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…

I think this could be the windiest spring I have ever angled in the Catskills. I mean, it seems to have been blowing hard every day right on into the evenings. Winds forecast for five to ten miles per hour? They have blown ten to fifteen, even twenty. I think the average calm period has been around twelve miles per hour. Wind whipped water doesn’t encourage trout to feed upon the surface. If you are a dry fly fisher, well, you are not supremely happy with that state of affairs.

To be honest, I have had a great season so far. I’m not really complaining, just registering the facts man. I love the challenge of hunting big, wary wild trout with dry flies, and recurring winds make that challenge rise to another level. Rising trout are harder to come by and, when you find one, the window of opportunity is narrower. You have to position yourself to make the best cast you can under the conditions, and then wait for the gusts to subside to make a presentation. While you are waiting for that window to crack open, your fish may well stop rising, or change locations as he hunts for wind blown duns bobbing in the wavelets.

The past week has been a real pissah as my relatives in New England would say. It has blown hard every time I have hit the river, making it impossible to even find a trout to fish to on a couple of those days. Yesterday promised to be really bad. It was. I finally left my cane rod at home and dug out the high tech gun. My four weight Thomas & Thomas Avantt represents the latest generation of performance. That means it is stiff, fast and packs a lot of power into a cast. I paired it with a four and a half line since I was going to be fishing big dry flies.

That rod managed to beat the wind, though punching the power stroke with a stiff fly rod is hard on my wrist. Carpal tunnel and arthritis don’t like punching casts into high winds very well, and stiff rods make me punch them even harder. I have to keep reminding myself of that tendency, telling myself to ease up, and try to stop forcing it to bend. The rod will still drive the line and fly into the wind without that extra punishment. That is one of the things I truly appreciate about fishing bamboo. The classic action of a cane rod invites you to relax and paint the line on the water. Yesterday turned into a power sprayer kind of day.

There was one fisherman in sight when I waded into the river, so I decided upon my plan of attack, staying a couple hundred yards away from him. He didn’t pick up on that subtlety. I fished with my back to him and, after an hour or so of fishing hides, I heard sloshing behind me. Sure enough, this guy had decided to return my courtesy by wading right up on top of me. He wanted to talk, that is he wanted to bitch about how there were plenty of March Browns on the water and no trout eating them, etc., etc. I questioned his claim of plenty, as I had seen three flies to that point. He kept sloshing along yapping, though he could have easily walked the path on the bank without disturbing me. I guess he just needed to be sure I could hear his complaining. I kept fishing.

Another angler had arrived by then, standing on the bank where a footpath comes down to the river, and the complainer started up on this new audience. Eventually he joined him on the bank and they shared tales of misery inflicted by fish. I had seen a rise or two by this time and slowly moved into a casting position that would allow me to best defeat the wind.

I guess those two jabbered for half an hour, maybe more, as I did my best to tune them out. I kept fishing; I mean, I was there to fish after all. That trout I saw rising appeared to be a mover, so I worked him as carefully as I could. One of the difficulties with movers is there is always a chance that they come closer to you causing you to line them while casting to where they were. I changed the fly when I saw what appeared to be a smaller mayfly blowing by, and then he finally found a spot he liked. Meanwhile on the bank, the complainer finally ran out of words and headed home. The audience walked up the bank and left me in peace. My gratitude sir.

There were a few more March Browns bobbing down the choppy surface, so I tied my crippled emerger back to my tippet and blotted the water out of the wing. I had made some good drifts, and every once in a while that fish would suck a natural from the surface, or would he? He was in the shade and I in the bright sun, so it was tough to see much more detail than his subtle rise ring itself. I eased into the edge of the shade line, just enough to get the sun out of my face, and observed. He rose two or three times with no sign of a dun on the surface. Point taken. I trimmed the wing shorter on my cripple and fluffed it up with some brush-on floatant. I made two casts, gently, easing up on the rod, and the surgically altered fly disappeared in one of those soft rises.

