Fishing has been tough for more than a month now, hatches have been thin or non-existent, the weather has been up and down between too hot and unseasonably cold. Such are the twists and turns of the seasons along the rivers.

I have fared pretty well if it comes to taking stock of things, had some truly memorable moments, but it has been dues paying time of late.

With a stormy afternoon forecast yesterday, I headed out for my fishing in the morning. The skies looked menacing, and the wind kicked up enough to make casting a challenge. There was little activity as I waded along, searching for a rise, a bug, anything to seize upon to plan my strategy. Eventually I found a couple of sippers in flat water, touchy sippers. One gentle cast and they were gone.

I covered some more ground, or riverbed to be accurate, and finally found a good trout sipping in a familiar lie. Since there hadn’t been any bugs in evidence, I tied on a small caddis some of the picky eaters have liked, to see if that would tempt him. I guess it was my second or third cast that appealed to him, for he tipped up and sucked it down. The Sweetgrass arched and he exploded, taking off for points south in a big hurry! Two or three more runs into the fight, the hook simply pulled out, and the first big brownie was lost for the day.

It must have been a couple of hours later when a few sulfurs trickled off the riffle upriver and another good fish set up shop. He was keeping a low profile, sipping without exposing himself in the shallow water, but I could tell he was a nice, nice brown. He was sliding a little to his right and then a little to his left behind a submerged rock, so we played that little game of which side are you going to eat on. As it turned out, he was right square behind the rock when he sipped my size 18 sulfur, and I lifted a touch too quickly and pulled the fly right back out of his mouth.

After a rest, he was at it again, so I changed patterns and went back to the left, right, left casting game. I persisted for half an hour, resting him every few minutes, then taking up the cadence again. He rose to the fly, I hesitated as I should, and when I lifted the rod he swatted the 6X tippet with his tail and broke it off of the leader. Damnedest thing I have seen this season; and the second big brownie was lost for the day.

I fished to a couple of risers without getting a look from either of them, until the sulfurs petered out and we were back to bugless. The wind picked up again, blowing much harder then it had been, so I decided to work my way back downstream with a Grizzly Beetle. There was this large shady spot beneath an overhanging tree and I peppered it with long, delicate casts, letting the beetle drift twenty feet or so then gently drawing it out toward the middle of the river for a pickup. My main line of drift was collecting all of the leaves and detritus the wind was sending toward that bank, and I never saw the rise when a trout finally took my fly. I gently pulled to the side at the end of my drift and the rod doubled over!

Oh boy, big, big brown trout, but he wants to take me deeper into the tree where the snags are! In my position I couldn’t do anything but try to hold him, the rod bucking like crazy as I feathered the line between my fingers, and… off. I retrieved my beetle, perfectly intact, with no fish attached. Big fish number three lost for the day: my trifecta of woe. Yes indeed, this is the other side of fishing. A “damn” escaped my lips, and then a chuckle, “not my day, just not my day today”.

I am thankful for every day I am blessed to spend along bright water. Even days like this one.

We did get a little rain last evening, and this morning was cool and drizzly when I left the house, hoping for some mayflies hatching and an honest good rise of trout. Rainy days are tailor made for olives, and I have fished some nice sulfur hatches on damp days too. I strung up the Paradigm this time, happy that the rod’s impregnated finish protects the lovely caramel colored bamboo from the elements. I was ready for a great day!

The river was quiet when I walked in, so I decided to fish the fast water with a Sulfur Poster, expecting the real thing to begin hatching any moment. They didn’t show and, after a few minutes I had a feeling that I needed something more substantial to wake up a good one. In my Isonychia box I found a deer hair cripple tied with a claret turkey biot, just the thing to entice a resting trout to rise. I worked some floatant into the hair and the dubbed thorax, and began working my way up the bubble lines. There was a little blip of a rise and I raised the Paradigm sharply; everything else happened in a wink.

The CFO screamed, a big bright sided trout leaped out of the water, and then lit up the afterburners and headed upstream! You have to love the sound of those old hand made Hardy spring an pawl drags. I do, dearly, but I didn’t get to listen very long. At the end of that long run he found some leverage and my line fell slack: gone as quickly as he came.

I kept fishing of course, working some flat water where a good fish or two sipped the occasional little olive, or something, during the long, bone chilling afternoon. I worked one extremely handsome fellow with every type of tiny olive I had: hanging emergers, low floating emergers, cripples, parachutes, and then on to terrestrials and even a Grizzly Midge. Every once in awhile he would show me his full length, just to impress me, and believe me I was impressed! I couldn’t be certain if it was the tiny olives he was taking, as the bugs he ate were the ones that were jumping around and twitching on the surface, to exclusion. My fly won’t do that, no matter what size 22 pattern I tie.

