Seven AM, and I step out onto the porch to the heady scent of new mown grass and the incandescence of clear blue skies and sunlight; but the grass is frosted white and the thermometer hovers just below freezing. It is another spring morning in the Catskill Mountains, and I am searching for rivers.

The Delaware tailwaters are terribly high, above the dangerous range for waders and the experts only range for boaters, and I neither take life for granted nor fool myself with ego when it comes to my experience behind the oars. In short, there is no fishing.

Perhaps somewhere, in one of those high mountain streams I have neglected, a trout will rise today, but the prospects are incredibly low. So still I search, asking questions, sending inquiries over the wire to those who may know distant waters. Stream gages are a wonderful tool, though useless without practical experience to bring the numbers into real focus. One hundred cfs can be a delightful, somewhat low flow here, and a raging torrent there. Everything depends upon the river channel, its depth, gradient and bottom composition.

With freezing nights and days in the fifties, the high mountain streams are still icy cold, their trout not conditioned to rise. The larger rivers, while more resistant to the cold, offer little in the way of surface feeding lies in high water flows. Neither welcomes the dry fly angler under current conditions.

Forecasts call for more than an inch of rain over the next four days, something I would welcome under different conditions. The City kept their reservoirs near capacity in April, as the rainfall for the first months of the year was less than normal, and there was no place to store the rainfall from recent events. Things balanced nicely for April, with perfect wading flows and plenty of feeding lies available to the trout as the Hendricksons heralded a new angler’s year, but nothing lasts forever.

My window is shrinking; it may be a mirage after all. Is there one smaller stream I could visit, one that reaches that just right flow and temperature on this afternoon, one where I could steal a few hours with wild trout rising to the fly? The tools are available; the little one piece Smithwick stands in it’s wooden case, nearly as tall as I am. It has been far too long since I cast a line with that magic wand!

I have been seduced by trophy trout prowling broad rivers, places where half the game is finding the niches where such fish rest and feed, and live their lives in avoidance of casual anglers. As the unwanted result, I have left the Brook Trout to their mountain rills, forsaken the pure joy of weaving along these bright ribbons through the forest, ducking beneath the fallen branches ever watchful for the wink of a quiverring fin. Brookie streams are secret places, tight quarters where each cast, and each backcast must be planned, mapped out for their prospective paths through the understory. It is too long since I have listened for the sparkle of water within a solid hedge of rhododendron, and wondered…

I started out yesterday morning with the idea of fishing some different water. My first choice was a drive to the Neversink and the opportunity to meet a fellow fly fisher, a Covid Friend. No he doesn’t have that virus, it is simply a term which applies to a number of guys, most members of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild that I have corresponded with via email during the past fourteen months of coronavirus forced solitude. I think we all helped one another through the winter by talking fishing via our keyboards, when personal contact was too risky to consider.

I was looking forward to the chance to meet face to face and share the water, but the beginning of this rainy week had other ideas. Monday’s rain pushed the Neversink up to 300 cfs by early morning, and neither of us thought it would be good wading. That river won’t see either of us for a while, as the heavy rain they expected last night has the river roaring with the discharge closing in on 2,000 cfs with their reservoir spilling.

Our Delaware reservoirs were spilling already and rose further overnight. With more rain today, Friday and on into the weekend, wade fishing is pretty well over for a long time. It looks like time to get the drift boat wet. Floating has its charms, but I am a wade fisherman at heart.

I like to float when the river isn’t busy. That can be quite peaceful, an introspective day gliding along, searching for mayflies and rising trout. Of course our Delaware and its branches gets very busy this time of year. I remember when there were a handful of river guides running float trips. Now there must be a hundred of them. Even when they spread out throughout the system, that’s a lot of traffic, and many of the newer guides insist upon floating even in low water and on the smaller reaches of the upper tailwaters, intimiate environs suited to wading only. Trying to navigate a busy river takes the joy right out of fishing.

In mid-May last year, I floated the West Branch on a weekday with the river still carrying an unfriendly wading flow in excess of 1,000 cfs. The morning was quiet, uninterrupted by either people or trout, but the afternoon was like running a gauntlet. In several reaches where I had hoped to fish, there were so many boats and waders squeezed into every inch of river that I had to row a zigzag pattern back and forth across the river just to try to get through without ruining anyone’s fishing. There was no spot for me to fish myself. At one pinch point, I had to drop the anchor and sit there to maintain a little courtesy, as there were waders stringing out into the narrow passage within casting distance of three anchored guide boats. It’s fly fishing folks, not a mob scene.

