the historical norm. Tailwaters remain high as New York City is dumping water from it’s full reservoirs as a guard against hurricane season flooding, while the freestone rivers are rounding into shape to offer good fishing for the onset of autumn.

I count a little more than three summer days remaining. The autumnal equinox arrives at 3:20 PM on Wednesday, allowing a last summer morning with the added bonus of the first evening of autumn. Imagine fishing two seasons in one!

At this juncture, it appears that autumn will begin with rainfall, well more than an inch and a half through Friday morning. That would have been a blessing last year, though it is clearly an excess at this time. My friend JA told me last week that there was “water running down the mountain everywhere” not simply in the brooks and streams, a scene I remember seeing frequently during the autumn of 2018. I tried to traverse some clear cuts in hope of flushing a grouse or two and found a latticework of tree cuttings with their own bog underneath; and the bog was flowing.

With the reservoirs full, it seems like a good season for a light snowpack. Winter rainfall would be good for the rivers, maintaining an adequate base flow to prevent deadly anchor ice, methinks a good part of the answer to our sparse season of fly hatches this year. The floods around Christmas scoured the rivers, for they were iced over until the flood waters cleared them, grinding the river banks and bottom in the turmoil. When flows on the Delaware receded, the city leaned out the reservoir releases with flows too meager to prevent anchor ice during the frigid cold snaps that followed. Of course thin hatches of a given mayfly this year cannot magically become heavy hatches next year, no matter how favorable the winter. Recovery will take time.

In 2020 I enjoyed seven months of dry fly fishing, capturing the first riser I encountered on March 27th, and my last on October 26th. This season began later, though I was out fishing in early March. Warm weather and hatching stoneflies promised everything, and failed to deliver. It was not until April 12th that I walked up on the Delaware River’s first run and spotted that single telltale ring. One cast, one rise and the first dry fly brownie of the season came to hand. Dare I hope that the end of this season will come later as well?

I won’t be stalking ankle deep water to begin this autumn season, and that is the one thing I can be certain of. Beyond that, Nature will have her way.

The equinox this week and then October in the blink of an eye! Mornings on the mountains, and afternoons in the rivers at their feet, a sublime existence if there ever was one. Perhaps the Red Gods will smile upon me this year and I will swing true and caress the mottled feathers that will become winter soft hackles. What a feast roasted grouse can make! Time to buy a new hunting license, rub down my field boots with mink oil and walk about town to soften them up, and past time to swing the Model 101 at flying clays.

I know winter lies off in the distance, and I’ll do everything I can do to keep it there for the next three months!

September seems a perfect time to float the wide Delaware, to enjoy the cool morning air and stretch out in the warm sunshine of afternoon. The rush of springtime has passed, and but a few boats will be encountered along the way. Fast fishing? No, certainly not in this year of sparse hatches, so why hurry.

JA and I headed out on Monday morning, looking to enjoy near perfect weather and prospect here and there with a dry fly. We were surprised to find dimpling trout before I had even gotten used to the oars. Urgency crept into our consciousness, as the first cast had the trout shying from our intrusion, rising further from the boat with each cast thereafter. We had rigged with larger terrestrials, not expecting a morning rise in flat water. Olives, scattered tricos? We saw something here and there, but the vantage point from the drift boat makes it tougher to see small insects in the film. The mystery remains…

Substantial reservoir releases and still more rainfall has made late summer a more comfortable season for the trout in the Mainstem, and we were hopeful that the cold water would spawn a bit more insect activity. Isonychia, Hebes, tiny olives and pseudos are the hatches of September, and we looked for the cloudy forecast to bring substance to our search.

Spending a day in the drift boat with a good friend is reward enough for the effort behind the oars. We talk, we laugh, we fish. In short, we enjoy life on one of the country’s most scenic rivers, with the possible bonus of a high flying Delaware rainbow, or a broad shouldered brown.

It was still early in our drift when I heard my name called from a passing boat. Lee Hartman, one of the river’s very first and most venerable guides was out with a pair of anglers. They drifted past with salutations, and I joked with JA that we seemed to be fishing the same spots, figuring I must be doing something right. Lee’s boat would remain in sight for hours. They fished quickly, there being little but experience to direct an angler’s casts. If there was an opportunistic trout about I’ll bet that Lee got him!