After sixteen months, the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild held a live, in person meeting yesterday at the Wulff Gallery of the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum. This was a small celebration, an open tying session meant to allow all who were able to attend to shake hands and tell tales, sharing some favorite sulfur patterns we all hope will catch some trout over the summer. There was a solemn note to the afternoon as well.

The Guild, and in a larger sense, all of Catskill fly fishing lost one of it’s giants last year: a well loved gentleman angler and fly tyer by the name of Dave Brandt. As per his wishes, members of the Guild had the honor of distributing Dave’s substantial collection of fly tying materials. The last pieces of that collection were made available to Guild members on Saturday.

I was fortunate to attend one of the last Guild meetings before the pandemic threw our world into chaos. On December 19, 2019 Dave Brandt offered an interesting and historic presentation on the history and tying methods for the late Walt Dette’s Riffle Dun. Brandt was known far and wide as one of the masters of the classic Catskill style dry fly, and everyone gathered enjoyed watching and listening to the master at work. I wanted to have a chance to meet the man after the presentation, but he was immediately surrounded by old friends and admirers, long time Guild members, and others, as might be expected of a Catskill Legend. I realized the rest of his afternoon would be quite full and headed home, confident I would have a chance to say hello the next time our group met. Sadly, that next time would never come for Dave Brandt.

With the opportunity to connect in some small way, I acquired a bag of Dave Brandt’s wood duck flank feathers on Saturday afternoon. These are the quintessential ingredient in the classic Catskill dry fly that Brandt loved. I was tying some little stuff this morning, tiny Flick olives that I’ll be fishing soon enough as summer blossoms. When I took that bag of Brandt’s wood duck out of my travel bag, a single loose feather wafted through the air. I caught it, and knew that I needed to tie a Catskill fly with it at that moment.

I decided to tie my own special Catskill dry fly, the 100-Year Dun. Inspired by the original Catskill dry flies, Theodore Gordon’s own ties, I hoped the legendary gentleman angler I never got to meet would approve. From what I have read and heard of the man, I trust that he would have. I will keep this fly in my own little collection. It won’t be fished. I tied two others that I’ll introduce to my own favorite runs and pools when I spot a sulfur dun fluttering on the surface.

One of the hardest things to come to terms with as life continues past a certain age is the loss of friends, family, and the people who have meant something in our lives, even the friends we never quite had the chance to know.

Footnote: The video of Dave Brandt’s tying demonstration of Dette’s Riffle Dun can be viewed by a visit to the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum’s website at cffcm.com. Among the new and refurbished exhibits at the Museum in 2021 is an exhibit of Brandt’s legacy.

The Summer Solstice arrives on Sunday with an entire new season of outdoor splendor. Yes, we have had some summer weather already: a taste in April, a snippet in May, and June has provided a fair number of days that fit the profile; but it becomes official in two days time. The rivers are transitioning; they always are. Hatches have become smaller and less prolific as water temperatures have run the gamut from far too warm for comfort, to pretty chilly some mornings. Here at Crooked Eddy the Weather Channel gave our air temperature as 46 degrees just after sunrise.

Though I love to sleep with the windows open, relishing the mountain air, such unseasonably cold nights are a blessing to the rivers, particularly when rainfall has been scarce. It mixes things up a bit too, changes the activity periods of some of the wild things, and generally makes life here more interesting. I love Catskill summers, as they can seem to go on forever.

The little early glimpses of summer have changed the habits of at least some of the trout. I have stood in the river on several days lately, looking for mayflies that did not appear. Haven’t seen a lot of caddis activity either. A few trout have started to pay attention to terrestrials though, and that is good news to me. Just the other day I figured that the strong winds that helped to erase my hope for morning hatches might be useful in the right context.

I changed locations, fished for a short while in the afternoon where vegetation hugged the riverbanks, and found what I was looking for. Those winds kicked up some actual waves on open water, blowing upstream no less, and I figure that cost me a few opportunities. I fished through a few choice hideouts during the worst of the blow, and heard the distinct plop of a rise or two during the next little calm spell, after I had passed them by.

There was a spot where I knew a good brown had been hanging his hat, as I’d spooked him out of very shallow water by laying down my cast too close. As I approached that area, I changed position slightly to accommodate my new improved game plan. I was more than pleased with my casting that afternoon, a happy accident of pairing a different line and reel with a favorite rod. It’s funny how much difference a particular fly line can make to a caster with a bamboo rod. The rod in question, a vintage Thomas & Thomas Paradigm, casts beautifully with several lines, but the weight forward Airflo line I casually brought with me really opened my eyes.