I was sitting there for half an hour when the Red Gods seemingly appreciated my patience and threw me a consolation prize. A trout rose to eat a Hendrickson a boat length in front of my bow, so I tossed him a fly and caught him, a nice 18 inch wild brown. After I slid him from the net into the river, his cousin rose very close to the same spot, and I caught another one an inch or two smaller than the first. By the time I released that trout, the waders to my right had backed out of the water and two of the boats had lifted their anchors and were moving on. I pulled my anchor and rowed through that crowded pinch point as quickly as possible.

When I got home that evening I parked the boat and proclaimed my West Branch floating season completed for the year. I honestly don’t understand the reasoning behind this crowd mentality. Fly fishing is the ultimate one man outdoor pursuit. Quiet solitude was once it’s hallmark. I particularly don’t understand some of these guides. Do they actually believe they are providing a quality experience to their clients? Back when I travelled to the Catskills for my fishing I treated myself to a day or two of drift boat fishing on the big river when I could afford it. The guides I fished with, Pat Schuler, Ben Rinker and Sam Batschelet prided themselves on providing a quality experience. I enjoyed some wonderful fishing, and got to appreciate the quiet and solitude of a beautiful, wild river. These gentlemen worked very hard to get away from the crowds.

More anglers need to learn to be flexible in their fishing. When you find a group of cars parked at your intended pool, keep driving, try another reach of water. If you fish with a guide, insist that they provide a quality experience, not a game of bumper cars in drift boats on the most crowded section of river they can find. If flows are low at your destination, tell your guide that you would prefer to wade fish and leave the boat in his driveway. Everyone’s fishing will be better and more enjoyable with a retuirn to courtesy, sportmanship and common sense.

I have been doing my mayfly research for the next hatch I hope to be fishing, and the more I read from my references the more interesting things have become. I first encountered the mayfly I dubbed the Little Dirty Yellow Hendrickson on the Mainstem Delaware in 2019, then my friend John and I plucked a few from the waters of the West Branch during a float trip that same spring. They showed up after the main Hendrickson hatch was over, though the first duns I got my hands on certainly looked like Hendrickson duns to me, though smaller duns of a decidedly different color.

Once upon a time, if you went into a fly shop for a package of sulfur dubbing, you got a fur blend that was reminiscent of sulphur, a dirty, dark yellow with a golden overtone. Where I fished, sulfurs were a major hatch, but they varied from a fairly pure sunny pale yellow to a pale yellow/ pale orange mix, like most of the sulfur dubbing you see today. When I first captured the “new” mayflies, I dug out a thirty year old package of Orvis sulphur yellow dubbing and started blending from there.

My name for these size 16 mayflies was purely descriptive. They had the gray tails and fairly dark gray wings of the Hendricksons, along with the same distinct rather blocky thorax. The back of the abdomen and thorax shared a dirty gray tone, and the underside was that darker, dirty, sulfurious yellow.

In talking with fellow anglers, several chimed in with an “oh, those are Invarias”, meaning Ephemerella invaria, commonly called Big Sulfurs. I accepted that for a while, until I did a little bit of research and decided these were not E. Invaria mayflies. Angler, author and Catskill legend Al Caucci maintained that he and Hatches co-author Bob Nastasi had sampled several different unidentified species of mayflies in the Delaware system that appeared to be closely related subspecies of the Hendrickson (Ephemerella subvaria), some of which they referred to as Ephemerella X. From Caucci’s description, I don’t think these are his X bugs, but I do believe they are Hendrickson relatives. I will stick with Little Dirty Yellow Hendrickson or LDYH (Lady H).

Though I have more curiosity regarding the science, I am not an entomologist. I am a fly fisher, and I have the knowledge I need to find them, tie them and fish them effectively, whatever species they may actually be.

The Poster pattern above is the first pattern I tied to imitate the Lady H hatch, and it has been well proven on a number of selective trout. Best of all, I landed a pair of two foot long wild browns on that fly last spring. I tie a parachute version too with the same materials.

Since I started seeing these duns coincident with the apparent end of the Hendricksons this week, I gathered the appropriate flies into one box, and then decided to try a quill bodied version of the CDC duns that have been some of my top flies this spring. The Jave Quill Lady H should be a killer as well. Just to be safe, I tie a few of my patterns in a size 14, though most of them are 16’s.

Perhaps one of these days I will make the acquaintance of an active professional entomologist who will know the species of this mayfly, or take a few back to his DNA lab to solve the mystery. It does seem that every time those guys do DNA tests they rewrite about a century of accepted fly fishing literature in regards to hatches, something I am not necessarily in favor of. After all, does it really matter all that much if we have a brand new Latin name for the bug tied to the end of our line? If we know the appearance, habits and habitat to encounter these mayflies, then we ought to be able to have some success fishing the hatch.

I kind of like Lady H as opposed to Ephemerella schmotium delawarus once Dr. Joe Schmo actually identifies and names this new species anyway.