As soon as I set the hook I was glad I had tied that fly on a heavy wire hook and used 4X tippet. He bored right down to get into a fallen tree and I put everything my tackle could give him into play and forced a turn. This was one hell of a trout! Brute force versus brute force: he pulled as hard as he could while I backed slowly away from that obstruction, one step at a time.

The trout took line, so I tightened the drag until I had him far enough away from the wood. He pulled line anyway. This wasn’t a finesse fight, no long runs with a singing drag and arching cane: one mean fish. The fly kept its hold, right in his lip, and I eventually backed him into shallower water and the waiting net. Gorgeous color in the sunlight. This guy deserved a snapshot, though he kept trying to jump out of the net as I fumbled to keep him in the water. Twenty-two inches; I honestly thought he was longer than that due to his breadth and weight.

I had nearly left when I first arrived, as a terriffic wind gust hit me as soon as I started to reach for my waders. I stayed though, and I weathered the irritation of the complainer and his sloshing approach to tell me his opinions. I was actually thankful for the wind at that point. Under calm conditions this pool is flat water, and his sloshing up to me would have put off that brown before I even had a chance to fish to him.

I always have subscribed to the idea that the fellow anglers I encounter along the stream deserve the respect of being left alone. A quiet nod is a sufficient greeting should they turn and look my way. If they speak, I will answer, and even stop and talk for a moment should they make an overture. Otherwise I pass as quietly as possible and leave them to their reflections. The older school of fly fishers to which I belong values solitude. If they wanted raucous discourse they would have gone to a bar instead of a trout river.

The one consistent thing I have noted in thirty years of angling Catskill Rivers is that the same seasons will offer different conditions every time. Sometimes the changes are subtle, sometimes quite grand, but anglers need to be ready and able to adapt, cause it won’t be boring.

The March Brown is a case in point. The quality and density of the hatch varies widely. In good years, you will find them hatching sporadically throughout the long hours of the day. In poor years, you may be lucky to see any of them at all. They can prodiuce some great fishing when there are enough of them about, or cause one to waste time casting big dry flies with unrequited hope.

This year the hatch has been relatively weak in the areas I have fished. I have seen a few duns each day, even some in the evening, but the trout have generally not been paying much attention. That means fishing imitations won’t get you bit.

The other noted characteristic of this continuing spring season is change, radical, drastic change. The rivers warmed early, with April weather in March, but the flies and the trout weren’t buying the promise of early spring. Then the cold returned with high flows, unsafe for boating and out of the question for wading. Two weeks ago I walked out on my porch after sunrise to a thermometer struggling to register a temperature of 31 degrees. When we drove out to launch the drift boat around 9:30 AM, it was all the way up to 34! Rivers had just come down to levels I consider safe for boating, and the water was in the forties. The rivers dropped quickly over that week. We didn’t get rain and the NYC DEC dropped the releases from both Delaware River dams, and yes, the daily temperatures took their cue and shot up into the eighties. Fishing went into a bit of a funk.

Most recently I was confronted with some unique behavior for spring trout. With a lot of wind, and the forests at peak leaf and pollen production, the low flows carried some huge scum lines on the rivers, reminiscent of the colored leaf parade of late autumn. Trout would cruise these scum lines and pick off tidbits, something small I couldn’t pick out amid the pollen, seeds and leaf matter. Some nice fish were spotted and observed, cruising for just a few minutes at a time and rising once, twice, perhaps three times in different locations for…something. The puzzle to be solved was to identify the something, and have the patience to stand and wait for long periods between these little snack tours.

The only bugs visible during these sessions have been small shad fly caddis and the very occasional March Browns. My favorite caddis pattern seduced a fine twenty inch brown on the first day I encountered these conditions, a hard won fish that required several hours of observation and the patience to wait for the gusty winds to subside just long enough to affect a cast. Puzzle solved? Well, no, at least not for any of the other cruising trout I attempted to catch over three days of this technical game. On day two I was blanked, not even a look at any fly including a terrestrial or two, sometimes the kings of those late autumn scum lines.