Strong, gusting winds are not friendly to fly casting. The uninitiated would likely scoff at a guy carrying a bamboo fly rod on such a day, believing the hype that one simply must have a high line speed, fast action graphite stick. But a well crafted cane rod with the right reel and line is a very beautiful and effective tool. It gives the caster a lot of control, and control is the name of the game. Presentation counts.

So I worked just the right angle to make a long cast to this trout’s lie, waited for a calm moment between gusts, and sent a cast down and across stream some 65 feet or so, letting the fly alight very gently ten feet above the place where I had spooked that fish the day before. I immediately pulled another ten feet of line from my reel and shook the slack out of the rod tip to extend the drift. Experience tells me, if that shallow lie won’t allow a close presentation, I had to make one that touched down further away and let the drift take it into his dinner table. Then the waiting came into play, and the last chance to mess things up by overreacting when the take finally came.

It seemed like quite a long time that I was watching that tiny speck of light on the surface, drifting down ever so slowly. An old friend, one who preached the virtues of good old slow action bamboo rods decades ago, had a favorite saying about casting them: “I like to make my back cast and then smoke a cigarette while I’m waiting for that rod to load, before I make my forward cast“. The drift of my fly in that slow pool brought that to mind and made me smile.

That trout was right where I hoped he would be, and I watched a gentle little murmur in the surface when my speck arrived. I raised the rod evenly and tightened, felt an initial tug, and then began stripping all of that fly line in as fast as I could. That cagey old soak just kept swimming upstream right toward me, but I barely managed to keep some contact. I couldn’t feel his weight until he got about twenty feet away and then turned hard for a snag on the bank! Maneuver parried my friend, with a big sweeping arc of bamboo. He found just enough resistance to make him turn away from certain freedom and make a run back downstream.

Once he put some distance between us, I began the chore of getting all of my extra fly line back on the reel. I don’t like playing good fish by stripping line, too many things to tangle and cost me a nice trout in the net! Once he was on the reel, I got to enjoy the music of a classic Hardy crafted spring and pawl check with every run. My grin was pretty wide when I dipped that big fellow in the net: twenty-one inches long, and a scowl on his mug from getting duped by that long, slow, stealthy drift!

Taking advantage of the natural transitions as spring turns to summer, making the best of some tough weather conditions, and a little advance planning allowed me to more or less correct my previous mistake. I hoped that this big brownie would be working the same stretch of bank as he was when I spooked him. He was rising on that first encounter, so I knew he was finding some food to his liking.

I even found the perfect fly line to match with my Paradigm when distance casting is called for. I do a lot of experimenting with lines and rods. It gives me something to do in down time and is the only way I know to find the line that will make a fine cane rod really sing! A fine afternoon all around.

I have no doubt that many of the young, modern fly fishers that run around and fish like their waders are on fire believe that those of us from an older generation no longer feel the excitement of fishing. After all, there we are, sitting on the bank with our bamboo rods patiently watching while the youngsters fly past with a Euro nymphing rod in each hand, racing to the next riffle where they can sling their leaded jigs. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the excitement that has kept us coming back to the rivers for several decades.

That excitement can be our drug, or our undoing. It helps the game remain interesting and fulfilling.

The largest trout I brought to hand last year had some well defined feeding habits, peculiarities which I discovered during some of that bank time. I know the area where he feeds, and I know how stealthily he can go about it, so when I saw a dainty little rise in a particular location this morning I immediately took notice. You can track the events with a look at the readout on the heart monitor I wear strapped to my wrist!

I had just taken a ten inch brownie by offering a size 20 spinner to another dainty little rise, and I immediately shot the extra line required to lay it down upstream of the veteran trout. On my third cast, he appeared to take it though, since I couldn’t see it clearly at distance, I tightened very carefully. No fish was attached, though I feared that little movement might have done me in. It didn’t.

Still convinced the fish was eating tiny spinners, I changed the fly to an Antron winged version with a bit more visibility. He rose again momentarily, and I cast again, all the while feeling my heart rate climb and that tingling I get at the moment of truth. The breeze gusted and my cast fell short, with all four feet of tippet blown back toward me. While I was retrieving my line, up he came again, this time sticking his nose above the film and taking a small fly from the surface. I thought of the tiny caddisflies I had fished with some success last week, and made another change. The tension was palpable as I checked my knot and waited for another gust to subside.

The first cast with the caddis remained un-assaulted by my foe, but number two, well that one seemed to float forever…

I was staring at that little tuft of a wing, staring a hole right into the river when the fly simply vanished. No rise, no ripple, simply gone! My mind took a microsecond to consider that event, and then it was followed by a slight wavering disturbance of the film, and I knew. My reaction then was at least two microseconds late, and we all know what happens when our reactions are late. I tightened gently initially, then swept the rod to my left as panic set in. There was a little picture of the trout’s nose turning toward me, and that sweep, and then nothing.