The mountains continue their greening as the roller coaster weather of a Catskill Mountain spring rolls on. We fished in summer conditions mid-week – 81 degrees, low, clear water and sparsely scattered mayflies, but the rains and winds transformed the rivers quickly. Talking with my friend John this morning he told me “everything is covered in white” at his cabin high in the headwaters of the Beaverkill.

It was close to freezing here in Crooked Eddy, and the rivers are high and clouded. Both Delaware reservoirs are spilling and, with showers expected regularly over the next week, that seems likely to continue. I expect to need my drift boat when the hatches begin in April, and often park it as good wading conditions herald the lovely month of May. This year looks to be a reversal of those norms.

My boat has been ready to go since March, when long stretches of warm weather had me itching to row and drift my way to some early dry fly fishing. To date, it has only been wetted by rainfall; and the dry fly fishing, though early, didn’t happen in March.

I prefer wade fishing, always have, as I like to stalk the riseforms that speak to me. Floating allows a pair of anglers to cover a great deal of water, though that perceived advantage is offset by the ever lurking decisions to be made. To stay or go; might the hatch begin on this pool as we drift downstream and enter the next one? One rule overshadows each choice: you cannot go back. A wading angler can walk both upstream and down, and he may take the time to study the water closely as opposed to wandering. That is often how I find the prize.

Neither fills my palette today. There are flies to design, a continuation of the trend, and tackle to maintain. Let the weekend crowds frolic in the cold, muddied waters. I will bide my time, perhaps try that rod that has been waiting five months to see water for the first time. There’s a new line spooled upon it’s designated reel, one not yet cast. It nearly got the test in last week’s fleeting summer-like conditions, though I blinked and the moment vanished! We’ll both be ready for the next time…

It is raining here in Crooked Eddy, a sorely needed rain that I hope lasts throughout the day. The rivers need a recharge, and I do not mind the break from a busy week living the joy of spring and the Hendrickson hatch. It has been quite a week.

My first encounters with the lovely April mayflies were typical for the cold waters of early spring in the Catskills: brief emergences of flies with the trout taking no notice of them, and then gradually sampling this new buffet as it is spread before them. Conditions changed rapidly through the week, ending up with two days of stalking wary wild brown trout in low, clear, warming water.

I celebrated some relief from the fear of Covid, appreciating the safety of the vaccine as I fished comfortably with my two best friends. John joined me to begin this oddysey, fully insulated to wade the cold forty-five degree water, and we found the trout difficult to fool as always, but receptive to our best presentations and patterns. That first week’s fishing started well before its interruption by a quick return to winter weather. Better spring conditions slowly returned as the next week dawned, as Mike arrived from Maryland to sample the Hendrickson hatch.

That first day brought cold temperatures and brutal wind conditions, though we each found our moment of triumph in the midst of the maelstrom, Mike wrestling a trophy brown from the Cauldron, while I hunted one down in wind rippled shallow flats.

Our second day began with perfect conditions, though a couple of early arriving anglers camped on the choice water for the duration. We separated and worked secondary locations, the more difficult quiet, shallow waters, while the river continued to drop.

I had good hunting that day. As temperatures warmed into the seventies, stalking the low, clear pools became much more like summer fishing than early spring.

I spotted the first delicate sipping rise while taking a break for lunch, zipped my half eaten sandwich back into it’s bag, and began my stalk. The combination of the conditions and riseform led me to knot a Hendrickson spinner to my tippet, waiting after a few carefully chosen steps for a second rise. When it came, one cast brought a sipping take and a large Catskill brown streaking for the far side of the river, my Thomas & Thomas Hendrickson in full arch and classic CFO reel in full song! It is hard not to celebrate a day that begins with a spirited battle and a brilliantly colored twenty-one inch trout writhing in the mesh!

As the afternoon unfolded, various species of mayflies appeared sporadically: a few Blue Quills, small dark Hendricksons, then Red Quills. Now and then over the next hour and a half, I noted a few single rises within 50 yards of my position. If a trout rose a second time, I moved to it, though invariably there were no repeats once I entered casting range.

Eventually I spied a sipping rise within a thin line of shade along the far bank and moved in as stealthily as possible. Watching I noted three distinct trout sipping tight to that bank, all within a foot wide band of shade perhaps fifteen feet in length. Summer fishing indeed. I worked those trout for perhaps an hour. Their rises were sporadic, but they kept at it, as the mixture of flies in the drift varied. When the drift along that edge exposed somewhat taller, darker wings, I captured the next two duns that passed my position. The size sixteen dark Hendricksons were familiar from the previous day, and I had done my work at the vise in early morning.