Afternoon brought a mid-river lunch break, and renewed hope for a mayfly sighting. The isonychia dries were knotted to our tippets as we drifted through the riffles, casting to the boils around the scattered boulders. John drew the first take, and played a Delaware bow to the boat, raising our energy level immediately. My isonychia drew interest in the next trailing current, though not until my drag free drift ran out. The fly twitched slightly with the onset of drag, the trout inspired to take it just as I relaxed for the pickup. My hookset was no thing of beauty, though the trout obviously had the fly, taking it around one of those submerged rocks and jumping ten feet upstream from the point my line entered the water. A good fish, he surprised me by opening my hook, just when I thought I had him under my control.

And though we hoped those first two hookups were a preamble to an afternoon of drifting Halo Isonychias from one episode of rainbow acrobatics to another, it was not to be. The most anticipated riffle had a couple of small trout toying with JA’s fly, while my casts proved fruitless. Success eluded me until at last we floated into the Rainbow Pool, and JA pointed out a dimple to our south.

Just as a quiet September afternoon blossomed there two years ago, so once again a looked for fall of flying ants brought dimples to the surface. Ah, but this time they were cruising, passing within casting range momentarily, then retreating, taking the tiny ants trapped and dying in the film where they found them. I managed to intercept one of those crimson flanked ghosts, and my rod bent with his drive for the bottom. A bit more finesse in the handling this time, less the ant’s size eighteen hook meet the same fate as the Halo’s twelve.

JA handled the net deftly when the time was right, then captured the moment with his trusty phone.

A trout for each of us, a sparing gift some might think, though any gift from this river is accepted fondly. Let us not ignore the gifts of sunshine and friendship, of the anticipation of the cast, and the sight of that first tinge of color along the mountainsides. These are gifts the river bestows with the gentle rocking of the current and the sound of quicksilver.

Growing up in suburban Maryland, I lived for each new issue of Field & Stream, Sports Afield and Outdoor Life, dreaming of trout and fly fishing, a mystical art once practiced by my grandfather. I knew, as I devoured every article I could find, that one day I would catch a trout, that I would become a fly fisherman.

That journey took decades as it turned out. Pappy passed in 1970, never having the opportunity to pass the torch. There was no trout fishing where we lived, and it was not until the 1980’s that I first spent time on a wild trout stream. That little unnamed brook in Massachusetts Berkshire Hills held treasures; beautiful wild brook trout that I caught on an ultralight spinning rod. The fire burned hotter, but southern Maryland was still far removed from those mountain streams. Around 1990 I discovered the Gunpowder Falls and purchased my first trout rod and a small selection of flies, and truly began the journey.

The first day of Autumn will mark thirty years since the doorway was flung wide and I was truly welcomed into the magical world of fly fishing. I had fished two seasons on my own, but that September I attended the fly fishing school at Allenberry On The Yellow Breeches, taught by Joe Humphreys and the man who would become one of my greatest influences as an angler, the late Ed Shenk. Ed lured me into the world of difficult trout, taught me to tie and fish the iconic flies he had created to draw the leviathans from the hallowed waters of the Letort. He became a friend and mentor, and I have never stopped learning from his example.

We lost Ed in April last year, and the bitter reign of Covid prevented me from attending the services and honoring a great angler and teacher. During the following winter, I acquired a special treasure from Ed’s estate, his Hardy Featherweight fly reel. I knew that I was meant to fish the reel, not place it upon a shelf, and my thoughts turned to an appropriate fly rod to pair it with.

The rod had to be bamboo and it had to be a short rod. The Master of the Letort was known for his love of short fly rods, and his diminutive bamboo rods were his special favorites. My fishing here generally requires longer rods, as the lessons I learned from the Master have been adapted to the larger rivers of the Catskills, so this special commemorative rod, the Shenk Tribute Rod, had to be capable of the longer casts that stealth requires here. I recalled Ed’s teasing me as I wielded my favorite seven foot four weight rod on the Letort and her sister streams, laughing “it’s all right, but about a foot too long”. I could tell he appreciated my choice by the smile on his face.

I spent a great deal of last winter studying rod tapers, and learning how to interpret rod maker’s graphs and relate the numbers to the feel of the bamboo in my hand. When my task was complete, I called Tom Whittle to discuss making a rod to honor my mentor. I had known Tom for more than twenty-five years and long coveted one of his Stony Creek Rods, and it was more than appropriate that Tom was a founder of the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum Association and a Cumberland Valley angler himself. Shared roots.