Retrieving the line brought me the answer: a leader with a little curl at it’s end where the tippet used to be. Victimized as much by one of those twice tested knots, as by my own overreaction, I envisioned that brown settling down on the bottom with a four foot fluorocarbon streamer trailing from his jaw. My Forerunner showed my heart rate had peaked at 140 BPM, after a ragged little up and down tracing of the moments leading up to that climax.

I was left to consider the other big fish I had spoiled in making that fateful cast. The line was in the air when he rose, nearer to me and just a few feet to the right of my line to leviathan. I could have moved the rod back and let line and fly fall behind me, then shorten my line and deliver a cast to the new trout. I have done that maneuver many times successfully. The excitement of the chase prevented reason though, as I wanted the big fellow I started fishing to.

The river grew strangely quiet, and I knew my game was done for the day. Neither of those fish would rise again today. I had ended my fishing just as if I had tripped a switch.

I waded out, took a break, and watched the lifeless surface for a sign of redemption. I stood in the shallows and watched for a very long time, allowing my elevated heart rate to recede, and calm to return to my demeanor.

Instead of the cool, cloudy conditions promised, the day grew bright and warm. Each floating leaf in the distance had me wishing it was a mayfly, but I knew better. I did not expect to see a hatch today. I had ripped the fabric of a glorious fishing day, and only time would heal it. Perhaps tomorrow.

Old fisherman can be stubborn. I wasn’t ready to give up, to pack it in and wander the path back to the car. I pondered the fact that this is the last week of spring. Since the promised spring day had become another hot summer afternoon, I took out the lone little fly box that holds a few terrestrials. I knew the trout hadn’t been taking terrestrials, but I tied a Grizzly Beetle to my tippet anyway. I went to work on the nearby holding water, just to see who might be at home.

The rise was heavy, at least for a simple dry fly tied on a smallish No. 17 hook, and there was no delay in tightening this time. The CFO set about screaming to anyone who would listen, as one heck of a big brown trout made known his intentions to get away clean. When he dove for rocky cover, I turned him, and when he ran hard upstream I palmed the reel to muffle it’s protests; all the while staying conscious of keeping smooth even pressure with an arch of caramel colored cane. I hefted him in the net and used my forceps to remove the little bug from his mouth before checking the measurement: twenty-one inches. My heart was beating pretty hard again for a consolation prize.

It has been six months since my Sweetgrass Pent arrived in the afternoon mail. Conceived as the ultimate Catskill summer rod, Jerry Kustich and Glenn Brackett created this eight foot four weight to do everything I need a fly rod to do in summer. It has waited through winter and spring, waited for the season it was born for, to meet the rivers of my heart. Along the way it was paired with a very unique and intriguing fly reel, designed and built far away in Kharkiv, Ukraine by VR Design, the Trutta Perfetta. That reel has waited along side the rod.

Our summer weather started early, in the middle of May. A frigid reprieve was granted over the Memorial Day weekend, with daily highs of 48 degrees and a strong dose of rainfall, but summer is here, everywhere except on the calendar. Today I packed the special summer rod and reel in the car for my morning fishing.

I stalked a favorite pool a few hours after sunrise, hoping to put the new outfit to the test. The Sweetgrass rod had been designed to my specifications: an eight foot dry fly rod with that something extra that comes with five strip bamboo construction, to be paired with a four weight line. I asked for a rod capable of as much distance as I might need, with complete delicacy of presentation near or far. My summer rod gets called upon to place flies beneath overhanging vegetation on a regular basis, so tight loops are paramount. Lastly, I need a rod with the backbone to fight big, wild trout, and the supple tip to protect 5, 6 and 7X tippets and light wire hooks.

When I discussed these ideas with Jerry Kustich last summer, he stated that he felt an eight foot four weight was the most difficult taper to design. After I piled on the attributes I felt such a rod must have, he agreed to accept the challenge. I never doubted that the Sweetgrass shop would turn out an amazing rod. They more than made the grade.

As I approached the first riser, I pulled enough line from the reel to make the presentation. I had knotted a freshly tied Cornuta TP Dun to my tippet, as I hoped to be lucky enough to find a few of these mayflies on the water. I lofted the line into a back cast, false cast twice to lengthen the line, and delivered the fly right on target for a gentle landing. I didn’t have time to think about the beauty of the rod’s casting action, as the little dry fly was readily engulfed in a solid rise.