Like most tiny bankside feeding lies, obstructions play games with presentation. Fishing trophy trout with the fine tippets required is a chess match of subtlety and control. Finally, one of my perfect drifts entered that trout’s tiny shallow water window at the right moment and the battle was joined. He was the first in line and put a big bow in the warm caramel colored cane as he ran straight downstream along the bank, scattering the other two that had been tucked into that shade. I wouldn’t expect anything less.

He ran all around me, the fine tip of my Hendrickson alive with his energy and cushioning each surge of power and speed. At last I led him close, scooped gently, and took a measurement of an irridescent hued trophy Catskill brown.

The next player reminded me of the other side of light tackle angling, as he turned with a rush and cut my tippet in an instant. I never really even felt the pressure, though my eyes confirmed his size.

The afternoon lengthened with more of the familiar sporadic, here and there activity, until a quick flurry of Red Quills offered me another chance. The new flies appealed to a sporadic brown hugging the bank below a brushpile, and he sipped them with increased regularity. The obstruction made perfect drifts difficult, but my Jave Red Quill finally seduced him. A strong fighter, he just missed the coveted twenty inch mark, though his wildness and power made for an exciting closing act.

Each evening I wondered if the hatch would last for Mike’s visit. Our last morning brought that answer. We arrived earlier and found trout podded up and cruising to sip a mixture of morning spinners and duns. Their jockeying for postion made casting fruitless and it wasn’t long before all of the action subsided. In that brief interlude I’d identified both dark Hendricksons and Red Quills on the water, and I believed we had arrived just in time to witness the last of those hatches on that water. The remainder of the morning and early afternoon tested our patience.

I’d gone hunting again later in the day, while Mike chased the ephemeral sporadic sippers in deeper water, breaking off a large fish when his careful casting was finally rewarded. I too found sporadic risers, both delicate sippers and heavy rises to moving insects, but found nothing consistent that would come to the fly.

It was eighty degrees, and the first clouds of the incoming front softened the light a bit, when my summer hunting became interesting for the last time. The larger, lighter Hendricksons began to emerge in the shallow flats I’d been stalking, and swirls and a few heavy rises greeted them. I offered my darker size 16 fly until more of the emerging duns reached the surface, and I identified the change. I knotted a size 14 CDC sparkle dun, pausing as I wrapped the knot in the fine 6X tippet. I don’t like to go that light, and the cut off from a couple of hours earlier nearly made me go up one size, but the conditions demanded the extreme delicacy.

As so often in this type of situation, the feeding trout were cruising about the flat, some taking nymphs with subsurface swirls, while a few agressive rises marked the fish targeting duns. A quick cast to one of these made my heart jump, as the take was savage. He gave me everything he had, a raging bull of a brown trout, excited by the hatch, and I thanked Mssrs. Dorsey and Maxwell many times as their exquisite taper protected that 6X tippet from his powerful rushes. Deep flanked, and wide through the shoulders, that brownie taped twenty-three inches and easily weighed five pounds, more than a fitting end to a challenging but miraculous Hendrickson hatch, the best I had enjoyed in a decade.

I was fortunate to enjoy my best Hendrickson hatch in a decade, with flies in abundance I thought I might never see again. Half a dozen valiant Catskill brownies, each exceeding twenty inches, shared their energy with me and my obsession with dry flies and classic tackle over eight days of fishing. I feel more than blessed for the experience. The rivers varied from forty-five degrees to nearly sixty in that brief and tumultuous span, and wind driven waves zeroed out one day and nearly another. Weather like that amounts to a taste of everything you might hope (or fear) to encounter in a week of Catskill Mountain springtime if you stop and think about it, however; fishing like that is about as close to perfection as you can get!

Back when we both used to travel to fish the Catskills, I teased my friend Mike Saylor about his (our) miraculous ability to foul the weather at our destination. We are both retired now, enjoying life, but we have not slowed down when it comes to those dubious magic powers.

Last week, when Mike announced he would be able to come up on Monday to fish the Hendrickson hatch, the forecast for his three day visit included three clear, sunny days starting in the low sixties and coming to a balmy crescendo near eighty; angling paradise! What welcomed us on Monday morning differed slightly. Temperatures were skirting freezing at dawn with a predicted high of fifty-one, oh, and winds from ten to twenty miles per hour. We got sunshine, as opposed to the cloudy skies forecast, though despite my best efforts to pick a location that would be somewhat protected from the prevailing winds, we really got the big blow.

Ten to twenty would not begin to do this little breeze justice. When the rushing air currents hit the bowl of the mountainside along the river it turned sharply, aimed straight upstream, and took advantage of the venturi effect to increase it’s strength and speed. If I had had a wind indicator I believe the readings would have been in the range of twenty-five to thirty miles per hour. It whipped up some upstream whitecaps to put those in the photo to shame, and some darn impressive breakers! When I thought back about the day, the phrase fishing in the cauldron came instantly to mind.