Yesterday I arrived to find the conditions looking a little better, at least until the winds cranked up and the scum lines began to thicken. There were fewer cruisers, and a few more caddis, while the occasional March Brown continued to float past unscathed. I watched more than one of those big duns drift peacefully for fifty yards. I stayed with the caddis, trying a couple of patterns and sizes from 16 down to 20. The size twenty olives came out next, when I spotted something smaller and darker at a distance that might have been little mayflies. No sale.

When the caddis failed to interest any cruising trout I reverted to big fly logic. I had tried various March Brown patterns over the course of this oddysey, duns and emergers in various color phases. They seemed to be perfect imitations, as they had been ignored just like the naturals. Last year I had designed a new crippled emerger that had taken a couple of difficult fish, so I knotted one on and told myself I was going to stick with the big fly until it produced. I didn’t have to wait too long.

The next cruiser I saw didn’t take it, likely because he wasn’t in the same location anymore, after I waited for a wind gust to subside. I was still watching that area when a flash and a gentle sip twenty feet upstream drew my attention, and an immediate cast. The Paradigm loaded fully and unrolled line and leader into the breeze, dropping the big fly gently, and right on target. There was that flash, the split second hover, and a gentle sip took down my big gangly size 10 fly. Oh he was a heavyweight! Made the vintage LRH sing like a rock and roll screamer! Twenty inches, with a big bull head and shoulders that belied the delicacy of his take.

The next riser slipped downstream from my casting target, and the fly ran out of drift at just the wrong moment, leaving me with a splashy refusal and the trout without a nice artificial snack. Did I mention this season has been about radical change? I cast to another flash and let my fly drift all the way down until drag began, then pulled it under with a tug. The line stopped with a jolt, and I was fast to another trout. This time we were both surpised, as I slipped the net under a seventeen inch wild brook trout, my largest brookie ever.

So last night I was back at the vise, crafting a few more of those big cripples. Maybe this solution to the puzzle will continue to be the answer. If not, I shouldn’t have to wait too long for something to change.

So my friend JA and I arranged to meet on the river to see if we could encounter an evening hatch or spinner fall. I had suggested the place (gotta stop doing that), and we showed around four in the afternoon while the rush of weekend anglers sped by on the highway, destined for home in Jersey, NYC or other urban environs. We took our time getting geared up, then eased down to the river for a look see.

Nothing was showing, so we used the time to catch up on things: JA’s morning turkey hunting (he’s out there again right now) and my wandering through a very busy week of fishing. There was cloud cover, the good dark ones that hinted at a storm, but failed to deliver, and the ever present spring wind. Forecast at ten to twenty miles per hour, it was working hard to make good on that promise. After a while of watching wind whipped water that betrayed a handful of big mayflies with no rises, I ambled out several steps and dunked my stream thermometer for a minute. Rivers had warmed during a run of days in the eighties and no appreciable rainfall. Even the tailwaters were getting warmer than they should for the last week of May, as the City has the habit of shutting down significant releases as soon as the first run of hot weather hits. They made good on their promise as well.

When I pulled the thermometer up it read 69 degrees, right on the cusp of barely OK and too warm for trout fishing. The smart move would have been to reconoiter and head to another location, but then my brain started trying to convince me to stay: it’s only been this warm for a couple of days…it’s just the daily peak temperature…it’s really cloudy and the holdoing water is almost in shade already… there’s three hundred yards of riffle and run above us to oxygenate the water, as well as the wind…

You see I’d fished this same spot roughly a year ago under similar conditions, and things perked up in the last half hour. I had caught two nice brownies and then had my dry fly forcibly removed from my possession; with predjudice. I had been thinking about that fish for the past year, telling myself that I needed to give that spot more attention. I wanted JA to get a shot at the big boy, and I figured there could well be more than one.