The golden cane glistened in the sunlight as the rod bowed heavily and a good trout streaked away, the Trutta reel beginning one of many lyrical solos this day. The brown fought hard in the cold water, and rod and reel performed flawlessly, bringing a well muscled nineteen inch wild brown trout to the net at last. Released, he was kind enough to pose for a shallow water photo.

The next riser required a short stalk before I unleashed my next cast. As I watched the drift of the fly, I saw the surface murmur and a dorsal fin flick the meniscus as he turned down with his breakfast. Moving around a bit eh? I’ll just give you a bit more room to find it… My second cast dropped the fly ten feet further upstream, and it was taken after three feet of drift. The Trutta raised the chorus again, as this fish took nearly all of my fly line before the far bank turned him just enough for me to pull his head around my way. The rod tip absorbed his darting, side to side rushes, as our battle continued. A valiant twenty-one inch Catskill brown graced the mesh this time.

I covered another five yards as slowly as possible when another dorsal flicked the surface after the gentlest of takes. This trout wasn’t more than ten feet from the last one. The cast was about sixty feet, quartering upstream to put the fly above my moving target while keeping the glistening coils of tippet away. He took like he had been waiting for my fly all morning, and we were off on another steeplechase!

The water flew from the reel as another fine brown headed for points west. I saw the backing, but nubbed his run just before it found a path through the guides. I gained line, then lost it, keeping the rod tip high when the fish headed into one of the boulder fields this pool harbors. When he came clear I lowered the tip to use the butt to turn him back to my bank, but he shot away again. At long last he was close, and I reeled half of the sixteen foot leader in through the guides, leading him in tight little circles right into the net.

The largest of the three, this heavy bodied brown measured twenty-two inches, and I laid him and the rod on a deadfall long enough for a quick photo. He was tired enough to comply, but shot quickly back to the depths of the pool when I placed him back in the icy current.

I took a breath and scanned the river around me. The activity was slowing as I checked my watch. I’d taken more than five feet of wild brown trout in an hour, a fitting test of my ultimate summer rod and reel.

I continued up toward the head of the pool as the last rises dimpled the surface. These fish were cruising now, and none of them had showed within casting range. The morning rise was finished.

Wading slowly back down the pool, as morning lengthened into afternoon, I took a quick shot and placed a size 20 caddisfly over a lone serious rise, adding a plump eighteen inch brownie to my morning total. There seemed to be more than a little magic in the air this day, perhaps the result of all the karma stored up around the Sweetgrass Pent and Trutta Perfetta, waiting patiently for six months to get their turn. Then again, there’s always a little magic on bright water.

Haunting the mornings, a common summertime routine for me, and appropriate as the sun bakes the rivers at low water. Evening fishing still requires cold water to activate both the trout and the insect life, and evening finds many miles of our rivers at their highest temperatures of the day. So for the past two days I have been that summer angler, here in the final weeks of spring.

On Tuesday I went all out, hitting the road before sunrise to be on the river early. There are certain mornings when giving up a little sleep turns out to be very worthwhile. The lone 5″ brown trout that ate my fly nearly became breakfast for a much, much larger brownie, one that sadly would not return for my little dry fly.

Today I slept until my normal five o’clock hour, checked the river conditions and found the gift of cold water proffered by Tuesday’s clouds and thunderstorms. I knew immediately where I would fish. You don’t often get a chance to steal a day when summer temperatures dominate. I watched a bit of last night’s ballgame, ate a sandwich, showered, and packed everything I needed in my new vest in time to head out at half past eight.

Morning fog and clouds added to the calm as I slipped into the river and began my search. A few one time rises urged me to stalk closer, but I knew patience was the proper course. When I finally moved in, those rises had been repeated, and in the same locations. A handful of small sulfur duns skittered on the surface, and my number 18 disappeared in a dimple, the small brown trout cavorting around with his prize, and wondering how it managed to bite him back.

I moved again when I saw the telltale dorsal linger in the film behind a tiny sipping rise. Time to play the game. Four different sulfur patterns later I hadn’t interested this player, who continued his sporadic visits to the film. Staring at the surface proved no help. Whatever interested him wasn’t coming down the lane of water I was standing in. It was probably half an hour later that a spec in motion caught my eye a rod’s length away: a minute little caddisfly, spent and plastered to the surface, wiggling his last gasp. My hand went to my inside vest pockets automatically.

I figured that the four feet of 5X fluorocarbon completing my leader would present my size 20 CDC caddis perfectly. It was still blissfully calm, with enough cloud cover to eliminate the sparkle of the soft coils of tippet trailing the fly, and the T&T bamboo would give me all the control I needed. I didn’t want to chance this fish with 6X. It was the right choice.