The rod was commissioned and Tom developed a new taper for this special seven foot four weight fly rod, building one to test to ensure he had captured the unique qualities we envisioned, before setting his hands to work on the Shenk Tribute Rod itself. Tom attended the Catskill Rodmakers Gathering last weekend, and passed the rod to me on Friday afternoon beside the Willowemoc Creek.

Tom and I enjoyed a short time fishing the riffled waters of the Willow, and I was immediately stricken with the rod he had crafted for me. His cane work is impeccable and the design of the taper provides the delicacy that stealth demands and the crisp power to cast a long line accurately.

I knew that Tom would make an amazing rod, and I appreciated the fact the he shared the feelings of respect and honor for Ed that I have. This project was important to both of us. I look forward to another fishing trip with the man whose stellar craftsmanship has allowed me to honor my teacher, my mentor, my friend.

One of the things that most amazed me about Ed Shenk was his ability to hunt and capture the elusive trophy brown trout, those that haunted the historic waters of his dear Letort, or those swimming in both small and large rivers from the West to Argentina. His tutelage set me upon a lifetime course of trout hunting. I am still learning from his example. The thought that guided the conception and making of the rod was a perfect foil to hunt the trophy browns of the Catskill rivers of my heart; to hunt them on his terms, with a short, light rod and the dry fly. And so the journey has begun…

With high releases on our tailwaters, and slowly receding flows on the freestone rivers, I began my search on the Neversink, mother river of the dry fly in America. I noted the first tinge of approaching autumn on the trees lining the mountainsides as the miles rolled by on the Quickway. Along the river there were signs too. It is the last week of summer, and even a warm afternoon such as this has a different feel than high summer.

I came upon a long pool with dimples scattered like the floating leaves: ants! I plucked one from the film to determine the size and color, an eighteen, black with a slight reddish brown tinge to the gaster; and this ant was still quite alive. I knotted a matching fly and stalked the first riser. Three perfect casts, gentle accurate…and fruitless. The rises ceased. Another required just a few careful steps upstream; there perfect! Again there was no take and the rises subsided after a handful of casts.

Leader lengthened to include a long 6X tippet, then another sample from the drift, this time smaller, perhaps size 22. Once again a matching fly is chosen, and consistently refused. The game continued in that vein until a rogue wind rose and put an end to it. No trout came to my flies, though the rod made the presentations exacting and delicate: bravo Tom!

I rested once the wind fell, and before too long there was another rise, and then two more further upstream, and I started in again. The ants were lively, and I suspected the marvelous adaptation of our wild Catskill browns was the culprit. Surely a CDC ant would provide enough movement to trigger the rise, certainly with the help of the remnant breezes that came and went. Utter failure once again.

I decided that fishing the ant fall was not going to succeed on this day and clipped the tippet, knotting a new four foot strand of 5X fluorocarbon and my cricket securely. Owing homage to Ed’s classic Letort Cricket, the pattern I designed in January 2020 was conceived to deal with our most difficult trout, to trigger their obsession with movement; proof of life. It has been more than up to the task this summer.

The trout I stalked now wasn’t in the center of the pool. It rose beneath an overhanging branch, it’s sparse leaves turning the reds and yellows of autumn. It rose from deeper water, down among the rocks and eddies. I lengthened my line and the Tribute flexed crisply and silently to drop the fly above the secretive lie. A bulge formed at the surface and the fly disappeared in a bubble; I waited then struck!

Ah the joy, the emotions I felt as that venerable old Hardy caught its voice once again, the cane throbbing with weight and power! I saw the flash, and I knew: one for the Tribute Rod.

The last week of summer, and the rivers are flowing high for a wading angler, with storms in the forecast. I hope I am granted the grace to wade bright waters with the Tribute rod and find another fine trout to continue building its history. For now I relish this first conquest, dedicated to the man who led me down this road, who invoked the passion of a trout hunter. Bamboo and the dry fly, bright water, stealth and observation meet the art of the rod maker and the fly tier. Honor thy teachers. Honor the history and tradition of fly fishing, and the legacy of those who have made it great.