We stayed; talked for a couple of hours and then spread out upstream to fish the fast water until the right time. JA raised several trout, landing one, while I raised just one fish. George M. L. LaBranche would probably critique our technique, but you just don’t get a lot of drag-free drifts casting in twenty mile an hour winds.

We both fished cane, JA the magnificent 8 footer for a four that he built in the CFFCM rodmaking class, and me my recently acquired T&T Paradigm, so we both managed to amuse ourselves with casting. And when my watch read 8:39 I suddenly realized the wind had settled. We looked up at the same time and saw some large mayfly spinners. JA spotted some risers upstream and stayed to work them with a March Brown dun, while I waded downstream slowly tying on one of the March brown spinners I had tied a few hours earlier.

It was about ten minutes till nine when the rings began to appear below me, close to the drop into deeper water. One good ring drew my attention and the first casts. The third one connected and I raised the rod into a fish with a bit of weight to it, and started reeling as he swam upstream toward me. When he was thirty feet out he turned and began to fight in earnest. JA hollered down “is it a good fish?” and I answered that it was, adding “come down, it’s going to be quick”. The sky had cleared around 8:30, but the dark clouds quickly returned, and it was getting dark fast. The little Hardy played a few choruses each time that fish turned and ran, and I had that satisfied smile that the evening was turning out just as planned.

When I scooped him in the net my enthusiasm evaporated with a weak chuckle. My “trophy” was a rather fat, ugly chub. I announced the news as JA approached. The darned chub even swallowed my spinner. I couldn’t see it in the quickening darkness, and nicked the tippet when I tried to reach down inside with my forceps. Goodbye fly!

I dug out my flashlight and tied another in place just as I realized it was too dark to see the rises I kept hearing. Were they all chubs? Neither of us will ever know, but I could place an intelligent wager. Biologists speak of indicator species, fish, mammals, etc, whose presence or population levels in a specific environment indicate changes in the health of that environment. The lowly chub is kind of an indicator species too, at least in my mind. When you catch chubs rising to dry flies rather than trout, they are letting you know that the water is too warm, too slow, or just too uninviting for trout activity at the time. Shame I didn’t catch that big old chub on my first cast around six o’clock. We could have beat feet out of there and found better water for that last fifteen minutes.

There has always been something special to me about a Thomas & Thomas fly rod. They were the first to catch my eye in print, and their catch phrase “The fly rod you will eventually own” stuck in my mind. Yes, one day I thought, as I eyed the unobtainable in my local fly shop, The Fisherman’s Edge in Catonsville, Maryland. The marque stood for taste, craftsmanship and quality, both in graphite, and in their very, very special bamboo.

Twenty odd years ago I was able to aquire a few of their graphite rods, including two of their Paradigm models, the pinnacle of rodmaking. Coming from a background crafting equisite bamboo rods, the firm had a clear vision for how a fly rod, a trout rod, should feel and handle. Fly rods are supposed to bend! Thomas Dorsey understands that. It is said that the Paradigm rods bore his favorite taper. Though many rods have passed through my hands in the past twenty years, those Thomas & Thomas Paradigms are still the rods I reach for when conditions favor fishing with graphite.

The equisite pleasure of fishing an original Paradigm in split bamboo is, well, something earned through a lifetime of hard work, and an appreciation of bright water, pure mountain air and wild trout.

Ah yes, wild trout… the first ones I glimpsed were bright flickering shadows darting through tiny Rock Creek! I had begged my father to take me trout fishing, something magical and far removed from the environs of suburban Maryland. He picked up the guide book that accompanied fishing licenses and read of another handbook, one about trout fishing in the state. I treasured that little volume. Trout were fish of the mountains, but a small, fishable population of wild brook trout existed in Rock Creek Park. Try as I might that wonderful day, I could not catch one of those bright little shadows. My rudimentary angling skills were no match for their wildness, but they left an indelible mark upon my soul.