I can’t say he took the first cast, as he wasn’t feeding with any kind of regular cadence, sometimes sipping two or three invisible specs from the film, and then pausing for a few minutes. He did take the fly though, nearly sunken in the film, with me squinting to follow the drift. I raised the rod evenly, pulling a full arch in the amber cane from tip to ferrule, and sunk that little hook tight into his lip. The Hendrickson stayed bowed in a half circle for some time after that.

That trout worked toward every rock and snag in the river, but the smooth pressure of the cane won the game for me again; in time. Twenty-two inches, with shoulders: I am always surprised when the biggest trout of the day is the one tempted with the smallest dry fly, a bit of nothing like that sparse little size 20 caddis!

With the puzzle solved I kept working my way along. These brownies were picky! Several took when the fly was barely trapped in the film, the cdc feather giving it just enough of that feeble, last breath movement to seal the deal. Another bruiser sipped it and came unglued at the hookset, he was charging away against the bow of the rod and then, gone. Tippet unbroken, hook still perfect; simply hooked in the wrong part of his mouth I guess.

Trying to track my little speck amongst all of the litter in the drift line brought some late reactions, some misses, and a refusal or two. I diligently retrieved the fly after every two or three casts, and powdered the feathers back to life and visibility, But I got most of my takes when it was deep in the meniscus, just like those tiny naturals, and a nineteen incher as it sank completely from view.

Morning passed to afternoon, and the game seemed to be concluded as the cloud cover broke to reveal the bright midday sun. One player remained, rising sporadically every once in awhile, then ceasing. I figured I had exhausted the caddis, and offered terrestrials, matched an olive I plucked from the drift in my lane, sulfurs again. Nothing would interest him. Finally I reached for a hair wing caddis, a size 20 X-Caddis with a mottled tan body and amber elk wing. I cut back my 5X and knotted three and a half feet of 6X tippet to the end. All or nothing. I waited until his meandering brought him into the best line of drift, then laid my cast down with an upstream reach, again and again…

When that white wink of his mouth converged with that caddis, I was nearly in a daze. I had worked on that trout for at least an hour. I snugged up to him carefully, ever conscious of the fine tippet between us. He didn’t like the taste of that sharp little hook worth a damn, and jetted toward the bank and downstream. He had most of my fly line when I stopped him, and I am sure I got all of two or three turns of it back on the reel spool, when he spun off again, deep into my backing. I tried to take a few steps toward the shallower side of the river, but his bucking threatened disaster, so I concentrated on keeping as much pressure as I could against his strength.

I got the backing and twenty feet of fly line back on the reel when he turned downstream again and took it all and more. I walked downstream toward him, one careful step at a time, rolled the rod over to equalize the strain on the fine bamboo tip, and reeled every chance he gave me. There were tense moments at the end, with a big boulder between us, but he was tired enough that my 6X pressure kept his head away from it.

He gave me a final burst when I lifted the net, trying for all his worth to jump right out of it, before settling down so I could take my caddis back. He was a deep, golden bronze, flanks peppered with vivid black spots, and he was heavy and broad there in the mesh. He nosed half an inch past twenty, as I lowered him into the cool flow and set him free with a smile.

There were no more sippers now, in the heat of the day. The sun was full overhead, and the day felt very, summerlike. I was calm and content, and my smile broadened: a glorious day! Size 20 caddis, I chuckled, not what I’d expected, no, not at all.

Another heat wave arrived for the weekend and promises to linger until the end of the week. Thunderstorms could provide some brief relief to anglers and trout, though water temperatures will continue to rise in the afternoons. I am hoping that does not become our recurring forecast as it did last June, when a protracted heat wave shut down the best of our fishing during the final weeks of spring.

JA and I baked late yesterday as we waited for the cool of late evening and wished for a strong rise of trout. Our hopes were pinned to a big finale for the Green Drake hatch, with loads of Coffin Flies and other spinners, or perhaps a strong hatch of the huge, fluttering duns. It was not to be, though we lingered well past nine, ever anticipating that one great hookup.

Actually, JA got his, with a solid take to his new Drake pattern, and a strong upstream run that separated that fly from his leader! He had caught a brown earlier on that fly, so the initial reports of the pattern test look promising. We both fished the pattern thoroughly on a tough evening where most of the risers seemed to be one and done; that well known situation I have dubbed wiggling bug syndrome.

Fly anglers see the effects of WBS quite often. When there is a good hatch of insects, trout will generally take advantage of the opportunity to feed, either on the surface making dry fly bums smile, or below it. During those times where we observe only a smattering of insects in the drift, or nearly none of them, there often seems to be a trout here and there that will come up hard on something: the dreaded one timer. Our highly evolved wild trout have learned to key more heavily on movement of their prey as the final stimulus, so they can be tempted when a wiggling, fluttering, lone insect passes overhead.

