There is an advantage to old, discarded habits sometimes. During all of my working years I awoke at five each morning to prepare for the day. It seems that programming is now intrinsic to my body clock’s operations, though I arguably could sleep as late as I want. I don’t mind, in fact I actually enjoy it. The quiet hours of the morning are productive hours for me.

Just this morning I finished my preparations for a day’s fishing, even finding time to write this blog entry. Mornings are my favorite time to write. I tied a few new flies, some big, black, mean looking terrestrials I think might tempt a big brownie to the surface. River flows are still high as the storm runoff recedes, and runoff events tend to put a lot of different food into the current for trout. It can be surprising to understand just how long some of that food can stay around and be available rather than being instantly swept away.

Have you ever picked up an old, decayed mayfly dun or spinner from the surface? Bugs get caught in eddies and swirling currents all the time, and can spend a lot of time in one place until something disturbs the equilibrium of the eddy. That’s why I feel confident that some big, juicy looking runoff terrestrials could account for the fish of the day, making them an ideal fly for prospecting until a hatch begins. High water dry fly fishing is all about pockets of calmer water.

The City has been trying to prevent spill from Cannonsville by running close to maximum release, putting twice as much cold, oxygenated water into the river. So far, so good. Now that most of the muddy, debris laden storm runoff has passed downstream, we anglers are hoping for some excellent daytime hatches. The window may be brief, as tonight’s and tomorrow’s forecasts include increased likelihood for more heavy thunderstorms. I hope Ma Nature gives us a break, letting us enjoy a week of great fishing instead.

I am beginning to believe in time travel, for I think that I have returned to 2018. It was the year I retired, and a year in which I did far less fishing than just about any previous year going back three decades. I was running back and forth between Chambersburg, PA and Hancock, NY looking for a house where we could live out our retirement years close to bright water and the undeniable beauty and magic of the Catskills, and it was a long, hard search. It was late in July when I finally settled on a little house here and took up temporary residence.

There were projects to do: rebuilding the porch, painting and replacing the flooring in the kitchen, and setting up my fly tying room that would become the center of my world. I took a couple of afternoons to fish the summer sulfur hatch on the West Branch, and then it began to rain, daily. That was a water year to end all water years. The heat and humidity stayed high, and the rains kept coming, filling the reservoirs of the Delaware River watershed, then spilling out and flooding the rivers downstream. My fly fishing came to a very abrupt end, leaving me plenty of time to work on those projects.

When autumn arrived, I took to the Catskill Mountains to enjoy some grouse hunting, finding still more water. It ran down every slope in the mountains, not just in the brooks and ravines, everywhere! The abandoned apple trees bore no fruit, so I found no grouse where I hoped to, though it was a rather miraculous experience simply hiking and watching all of the water fall. It was as if every mountainside was one great spring seep.

The past week and a half has convinced me that the clock has turned back.

I fished daily during the first week of July, enjoying a fairly typical summer, if there is such a thing. Then the storms arrived, one after another, day after day, and the rivers grew high and muddy and stayed that way. Finally, on July 15th, I was able to get out for an afternoon on the upper West Branch. The single tributary had finished it’s runoff phase and the river was clear and wadable above the village of Deposit. As of July 16th, the watershed for the New York City reservoirs had received 6.79 inches of rainfall for the first half of the month; the historical average rainfall for the entire month of July is two inches. Last evening and on into the night the storms kept coming, bringing another inch and a quarter to Hancock. The rivers, already high from increased reservoir releases as well as daily runoff, are higher still this morning, and no doubt muddy again. Hello 2018!

I am fortunate that I have a drift boat at my disposal this summer, something I did not have for the first 2018. Of course the rivers still have to have a chance to clear again before there will be a chance to float them and search for a little dry fly fishing. Time will tell…

Back in June we all prayed for rain, for the rivers were low and their temperatures too warm for wild trout in many cases. The East Branch and Beaverkill waters soared into the eighties and remained there for too long a period. The Beaverkill, trickling along at a measly 120 cfs to begin July, crested near 7,000 cfs after yesterday’s storms.