It has been a busy week, keeping up with my much younger companion on fire from his first vision of our Catskills, and the Paradigm arrived on the last evening of his visit. Fatigue outweighed my anticipation if you can believe it, and the looked for package wasn’t even opened until the following morning. Refreshed, at least partially by a good night’s sleep, I was out in the yard after sunrise, fixing the Bougle to the uplocking reel seat and making those first gentle casts. The rod’s feel was smooth perfection, just as I expected. There was but one place to fish it.

Bright sunshine greeted me, the forested mountainsides full of the uncanny flaming chartreuse blush of spring that lasts but a moment. All I needed was a mayfly and a rising trout, a tall order for the day as it turned out. The wind that was forecast to be down rose with vigor, and blew far more pollen and leaf fragments onto the crystal currents than insects. I let my frustration with the gale make me struggle to find my rhythym with the new rod, the old tale of power where finesse is called for.

I am no stranger to waiting along rivers, and I practiced that skill once again on this blustery afternoon. Hours later a calm spell offered respite, and I scanned the surface of the river for signs of life. The day betrayed only a few, here and there during fitful intervals of calm, trout cruising and sipping. At intervals a meaty March Brown dun would join the prolific vegetable matter in the drift, but none of these drew the attention of the cruisers. The only other signs of insect life were the occasional shad flies, and I imagined one here and there lying spent, hidden from my eyes in the mass of buds, leaves and pollen. They were not hidden from the roving sippers.

A moving target offers a special challenge. That is why bird hunters choose a shotgun with hundreds of pellets to pursue their game. A fly rod and dry fly offers no such coverage of the field. You cast to the rise knowing the fish may no longer be there. They offer no clue as to their course, it appears random. Hope for success lies in a quick, accurate delivery and the quarry hesitating nearby after his rise. It came together once.

A sip, then a dorsal fin wavering in the film for a second, and the cast is made. The long line rolls out, turns over sixteen feet of leader and the size 18 dry fly, yes I feel it now, let the Paradigm work… The take comes in slow motion, and the nerves are steeled to respond in kind, with a slow gentle lift that sinks the tiny hook as the water boils and he makes the reel sing!

A perfect cane rod responds to gentle casting tricks, and works fully when battling a fine finned adversary. The deep bow in the Paradigm is unequaled, the exquisite taper tuned to the task. This fellow gave it a proper workout, giving his all to break free from the tiny spent caddisfly that bit him back! He was bright and golden there in the net at last, flanks heaving, struggling still to jump clear of this springy mesh. A single twenty inch wild brown trout is a worthy opponent to christen a new favorite fly rod, worthy indeed.

This week joyfully brought a reunion of a friendship that has lasted twenty years. Andy and I met when he joined me on Pennsylvania’s Yellow Creek two decades ago. At the time, that little limestoner was my favorite dry fly stream, and one not too long a drive from home. We had some luck and enjoyed each other’s company. We both looked forward to a lasting friendship, and many memorable fishing trips, though life doesn’t allow for every wish.

While I had reached an age where life was stable and I had a manageable work schedule that allowed ample time for my hunting and fishing, Andy was in the thick of the blossoming of an active life. College, medical school, residency in a few different cities, marriage and children followed and, most recently, ownership of a lovely country house on my old favorite reach of the Falling Spring Branch. I am happy that my friend has built a full and rewarding life. He is the kind of guy that deserves it.

We still got together on the water, though not with the regularity we had hoped. Each opportunity was a celebration, with some fine trout battled and remembered. I had invited him to travel to the Catskill Rivers many times, something he wished to do, but this week marked the first time the stars aligned so I could share the rivers of my heart.