There looks to be some morning fishing on my calendar, at least while the overnight temperatures can cool the warming rivers down to spur some brief trout activity. Rainfall will be welcomed! It seems like the perfect time to get out the Cornuta box. These bigger, brighter blue winged olives are a morning hatch and the time is right for them to appear. Time as well to finally get my summer outfit, the 8 foot Sweetgrass Pent out on the river with a dry fly on the leader. The rod, conceived during some email discussions with Jerry Kustich last summer, arrived back in December. It has been waiting in the rod rack too long!

My friend Andrew beat me to the punch, having ordered his own in early spring. He returned home from our reunion week in the Catskills to take delivery of his 8′ Pent, wasting no time in heading to Penn’s Creek to fish the new Sweetgrass rod and VR Design Trutta Perfetta reel. I love it! (Photo Courtesy Andrew Boryan)

It appears the big drakes are behind us for this season, so it is the perfect time to give my five and six weight rods a rest and get my four weight out. Time for me to introduce it to the rivers it was conceived for, the sparkling and enchanting rivers of my heart. Thank you Jerry and Glenn, from both of us, in Pennsylvania and The Catskills!

Those of us who hang around the Catskills call it Bug Week, that fortnight period that generally runs through the transition from May into June. If you spend time on the rivers, the moniker becomes amazingly obvious: Green and Brown Drakes, sulfurs, March Browns, Gray Foxes, Isonychia, Cornuta olives, and spinners galore for all of them. There are caddisflies as well, Hydropsyche and Psilotreta can be very prominant, and I am sure there are others. The Catskill fly fisher will carry more fly boxes than he knows what to do with, and may still find himself unprepared.

The chances of running into a true megahatch are at their best during Bug Week, but that doesn’t mean it will happen. Every season is different, and those truly astounding events are well, ephemeral, just as the name implies.

I have smiled at many an article or chapter in some fly fishing book, where the author plays it up for his audience: show up at River X the first week of June and tie a Superba Dun to your tippet, and you are in for the day of your life... I smile as I am wondering if anyone who ever read those words and followed the writer’s instructions to the letter, ever showed up and had things happen like that. Probably not. The real world of fly fishing isn’t so predictable; and it’s a lot more interesting.

The more seasons under our belts, the more things we notice; the changes from season to season, and month to month. Nature isn’t static. Some changes are grand, others very, very subtle.

The Hendrickson hatch was terrific this spring, and I noted some variations in the makeup and complexity of the hatch. The Catskill standard Hendrickson, the mayfly the late, great Roy Steenrod’s iconic Catskill fly pattern was conceived to match was present in force. A properly proportioned size 14 dry fly tied with fawn colored fox fur in Steenrod’s, or one of several other styles caught a lot of trout for me and others. I saw a lot more Red Quills this season than I have previously, and a sweet little darker tan Hendrickson in size 16 that was new to me.

A lovely overcast day, one with the promise of Green Drakes hatching, drew me to the river yesterday. I was more than ready for a day of fast fishing to multiple risers locked in on drifting duns. The trout and the mayflies had other ideas.

Much of this prime time of the season has required a tactical shift, for the groups of rising trout I associate with the season have not been observed. I have seen some Drakes, some March Browns and sulfurs, and some trout have partaken, but the cruising behavior seems to have become the new standard.

Fishing pressure grows more relentless each season: drift boats, pontoons and waders everywhere, crowding some pools to the point of insanity. On the second of my two West Branch floats a few weeks ago I turned around and counted seven boats bearing down upon me, two of which were anchored not too far upstream watching me like a hawk, ready to pounce on the poor bank sipping trout I had found as soon as I lifted my own anchor. Science admits that wild trout learn from their experiences, and pass that learned behavior on to their offspring genetically. The fish adapt, and it appears to me that more of them are adapting to this manic fishing pressure by forsaking the classic feeding lie.

During one downpour yesterday afternoon, the temperature and light penetration dropped, triggering a few Drakes to emerge and drift down the pool. I watched as one trout made three tremendous bulging rises in mid-river, in three different locations. Three quick snacks and he was gone, before I could even stalk into a casting position. There wasn’t another rise in that entire area for the balance of the afternoon. It was like fishing for ghosts.

Instead of watching known feeding lies and approaching stealthily when a trout comes to dinner, my tactic of late has involved standing in the middle of the river and searching for little sips or wakes from moving fish. Even the big duns have been taken softly, on the move. A good trout glides up, sucks down the drifting fly, and keeps moving. If he takes another it will be in a different location. I have seen this type of feeding more often over the past several seasons.