The cold water is good for the trout of the Delaware system, particularly those in the mainstem of the river. Hopefully, the City will sustain the elevated releases from both Delaware branches once the runoff passes downstream, and hopefully, the storms will give us a break. The rivers should fish well with a good head of clear cold water. No one here would mind seeing a sustained period of perfect Catskill summer weather either, with daily highs in the mid-seventies and some gentle evening showers once or twice a week.

As for today, well, the forecast is for rain showers, a big improvement over violent storms with heavy downpours. It looks like a good day to tie some more flies, watch the ballgame, and just relax!

It was a grand relief to wade into the West Branch Delaware late this morning. I feared the crowds would grow, since the upper river was effectively the only fishable water in the system, but the afternoon turned pleasant, with the few anglers keeping their distance. A week without fishing, particularly a week in high summer, is a foreign thing to me. Retirement has its benefits, chief among them is the license to linger along bright water as often as I please.

I had driven up to check the river late yesterday, finding it clear above and high and muddy below, quickly dispensing with my thought of a float trip. I hoped the summer sulfur hatch would bring trout to the surface. The cold water in Deposit makes the little yellow mays reliable, at least in a normal year, but this one has been anything but normal.

With the usual boat traffic, standing in the river and waiting for the rise cannot be counted on to secure one’s fishing area. The old line guides always gave wading anglers a wide berth, but the culture of youth doesn’t seem to honor that tradition. I decided to tie on one of those chunky size 14 Letort Crickets, tied days ago, to see if I could interest a lurker while working my way downstream to the place I hoped the trout would intercept the sulfurs. Even actively fishing and wading downstream wasn’t enough to keep one drift boat from cutting close around me and peppering my destination water with casts. I let him know what I thought of his tactic, loudly though politely.

The first rise soothed my ruffled feathers, and I shot a long cast out to the bank and fed some slack into the drift. The water bulged ever so slightly and I reacted, missing the take. No number of casts would bring him back again. The waiting game began when I resigned myself to that inevitability.

It took an hour before the first sulfurs appeared. They were sparse, and coaxed no rises from a known productive run of water. Though I hoped for a better hatch with the overnight addition of cold release water, it was not to be.

Resigned there were too few sulfurs to bring on a rise of trout, I resumed working down river with the cricket, until drift boat number two cut me off and slid into the bank I was headed for. Perturbed once again, my mood did not improve with a second bump, sans take, as the cricket worked the bank. I paused again and knotted the Grizz to the tippet trailing from my Thomas & Thomas, determined to get myself a trout from a quiet, yet fishy looking stretch of bank.

The smooth flex of the bamboo sent the beetle to the edge despite the wind that had risen, but the chop from that wind disguised the take. Sometimes there is an extra sense, the one that tells you to tighten even though seeing nothing, and I always obey the instinct. The soft glow of caramel colored cane as it catches the sun, throbbing in a full arch, will always improve my perspective. If not for the vibration in the rod, I might have thought I was hooked to a log, though he soon moved quickly upstream, still tight to the edge. The 6X tippet amid the rocks and water weeds concerned me, but I played him deftly, and ultimately to the net. A fine brown, an inch short of the trophy benchmark, wriggled valiantly as I reached for the fly.

Out of water, thanks to the offending guide boat, I fished my way back upstream on my way to the path. Three spirited young brown trout kept a smile on my face, as they moved about the riffled and wind ruffled water picking off every stray sulfur they could find. When the activity quelled around three, I called it a day.

I remember days on this water when the hatch was as prolific as any you could find on a Catskill river, when the run held hundreds of trout, until the anglers tried their best to outnumber them. The first sign of the decline came half a dozen years ago, when no matter how heavy the hatch, the rising trout could be counted on one’s fingers. Perhaps it has taken that long to sink in, for the hordes of anglers to look elsewhere. I looked upon this run once last year and imagined a circus, for the clowns were out in force.

Perhaps, if they are not too quick to return the fishing will have a chance to rebound. I may live to see the run alive with sulfurs and rising trout once again. That would be a wonderful turn of events, though word would spread and the crowds would return and begin the cycle of decline once again. There was a time when many of us believed the growth in fly fishing would bring more voices to preserve and protect the rivers. In some cases that has occurred, though in others that growth has led only to crowding and a loss of courtesy and sportsmanship. May tomorrow’s anglers learn to do better.