If you are a dry fly fisherman, you know that the key to convincing a trout to take your fly, as opposed to one of a few hundred actual mayflies drifting past his nose, is a natural presentation, a drag free drift. Winds of the magnitude we enjoyed on Monday afternoon do not allow a drag free drift, nor do they allow accurate casts, tracking one’s fly amid the froth and wavelets, or generally, catching fish.

However, when your best friend drives three hundred miles to fish, you give it your best shot, despite the weather. Turns out our best shot was good enough.

While I tried my best working upstream with a wind-straightened leader, Mike waded right down into the worst of the waves. Somewhere between the tenacious gusts, he managed to find a wild trout rising, and put his fly in front of him just right. I could barely hear him above the rushing air, but I turned and saw his rod aloft and heavily arched. Success! He shouted again when he got that big boy in the net, a beautifully colored, heavily muscled trophy Catskill brown well in excess of twenty inch standard.

I was happy with our day at that point, despite my own foibles with a couple of decent trout rolling on my wind skated, dragging flies. My buddy had fished hard in very tough conditions and caught the kind of fish we both dream about. It seems the Red Gods had a reward in store for my perseverance too.

I hiked around a slight bend in the river and found calmer water, there was still wind to deal with, but the surface was rippled, not a sea of crashing waves. I figured that was an improvement and set about hunting trout. There were a few scattered Hendricksons on the water, the hatch nearly completed for the day, but I saw no sign of rising trout. I continued walking, then finally spotted a splash about seventy-five yards up river near the opposite bank.

It was a long stalk, but the wind rippled surface actually allowed me to get there faster than normal, as the wind washed the disturbance from my wading straight upstream. As I neared casting range there was one more heavy rise and I was able to mark the fish’s location. Turns out he wasn’t holding that lie, but cruising, looking for those straggling duns as the hatch petered out. My casts to the lie I’d stalked brought no answers, but then a little blip of a rise right in front of me triggered a quick pickup and a short, accurate cast.

He popped my Hendrickson right away and exploded when I put the steel to him with my Menscer Hollowbuilt! This was a heavy brownie that was out of the water as much as he was in it during our battle. One of those jumps brought an exclamation from behind, as Mike had hiked upriver behind me. Another gorgeous wild Catskill brown trout in the net, though he jumped out of it before Mike could snap a photo for me. The Leaper simply wasn’t going to quit. Measured at twenty-two inches, with a fat belly, this fellow completed our day of fishing in the cauldron with another smile!

After two days of pop up winter, spring has returned with all it’s bluster. The sun feels good, with enough layers of clothing to keep the worst of the wind at bay, and I am glad for it as there is a lot of waiting to do today. With water temperatures dropping from the low fifties to some forty degrees, it is anyone’s guess whether I will find a target for my dry fly.

Two and a half hours of contemplation, broken up with a couple of short walks, even a brief wading foray or two, just to test my leader for the wind. Fly fishing teaches patience; at least if you let it.

There was a time that I was like the multitudes, rushing in to beat the water to a froth. Trout were caught so surely this must be the way – or isn’t it. The gentle spring creeks taught me the value of time, observation, and the contemplation that brings understanding of just what it is that one is seeing.

I knew the odds were stacked against me when I saw him, suddenly rising four or five times in a pocket of dead water tight to the far bank, the full width of the flow between us; and the wind. A hard upstream blow, strong enough to reverse the current in that pocket, it really thrived as soon as I entered the water. Stalk and wait; nothing else to do. One trout to fish for, a lone player for the game.

The sun filtering through the budded tree limbs lights everything upon the surface with a glow, but there, among the seeds and detritus there are tiny wings! Blue Quills? My bright winged pattern hides between the flies and seeds and I still can’t track it on that brightly lit stage, and what’s this; he’s moving. Perhaps he doesn’t like that wind current playing with his dinner any more than I like it inhibiting my cast.

He’s got himself a fine little milk run now, fifteen feet of bank with a five foot wide dead zone. No, not dead, just very, very slow, just past the seam of the fast water. Slower still when the gusts reverse the flow and everything swirls. He doesn’t rise then, but he moves, follows things in toward the bank, but only sometimes. When the whim strikes him he follows something out to the seam and plucks a morsel there, right there where I can get him easily; but he doesn’t stay, won’t linger in that seam. There’s no pattern to deduce!

Those first happy rises, the ones that brought me over here to stand in the deep cold current, had me thinking he was a smaller trout, but the milk run and his sipping changed my mind. This is a big trout, a wily old brown taking advantage of the habitat he knows so well. He’s really eating, working upstream and down, back and forth along the five by fifteen foot alley. He pauses when the hard gusts blow, then starts hunting all of the bugs that got blown back upstream.