It can be a very tense way to fish, this standing for hours, with dry fly in hand and line in the water, waiting for a quick shot at distance. There will be only one or two casts, and it may be a long time before the next cruiser reveals himself. Old habits die hard, and I tend to make additional casts to the area after the moment has passed, though better judgement tells me that trout is no longer there. The truth is, taking those extra casts on hope is self defeating.

Twenty years ago I first encountered this roving feeding behavior on the Mainstem. The Delaware rainbows exhibited the habit of making little milk runs during a hatch of flies, working upstream along a bubble line with several feet between rises, then swimming back downstream to begin again. It was a phenomena that seemed unique to drift boat trips on the big river, and we learned to judge how far a particular fish moved between rises and cast ahead of them accordingly. The zigzag patterns of today’s cruisers are not so predictable.

I managed two trout during that long, rainy afternoon yesterday, each of whom were kind enough to keep their roving controlled for a couple of rises at a time. Both were quality fish, and the second severely tested my tackle as I finally brought twenty one and a half inches of burly brown trout to the net. I also made a tactical error that cost me dearly.

The late morning was dead calm, and I spotted the object of my attentions sipping suflurs as he glided around in the glassy, clear water. The distance between nose and dorsal raised my heartbeat. Try as I might, I could not manage to send my cast to the spot he was headed for. The glassy conditions got the blame, and I finally resigned myself to go light, trimming my leader and adding four feet of 6X fluorocarbon before retying my sulfur dun. It always amazes me when I test my knots twice after tying, and then one fails at the moment of truth.

I calmed my heart and steeled my nerves, making a pitch just when that dorsal tickled the glassy surface. The little dun alighted perfectly and drifted flawlessly until the water stirred and it disappeared. I lifted gently, felt nothing, and saw the boil of a startled fish. The entire tippet and fly was gone when I retrieved my line, the knot failing where the 6X met the 4.5. Another day perhaps…

June lies upon the doorstep, the pinnacle of the dry fly angler’s season. The last half of May has been quizzical, though the Memorial Day cold front has brought a chance at rebirth. Rivers that were too low and too warm to host the grand celebration of the mayfly season are refreshed and chilled, ready to present the grand finale. In this, my twenty-ninth season upon the rivers of my heart, I await Nature’s release!

Several years ago I began a manuscript for a book and fleshed out a chapter entitled The Cult of the Green Drake. That cult, a mythical organization of obsessed anglers keeps no records of membership, but many have succombed to the draw of its sole premis: to haunt great trout rivers near the end of May in search of the hatch. Much has been written about one of our largest mayflies, ranging from grand tomes that elevate this insect to the highest realm of exhaltation, to grudging accounts of throngs of disgruntled anglers who flail in the darkness finding disappointment or worse.

Many who have read accounts of the majesty of these grand drakes, tales of all the largest trout in the river rising with abandon, have fallen prey to the lure. The fault of so many obsessed writers is they portray such spectacles as if all the seeker has to do is show up and cast his fly to partake of the wealth of the stream. I offer that nothing could be further from the truth.

For each expectant neophythe, there are a dozen grizzled veterans who will relate the tale of pitting their best skills and imitations against the glutted leviathans of the rivers, reaping only frustration and regret. I believe it is the most challenging hatch the eastern fly fisher can meet.

The large size of the Green Drake mayflies offers sustenance to the trout, but tales of them throwing caution and their natural instincts to the winds to partake of the hatch are folly. The size of these great duns makes them more difficult to imitate. Tiny insects test our vision and our patience, but often just the slightest bit of thread and feather will prove a suitable imitation. The big bugs give the trout the whole show, displaying details and vigarous movements in the slower currents they inhabit. More to see, and thus more for the angler and fly tyer to copy to offer an effective imitation. I have long been convinced that the largest flies are the easiest flies for trout to recognize as frauds.

It was the great Green Drake that coaxed me into study and experimentation, and they keep me working each season. Some experiments have been hugely successful; others complete failures. It is the way of the Cult: draw the enlightened in with promises of answers to the puzzle, sweeten the experience with a taste of success, and then dash those hopes with brutal reality. Seekers we remain.

Like all seekers, I do not know when or if the great flies will appear. They can be the most difficult hatch to encounter with any regularity. By standard terms, the hatch is late this year, late in a season that began early. What do we make of that? We accept the difficulty as the primary rule of the game. The flies will come in their own time, or they will not come at all. We wait with bowed heads, offering our own sacrifices to the river gods, that they might shine their light upon us. We gather in darkness to bemoan the futility of our quest, yet tomorrow we will seek the sentinels of the hatch once more…