Now there’s a sign I never want to see! They always seem to appear next to a truly inviting stretch of water. There are fish rising beyond some of them, obvious spots with great cover and some depth, the ones where the prevailing current carries everything right down and concentrates it where that cover meets that deeper water, screaming big fish here! Those signs have been up for most of the last week, not man’s, but Mother Nature’s.

We needed rain and some relief from the heat, and we got it. Trouble is we keep getting it; not the gentle showers that soak in and really do the rivers some good, top to bottom in the watershed, but the heavy downpours that muddy the rivers and add to the silt load our riverbeds can do without.

Last night was a doozy, a serious storm packing a tornado warning, coming right down the pipe with Hancock in it’s sights. The cell phones went off with ten minutes to spare, and the TV was immediately switched from the Home Run Derby to the Weather Channel: Severe thunderstorm south of Deposit and moving East at 20 mph likely to spawn tornadoes. Rotation observed on radar, seek shelter immediately! The weather map showed the updated storm track, reaching from Balls Eddy to Stockport, and there were some very tense moments ahead, particularly when the Fire Department’s siren went off as the storm hit us full force. Thankfully, that rotation observed on radar never materialized into a funnel cloud on the ground. A lot more to worry about than some lost fishing time there.

This morning has been about giving thanks and wondering if I’ll find some fishing sometime this week. This whacky season has already pushed me into some crazy days at the bench.

Wild colors do appear in Nature. Back in the Cumberland Valley, where terrestrials powered the bulk of our dry fly fishing in the limestone meadows, I used to tie a very bright orange ant pattern. I blended up a special dubbing and tied the fly in a size 18 with a white CDC wing. It was reserved for particularly difficult fish, and it often proved the charm for catching them. Catskill trout are not keyed in upon terrestrials the way our spring creek trout were in those meadows – I still haven’t found any hopper fishing – but with a paucity of traditional aquatic fare, I hope they come around. Maybe an orange foam beetle will look tasty to a big Catskill brown, or perhaps that caterpillar thing will spark some interest.

Actually, a post storm day should be a good time to tie on a Letort Cricket and pound the river banks, as the rush of runoff water can put a lot of food in the drift. Once the rivers clear a bit, I am going to try to get the boat in the water, and there will be crickets in my fly box! I think I’ll get tying…

I was out trout hunting again yesterday afternoon and, despite having the eagle greet me upon my arrival, the hunting did not seem destined to produce any big Catskill trout. I was seriously fishing terrestrials, though they brought no response, not even when cast to a bankside rise. As I approached some faster water, I noticed a couple of small rises, so I tied on a little sulfur cripple and made a few casts. When I decided to move upstream, I let my line drag behind me. By ignoring my fly I caught a trout.

The little brown brought a smile to my face and changed my focus, helping me to rediscover the simple joy of trout fishing!

That tiny cripple wasn’t floating too well in the riffled water, so I tried a pair of sulfur comparaduns, first an 18 and then a 20. I remembered this riffle from last autumn, and felt there ought to be some good fish around. I decided to tie on the lone size 12 Halo Isonychia in my box and fish that riffle in earnest. It was the right decision at the right time.

There were a lot of trout in that riffle, and a number of them were willing to come up and take a swipe at my Iso. Another brownie was the first taker. All of ten inches, he fought the soft tip of the old Granger bamboo with all the heart of a trout twice his size. I let him have his head a bit before bringing him to hand. The smile was growing.

It was a warm, beautiful afternoon on a gorgeous reach of Catskill river, and I was alone. The Granger kept flicking the water from that dry fly, and then placing it in another lie, anywhere I could see a deeper slot or a larger rock on the bottom. The trout responded.

As I worked my way upstream into faster sections of the riff, wild Delaware rainbows replaced the browns. Their characteristic quick little spurt rises were hard to react to, as I was stripping as fast as I could just to retrieve the line while my fly bobbed rapidly down the current. I missed a number of them: whack, there and gone in an instant, until I adjusted to the pace of the river.

Between misses, I caught a few chunky bows, every one fighting like the legendary senior members of their tribe. None of these wild trout quite reached a foot in length, but they had the wide profile of healthy, well fed fish. They sure could pull as they cavorted against the arching tip of my old cane rod!