I can see larger flies out here in the current, Hendricksons, perhaps Red Quills. I’ll try one of them, yes this cripple ought to look vulnerable to him. Floating low, everything I put over there is tough to see. So many naturals, and all of those damned seeds – what I wouldn’t give for this wind to quit!

I can track the Hendrickson better, and its calmer now, but he won’t touch it. Has to be eating the small stuff. Red Quill? No. He won’t touch that either. Here comes the wind!

Back to the Blue Quills, a different pattern this time. I hate this wind. Come on… eat it! I’ll try a different one. Wait for the gusts to subside, yea that’s a nice float, but he ain’t buying. Maybe he’s only eating the ones with their legs crossed. Could they be olives? Don’t think so, not mid-afternoon on a bright sunny day. Spinners? Not in this wind.

Let me get a couple of steps closer, shorten the cast, give the wind less time to blow it off course. I think I can manage it with the staff. There, that’s better. Down and across would be better but I can’t wade there. Let’s try that Blue Quill Poster, maybe I can see it better now…

It’s not so brightly lit over there now. The sun’s going over the ridge a little. What’s it been, two hours? He got feisty a few times, stuck his nose out a couple of times and waggled his dorsal. They’re not as far apart as I expected. He’s not as big as I thought, but he will be if he keeps eating like that; a very worthy opponent. Not so many flies now, the hatch is dwindling.

Another calm spell and he’s moving again, sliding back downstream below his alley. Picking up stragglers. Let’s try this dark little mahoghany dun… yes, I can see that light CDC wing better. Not so much on the water either; time is short if I’m going to get him. Better drift down there with the downstream cast… but he still doesn’t want it.

I think he’s done. The drift looks clean now. Bravo Mr. Brown! You ate your fill and avoided my efforts. I’d like to find you running that alley on a calm day!

Just took a walk to the Post Office to get a breath of fresh Catskill air. Two hours after sunrise and it is still only 29 degrees in Crooked Eddy, with snow flurries skidding about on the wind. Tuesday evening was perfection, but spring gives you a hiatus just when you are about to get comfortable with warmth and fly hatches.

I would be on the river anyway, but forty mile per hour wind gusts do not agree with fly fishing. I know this for a fact, as I have fished in forty, and even fifty mile per hour winds more than once. I honestly do not recall ever catching a trout in such conditions, though I may have caught a steelhead; once. Steelhead fishing on the Lake Erie tributaries is of course not dry fly fishing. It is chucking weight, and a lot of it, to bounce estaz eggs and Sucker Spawn flies along the bottom of the deepest, fastest, nastiest current you can find. Fly fishers use fly rods to do it, but it isn’t fly casting, so strong winds may be uncomfortable, but they don’t create impossible conditions either.

Retirement in the midst of the Catskills allows one to practice sanity on days like this. When I travelled to fish these rivers, I did so knowing I had a limited number of days each season. If I was up here, I fished, and did my best to try to fly cast no matter how bad it was. With fifty mile per hour winds that included several hours of standing huddled on a river bank, or out in a windswept river, for every half-hour of actual casting. Gusts of fifty seem to happen on days with at least twenty mile per hour sustained winds, so casting isn’t pretty, but it can be possible with a lot of patience and careful positioning.

Two days out of a young season isn’t a bad price to pay for the good days, and I look forward to a lot of them. Besides, I have friends coming and there is work to do.

I replenished my supply of Hendrickson Sparkle Duns and my Blue Quill Cripples early yesterday, but there are friends to consider. I am hoping these flies will still be hatching when they arrive, though one can never be too sure, particularly during a fitful spring. I will tie some extras today so I can hand them out without raiding my own boxes, and there is always the next likely hatch to get ready for.

There are fly lines to be cleaned and a reel to be adjusted, so I can fish trouble free and enjoy the company of friends that I barely saw last year. Yes, we will still fish safe and apart, but with everybody vaccinated we will all be able to relax just a little bit.

It’s kind of a shame that the winds will be horrendous today, as I like to use non-fishing days to cast some different fly lines on different rods; check reels for balance and feel on different cane, that kind of thing. I sort of like to fish period reels on classic rods, one of my own little eccentricities, but there are practical considerations that prevail.

I can keep myself occupied for the day all right. Tying flies and adjusting tackle is good work, and I went a little too crazy this winter to do a lot of it. Who likes to go out in a foot and a half of snow and cast in 25 mile per hour winds? Not me.

Another variable and spectacular spring day in the Catskills: sunlight, gathering clouds, mayflies on the wing and finally a lovely bright and clear evening to pause and appreciate friendship and the beauty around us. John and I have too little time to share on the water, so it is always special when we enjoy one of those opportunities. To combine our friendship with the natural beauty of a favorite reach of river, and the joys of Hendricksons and rising trout, is truly sublime.