I smiled and laughed at those caught as I twisted the hook free, and laughed even harder at those quick strikes that left me no time at all to react. I finished my afternoon right there in that riffle, grinning. I could hunt leviathan another day.

Sometimes we get very, very serious about trout fishing. If we hook small fish when we feel we should be catching trout of a certain size, we can feel like we are missing something. I hate to hear the scorn in some angler’s voices when they frown and say “nuthin’ but dinks” to a query of “catchin’ any?” The youngsters are as wild and beautiful as the elder members of the clan, and their heart is undeniable. We should all appreciate them more then we do. Trout don’t pop out of the gravel at eighteen inches long, they all start out little, and we owe our trophy trout fishery to the stamina and tenacity all of those small fry swimming in the rivers and streams.

It has been a strange year. To be honest, that comment comes to the tongue every year, testament to the incredible variety of Nature and the wonder and puzzlement of angling Catskill rivers.

Though the first hatches of spring were wonderful, with incredible variety and at times prodigious volume, insect production has seemed rather spare since then. Even back in May, I noted an unusual number of uncharacteristicly small flies on the water. I was caught short on my first solo float of the season when confronted with thousands of Shad Fly caddis in a diminutive size 20. Only field surgery saved the day!

Summer is traditionally small fly season on our rivers, featuring the littlest mayflies: sulfurs from size 18 down to 22, various olives in sizes 20 to 26, Summer Blue Quills in sizes 18 and 20 and eventually the tiny size 24 tricorythodes. I am thinking that downsizing terrestrials may be my best move as well.

My concentration this morning was to add some smaller Grizzly Beetles to my terrestrial box. While I fished tiny little beetles when necessary in the Cumberland Valley spring creeks, I have used larger, meatier versions quite often. Ed Shenk called the miniscule black beetles Willow Beetles as they habitually were found in the willow trees lining the streams. A size 20 tended to be a bit large for imitations on most days. I was amazed at the little spun deer hair flies the Master tied for these, clipped just so to provide the rounded profile of the natural. Closed cell foam became hugely popular for tying similar flies, but I never seemed to have the same results the Master did with his deer hair creations. Then again, I was the student and he the Master.

In truth, I have not spun any deer hair in decades, not since I dawdled at bass fishing with the fly rod. I may need to revisit the technique in deference to the looked for Shenk Tribute Rod, expected this summer. It would be only proper to set out with a small fly box of The Master’s patterns when I first introduce that rod to the rivers of my heart.

I fished along throughout June more or less expecting a late hatch of some of the spring flies I missed during May. When we finally got a real cold snap, plunging the rivers from the seventies back into the fifties over night, there was a day or two when some of those larger flies emerged. I saw Gray Fox, large sulfurs, as well a good numbers of “normal” sulfurs in sizes 16 and 18, the flies May forgot. I wish the cold snap had lasted – I never packed the sweatshirts and fleece away into storage. Oh it would have been heaven to enjoy a solid week of that fishing!

Now that July has come, summer seems destined to stay, so the Smalls will take care of the dry fly fishing for the duration. A light cane rod, a three or four weight line on a small classic reel, long leaders and 6X and 7X tippets will be the standard outfit for the next few months!

I let the heat drive me to the coldest water I could find the other day, and I found a little fishing. The stifling weather seemed to keep most of the fishermen at home, work, or some other air conditioned place, and I was happy for it.

I used to fish the West Branch every summer, making a long trip around the Fourth of July. The trout were always difficult, and that difficulty has increased with the massive increases in fishing pressure the river has seen. It has become pretty normal to find our Catskill trout keying upon moving naturals on all of our rivers. Once upon a time a simple thread bodied CDC dun was medicine on these picky feeders, but the trout have fine tuned their targeting abilities during the past decade.

I managed three trout, a hard fighting brownie between nineteen and twenty inches, and a couple sixteen inch fish that were equally determined to give their all on the bottom of the river. I had to estimate the larger fish, as the fly popped out with his just his back half in the net. That guy ate a delicate size 18 silk bodied CDC dun, a fly with a sparse wing that requires constant attention to keep it floating. I like to tie the wings heavy and tall to maximize visibility and movement, but some trout have begun to shy away from them, requiring a more subtle fly.

Tactics often dictate fishing long, and downstream and across to picky trout, and the constant retrieving of sparsely winged CDC flies wets them thoroughly. These fish often require multiple casts if they are feeding upon a good hatch of naturals, and that means a lot of time spent drying and fluffing the fly. Still, if a good trout demands subtle, you either give it to them or pass them by.

I learned thirty years ago that a fly will be more attractive to a trout if it appears alive and moving. The late great Gary LaFontaine impressed upon me that the light reflecting qualities of my flies imitated movement, so I try to incorporate those abilities in most of my patterns. I am not talking about Flashabou ribs here, more like a touch of Antron blended into the dubbing, or used as a sparse trailing shuck. Perhaps I am losing it, but trailing shucks have become so commonplace that some trout seem to have gone off of them.

If a shuck isn’t the answer, then maybe a little sparkle in the wing is. I was talking with JA a couple of years ago about flies and materials when the topic came around to Enrico Puglisi’s Trigger Point Fibers. I was using them for bodies, spinner wings and posted wings and having good results, and JA mentioned that a friend tied comparaduns with the stuff. “Gotta try that”, I said and I did. The material lends itself to comparadun wings and is much easier and faster to tie with than deer hair. The wings are a lot more durable too. Trigger Point fibers have a subtle sparkle that I believe imitates moving wings effectively, but it not as flashy as Antron. Selective trout seem to like them.

So, in a nutshell, I guess I am saying that picky trout get pickier as we get trickier. That is the reason I am continuously experimenting with fly patterns, materials and tying techniques. None of us have any hope of staying ahead of all of the trout in the river, but I hope I can always experiment a bit and stay ahead of some of them!

The heat wave remains in full swing, and our afternoons and evenings are certainly less than pleasant. It was 90 degrees in our bedroom at midnight last night. The mornings are my release, cooler air and cool water draws me to the hunt.

There are promises of relief, tales of glorious rainfall and temperatures in the seventies, but the rainfall percentages seem to be dropping day by day. Oh how I would love a gentle, cool rain to last all day and all night!

Hunting has been lean as always, for the season of plenty has passed into this angler’s history. Fly life is sparse to say the least. Some days, the opportunities simply don’t materialize.

On Monday I fooled the first trout I encountered, a spirited fellow who set to spinning my reel immediately. A nice brown, not a big one, but he put a smile on my face; as if the cool, quiet beauty of the morning wasn’t enough. There were no other opportunities, though I stalked a few with hopeful eyes; cruising fish sampling the few tiny tidbits the surface held. I noticed more than one rusty spinner, not enough to constitute a fall, but I made a note to tie some and stock the box in my summer chest pack. The heat has led me to release the vest from it’s daily duty.

On Tuesday I somehow felt cooler, my body perhaps adjusting to the summer swelter. I stalked with an old friend, the 8040 Granger and yes, one of those freshly tied size 20 rusty spinners. We managed to creep up on the first trout of the morning without sending him to the other side of the river, a challenge in itself. It’s a waiting game, this fishing. The waiting begins when a rise is spotted, typically a distant rise, as the long, painfully slow approach unfolds. Often the trout disappears, off to sample other quarters, while I remain stalking the location of his initial rise. Once a casting position has been reached, waiting turns on the vagaries of the drift. It all worked out for this first opportunity, as I stood with line ready and the tiny fly in my hand. The subtle rise and the smile came simultaneously.

The first cast drew no interest, and experience has forced me to accept the fact that presentations must be limited to a single cast following each rise. Some of these trout are relentlessly cruising, and even the homebodies are casting about for any morsel in their area. These are not the classic rising trout on feeding lies. At last he rose again, two feet to the left of his previous excursion, and I squeezed the cork lightly to drop that spinner as delicately as I could. The rises are unique, little swirls in the film, sometimes followed by a dorsal fin, rather than the classic expanding ring. I freeze momentarily, watching that little swirl and waiting, the last of it in this case, and then a steady lift until the trout erupts at the sting.

This fellow objected strenuously to my intrusion, hurtling skyward with energy that belied the delicacy of his feeding. The Hardy wailed briefly, and he was out again, spraying droplets everywhere like sparks in the morning light. Another brief run, a third jump, then a long searing run as the Bougle` played it’s chorus. It took some time to land this one, and I enjoyed every minute. At nineteen inches, this acrobatic brownie was on the cusp between nice and big, as if mere dimensions could accent or diminish his beauty and his wildness.