We spent some time in conversation, then each began to survey the water before us. Our early arrival left us with some time to wander and get a feel for the river, to prospect with swinging wet flies while we anticipated the main event. We rejoined on the bank for lunch, sharing some of John’s jerky and comparing flies as the day moved slowly into afternoon.

The big mays had not made their appearance when a few interested trout began to test early samples of the drift. John squared off above the first pair, while I studied an occasional soft rise fifty yards downstream, a smile growing on my face. I was just beginning my stalk when John’s voice betrayed the joy of a hooked trout, and I watched while he played a nice, jumping brown on his handmade cane rod. I snapped a couple of photos, sharing the victory, before turning back to my own destination.

My stalk followed the edge of the river, gently avoiding the subtle wake that would end my game before it began. There was something interesting about this riseform, the kind of patient sipping rise that betrays a large trout intent upon maintaining his anonymity. Eventually I drew parallel to his mid-river hide and slowed my pace again as I worked deeper, gaining the important distance from the brushy bank to allow my backcast.

I worked on that fellow for quite a while, never seeing him take a visible insect. After a couple of casts with the expected fly du jour, I went smaller, first with a Blue Quill Poster and then a beaver fur bodied CDC comparadun. Good fish have an innate ability to select a feeding lie where drag-free drifts become difficult to say the least. I watched my perfect floats get a bit funny as the fly reached the taking area, until resigning myself to make the change to three and a half feet of 6X tippet. I remembered my quick, “toothy” release from the previous afternoon with each turn of the knot.

The tippet change improved the drifts, but the fly still wasn’t right. Among the plentiful seeds and detritus occupying the drift, there were just a few smaller mayflies. Olives were a possibility, but the time of day and the season still said Blue Quills to me, so I searched my “Grays & Gordons” box for a tiny crippled dun that would sit low in the film. That simple little fly turned the game.

He took it gently and confidently, and my raised rod was met with power and speed, the mottled cane of the Menscer Hollowbuilt bucking as I worked to keep maximum pressure on the fish and protect the frail tippet. He gave me a show, a few long runs that spun the CFO with the bright staccato the marque is famous for, numerous boils and changes of direction, but all leading to one final dip of the net, and one large and very tired wild brown trout nestled safely in the mesh. He nudged twenty-one inches against the scale, but he may as well have been thirty for the warm glow he brought to my heart.

The first big brownie of the season is a celebration for me, after months shuttered behind frosted windows dreaming of bright spring days, and the fits and starts as I paid my pennance, the gladness and the release of those tensions is unequaled, a spirit reborn. Feeling that glow inside I know just why I am here, cradled in bright water.

As I released my new friend, my eyes caught movement on the surface. Wings fluttered nearby as the Hendricksons came forth in numbers, from nothing to a full blown hatch in the fluid moments of battle. I reached for the zipper and brought my Hendrickson box out, choosing one of yesterday morning’s cripples as a pod of trout began working below me. I considered changing the tippet back for the larger fly, but stayed with the 6X as I calmy attached the fly.

The fish were working as the duns passed overhead, taking them with the solid thump fly fishers long to hear. They were moving, each tracing his own little pattern left and right, upstream and down, to intercept the particular flies that caught his eye. A cast to a rise was not necessarily a cast to a trout in this situation, as their motion was unpredictable. I offered the cripple at last to one that seemed steadier in holding a lie after playing this hit and miss game, but he paid no attention.

If they want duns, give them duns. The cripple was exchanged for a CDC sparkle dun, a very reliable pattern always found in my Hendrickson box, but the hit and miss movement continued. Its amazing how you can see every stone on the river bottom in clear flat water, yet cannot see a moving trout until his rise breaks the surface. Perhaps my eyes remain instinctively trained too much upon the surface to penetrate the transparent mystery of the river.

There was one riseform further out that left no doubt about its maker. My cast would surely place line over some of the fish in the jockeying pod, but I did not care. The first cast kicked the loop over just as a little gust caught the leader and blew my fly upstream. Fearing drag might put him down I nearly lifted it then, but a pickup too close is more likely to spook the quarry than a bit of drag. The next cast was true, reached upstream and stopped with a touch so that the long leader kicked perfectly and laid the fly on line ahead of it’s tail of slack leader.

He took it cleanly, confidently, leaving no doubt he wanted it; fooled completely. I tempered the strike in deference to the fine tippet, allowing the soft bamboo of the rod’s tip to absorb his violent reaction. He fought well, though with heightened confidence I put more pressure on this warrior, kept him off balance, and subdued him somewhat sooner than his brethren. Twenty-three inches of irridescent bronze and gold peppered with dark umber and blood red spots, testaments to his lineage in these Catskill rivers, writhed in the haven of the receiving mesh.

Foibles prevented me from securing the photo I wanted badly. Standing there on an uneven river bottom, shaking just a bit with rod crooked beneath my arm, holding the heavily laden net, my right hand fumbled to retrieve the camera for a shot. Somehow I managed to turn the camera at the moment of truth, as I fumbled to press the shutter with my thumb, and the fish I saw on the view screen wasn’t what the pixels captured. I did get a lovely moving shot of the edge of a net and part of a trouts belly, that I will share for artistic statement.

I stalked a few more risers, and took a pair while the hatch continued, as did John upstream. Late, as the rises subsided and but a few stray duns fluttered on the surface, we stopped to notice the clouds had vanished and we were surrounded by clear, bright blue skies above the walls of our mountain hall. The winds had subsided too, and the sun’s reflections on the glassy surface helped radiate the warmth we felt as we surveyed the scene. It had been a perfect day, and we were not quite ready for it to end.

Looking harder, we found a half interested riser here and there, fish languidly taking the stragglers on a full belly. Our dry flies had no more appeal for them at that point, though I did draw one quick reaction rise as soon as the fly touched water. I promptly missed with my own quick reaction.

At last we acknowledged it was time to walk out, to bring a grand day to its close. It is finally spring, a fact we will both remember as this afternoon’s rain turns to snow, and the winds howl.

I had been dying for a good hatch of mayflies, struggling with the fact that, while the weather said early spring, the rivers decidedly said no, it isn’t. I would walk along the river toward my chosen fishing spot for the day, saying a little fisherman’s prayer for a good hatch and rising trout. You do have to be careful about gathering all of that mojo along a nice trout river, because you can overdo it.

I had seen a few flies one day last week, right before the weather decided we needed some more winter days. I hadn’t been back since, trying to give the trout and the bugs a chance to acclimiate to the five to ten degree drop in water temperature. When I visited the other day it became very clear that the stream life had acclimated.

I saw a rise at a distance, then another in a different location, but the black clouds overhead made me think that those splashes might have been rain drops or sleet. I saw no flies on the water, but then one of those splashes repeated and I was certain it was a trout. I have not seen a hatch like the one that began to unfold in a decade or more. Red Quills and Hendricksons by the thousands came bobbing down the current for several hours. There were so many naturals on the water, all wiggling and fluttering as they tried to fly off, that I expected every trout in the river to be gorging, but that wasn’t the case.

Individual trout would rise from one to three times and then stop. If they were in casting range I covered them, and if they weren’t I simply looked for one closer. There was no point in moving toward a rise, as that trout would quit before I got within range. Those I did cover ignored every fly I put over them. There were simply far too many naturals to compete with. As the afternoon continued the flies in the drift would change a bit. As it got later, the smaller Red Quills seemed most abundant, and a few trout began to feed more steadily. The skies became darker and I cursed my dark sunglasses as I couldn’t track the somber winged flies I had in the correct size and pattern.

When my dry gets lost among the naturals I get a bit too quick on the trigger, particularly with the level of excitement a mega hatch creates, and that was my undoing on this day. Three good trout took my fly and my quick strike only pricked them. The most I got was the beginning of a strong pull from one of them, before the fly popped free.

I spent some time at the bench the next morning, tying two dozen flies in hope of a rematch. Plenty of lifelike CDC flies and some bright Trigger Point wings that I could spot amid a maze of insects. There were flies the next day, though the hatch was much more reserved. The trout stayed with their sporadic rises for the most part. I saw a nice bulge at distance and let the Thomas & Thomas have it’s head. The long reach cast laid that small Red Quill down perfectly a few feet upstream of the open water target. The bulge came and I tightened into a nice trout that tugged sluggishly a couple of times then turned and hit the afterburners. Gone!

No one ever likes to loose a really big fish, and we immediately question why. I got my answer when I lifted the end of the tippet from the water. The very end was shaved neatly to a point. My tippet caught a tooth when that big boy turned and cut it. I did find an acrobatic brownie that liked the fly I showed him after a bunch of casts. That trout cleared the water at least half a dozen times! I ended my day with a smile after all.

Walking out, I wistfully took stock of the events of the past 48 hours. I had witnessed one of the greatest hatches I had ever seen, the kind I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to see again. I had pitted my skills against tremendous odds and had another dose of the wonder and humility that this sport gives you sometimes. I had managed to figure out which fly had the best chance of tempting a big wild trout to take a chance amid a plethora of mayflies, so I’ve done some more tying to be fully prepared with enough of those for me and my friend.

I hope today brings another terriffic hatch for John’s benefit, though not one of the same magnitude as the hatch I witnessed. You can get wonder and humility all through the trout season, but it would be nice for the two of us to catch a couple of those big fellows this time!