Catching one ruined my composure somewhat, and multiple casts spoiled what might have been when the second sipping cruiser was approached. Did I mention that the rules of this fishing demand one cast per rise? That cast has to be on him quickly too! The assumption being that the trout is moving, taking, then moving along. A late cast, a second or third may put him down with a leader dropped too close, or other sins.

An hour further on, one more stayed in the same locale long enough for me to approach and prepare a cast. I had seen two or three half drowned sulfurs by then, little ones, and had changed to a 20 cripple pattern. While watching, my trout began to move left, sipping a sulfur or two along his path. He stopped in midriver, hovering near a group of boulders, and rose confidently. My cast was on target, but he did not come, then rose again after I retrieved the line. Despite a perfect drift, I thought he disdained that presentation as well, and glanced upstream at another swirl. Breaking concentration like that is a cardinal sin, as his take came as soon as I looked away. Sometimes providence smiles, and my rod hand came up before I even switched my gaze. Got him!

Hooked in deeper water, this twin did not take to the air, running instead for the far side of the river, while the check of the Bougle` shattered the morning stillness once again. Another hard fight, ending in the meshes of my net. The sun was high now, yet the breeze and cool water kept me very comfortable. I fooled one more after stalking a couple of unapproachables in the sheerest water. He was straight downstream of my rod hand, close enough and shallow enough that movement was out of the question. He ignored my spinner initially, as well as a tiny sulfur and an even smaller ant. The rises said spinner, so I lengthened my 6X tippet and knotted the same little rusty to my freshened leader. This time he accepted it on a perfect drift, and I paused at the take to account for the smallness of the fly and downstream drift, but the hook caught hold for only a second before releasing him. A good fish, but one who sidestepped his opportunity to dance with the Granger.

Summer, and the river grass is more than head high as I walk an old, favorite path along it’s banks. I can trace my steps back twenty years and more…

A last cool morning, though warmer than the previous two, and the insect availability has returned to summer conditions. The river is still cold this morning, though the few degrees of warming since midweek has changed things once again. Tiny flies… and technical dry fly fishing are the order of the day.

As often happens, the flies the trout are sipping are only in their line of drift, there is nothing in mine, so I squint and guess, running through the flies of the season; five minute hatches. In the time it takes to figure out just what is being taken, the bugs change again: wonderment, puzzlement, then elation as each little discovery is made. What’s that, something shining, moving…there a spinner, red, no olive, a cornuta spinner! It’s smaller though, an 18 perhaps, not the 16’s the duns have been, not the spinners I tied. Try anyway… no, no, not having any. Surgery: clip the wing tips and tails, reduce the profile and maybe… no, not having it.

By the time that little sequence concluded I spotted something lighter in the drift out there, tiny sulfurs perhaps? Tiny olives then. I try those flies again, but once again they are not the answer. Suddenly there are more fish rising, all the most delicate little sipping rises! Perhaps a cripple will do, a very small cripple… Have a taste for that? No, huh, forever no. What about you, you seem to be fairly regular my friend? Drift, drift, drift, twitch and PULL! Yea, that’s what I needed, he’s a good one! The brown takes line, and slowly I reclaim a little before he takes some more. Can’t be heavy handed with 6X and little hooks. Oh, he doesn’t want to come visit my net, not in the least. Oh my, there you are! Lets see now, settle in the mesh… twenty one, very nice, a big heavy boy. There you go, stay a moment and recover.

The game persists into mid afternoon. Solving one fish does not reveal the answer for another. The wind finally arrives, and a fly change to a different crippled emerger, half and half style. A gust catches the cast when the fly is half way to it’s target, and blows the fly too far upstream straightening out all 16 feet of leader and tippet. I knew it would drag before it drifted down to him. All I could hope for is a bit of luck, that he ignores it and I can wait for a second shot. Luck gives me a refusal to the dragging fly; that fish is done.

The rises are quiet now, little to see on the surface. Wait, here’s a little flurry just over there. Sulfurs again? The puzzle remains unsolved and then, as I am contemplating my withdrawal, I see a lone sentinel, a single larger sulfur drifting slowly. Taking my cue I tie the 100-Year Dun to the fragile 6X, not the best choice for a size 14 dry fly, hoping for one more shot.

Watching another sentinel, I look away and hear a little plop. Looking back, the big fly is gone, and a bubble trail is dissipating. I work the fish, waiting when the breeze picks up; no more dragging, and no more refusals. On the right drift, he takes it like he waited for my fly alone. He bucks and boils, not wanting to leave the cover, and I can do little but hold the line gently in my fingers with the light rod tip high. We absorb that frenzy, and the first run. Each time I raise the tip high as he heads for rock, keeping his head, and the tippet away from sharp stone. He runs, darts, turns and I reel. Give and take with Old Blue’s soft action. Summer is time for four weights.

At last, there he lies in the mesh. Twenty and a bit; half an inch? A perfect way to end a beautiful day on the rivers of my heart! The sun has been bright, and the water is warming. Time to let them rest. I’ve a dinner date tonight, and there’s music on the Square.

It is the twenty-fifth of June and forty-eight degrees here in Crooked Eddy. It is actually warmer this morning than it has been the past two, when we shivered at sunrise at forty-four. The cold nights and cooler days have been welcome, bringing some new life to the rivers: two days of mayflies and a few rising trout!

Wind has accompanied the spring temperatures, and I guess that is fitting, at least for the windiest spring in my Catskill memory. Forecast 5 to 10, never mind, Mother Nature cranked it up to 25, and I believe some of those gusts must have hit 30. Challenging conditions for fly fishing. The additional tension caused by the wind and fretting over my compromised presentation cost me dearly. I broke off a special fish, and that got my nerves further on edge, so I remained too quick and too firm on the draw. As the afternoon lengthened, I redeemed myself with a fine twenty inch brown cruising and picking off sulfurs, though my encounters with another haunt me.

Yesterday I was ready for the sulfur parade, large ones and small ones, though none of the big Gray Fox that surprised me on Wednesday. There was some hope and a plan that caused me to tie those special 100-Year Duns in a size 14 with blended yellow silk and wings from the Catskill Legend Dave Brandt’s cache of wood duck flank feathers. That hope was rewarded, when I saw the first taller winged sulfurs bobbing upon the wind waves.

I covered a rise while the wind blew steadily upstream, and the lovely old fly brought a take. That brownie was a just short of a foot, but he fought with everything he had. The gusts redoubled their efforts for a while, and there were no more rises, yet the sparse hatch of flies continued.

Wonder of wonders, a calm spell materialized without warning, and within two minutes time a rise appeared. The glint under the surface betrayed the old boy, no matter how dainty the disturbance. I cast the Dun above him, allowing just the right amount of slack to float it perfectly; how easy without a howling wind. He took solidly, seduced by the bobbing, canted wing and that provocative slouch, and I gave him the steel!

He tested my 5X tippet, and the flex of “old blue”, cavorting all over the river in search of a sharp edged boulder with which to undo our frail connection. In the end, he was mine, dedicated to that passed master, a friend that might have been, all twenty-one inches of him writhing in the net as I retrieved my fly. Back in the cold, clear embrace of bright water he posed.

Each time the winds rushed back, the fishing ceased, but the welcome calmer spells fed my need. A foot long brownie found the Dun to his liking, wishing he was big as he battled to hand. Like all the lovely, miraculous things in Nature, the un-seasonal hatch came to a close. This day there were more quiet moments, but the little sulfurs did not appear in numbers for the finale.

Toward mid-afternoon the howl increased, and I marveled at the caprices of the mountains. Two days with winds diametrically opposed, yet the gale blew upstream each day with a vengeance! This was the stormfront, sans dark clouds or rain, and it brought down leaves and branches and all manner of things scattered from the forest! The rises had been quieted for an hour or more, then there was one little plop.

The Grizzly Beetle was flipped to that spot, having replaced the Dun when the hatch demurred and the gale appeared, and the response was immediate. The big brown dug for the safety of the jagged bottom, and I held him at standoff for tense moments. At last he decided flight was a more lucrative choice. But I am no junior player either my finny friend! I turned him at each obstruction, gave him free rein as he ran from one toward another, leading him ever to the mesh. Four trout, two better than the twenty inch benchmark, under comically impossible conditions. Ah the magic of the Catskills!