The weather was gorgeous each day, and the rivers had receded to wadeable levels. We fished in the evening that first day, catching the last minutes of a Delaware spinner fall. The old man hung too long in another location, hoping the chance for a trophy would materialize for my friend as it had earlier that day for me, and as such we missed what might have been the most active rise of trout of the week. Andy was excited nevertheless, and his excitement for the rivers was contagious to me.

I was looking forward to our float trip as much as my guest, hoping the Delaware would open its arms and show my friend one of it’s best days. The promise of March Browns, and casting big dry flies to interesting runs with explosive consequences proved empty. The day provided a full spectacle of natural beauty and companionship, though little in the way of insect activity and rising trout. The big river is the moody champion of the Catskills, testing anglers like no other.

Our last day was a wading day, with an early start, and the hope I could find a hatch to treat us to some fast fishing. Alas the paucity of bugs and rises continued, and I made a last ditch effort to find some action. Another reach of familiar water was quiet, until later in the afternoon when a few soft rises appeared. Trout cruising, ghosting through wide, flat water and sipping here and there. I watched Andy working the wide expanse of the river, noting the perfection of his presentations with his vintage Granger cane rod. I was walking a hundred yards upriver, searching for the hatch I still expected, when I heard my name shouted. Turning, I saw Andy’s rod high in the air, with a full arch in the caramel colored cane.

Knowing he had left his landing net in Chambersburg, I walked as fast as the river would allow, finally netting a fine, big spotted brown of eighteen inches. He handed me his phone and I managed a single snapshot with the unfamiliar device: a moment of pure joy to share.

We savored the moment together, as the aches in my bones prompted my slow retreat. On that slow mosey down river, a few risers burst to the surface, and we both cast at distance for a chance at feeling the life of the river once again. I was tired, feeling my age on this final day of keeping pace with an excited young angler half my age. On one cast I sighed and looked away, weary, though sad that our time together was coming to a close. In that moment, the reverie was broken by Andy’s shout “he’s got it”, and I turned to see a ring where my fly used to be. I was too late to hook the trout of course, caught in a moment of rest and reflection instead of the concentration that catching trout requires.

I hope it will not be too many years that pass until we may haunt bright water together once again. The Catskills have captured my young friend as they captured me some three decades ago. I can feel it.

I have fished this little caddis fly under different names. Our first meeting came on the historic Beaverkill nearly thirty years ago. There the fly was known as Shad Fly, named for their timing coincident with the shad run on the Delaware system. There were light and dark variations, the former a bright apple green, the other having that green mixed with a caramel tan coloration. I tied a pair of Gary LaFontaine’s Emergent Sparkle Pupas with an impromptu blend of dubbing and sparkle yarn and made my first memorable catches of Beaverkill trout.

Over the decades I altered that original dubbing, always staying close to the original green with just a hint of the tan. On the Delaware and her branches, the fly is called Apple Caddis, and my green fly has brought many trophy trout to hand in those ensuing decades. Last year I belatedly tackled preparing a blend of dubbing for the Dark Shad Fly, and tied a few flies I called the Caramel Apple Caddis. I was testing the new Dark Shad Fly along the big river one year ago. Casting to a rise I had a solid take and an immediate, monstrous pull. I reeled in my wounded dry fly with it’s hook straightened out.

While waiting for my visiting friend to make the long drive from the Cumberland Valley yesterday, I decided to scratch my itch to fish for a couple of hours. I strung up my big 8 1/2 foot Thomas dry fly rod with a vintage Hardy St. George and a number six line. Second chances are a wonderful thing.

It was a temptingly gorgeous afternoon, the wide river clear and calm, nearly windless, and the mountainsides full of the vibrant green of spring’s first blush. A fine day to be a landscape artist. There were just a handful of the little caddisflies about, very few actually, as I scanned the water carefully for signs of life beneath. Looking left, I heard a distinct plop to my right. I turned, but saw no remnant ring upon the surface. I took the leader in hand and pulled the fly line through the tight little English snake guides, ready for a cast…

I saw the next rise clearly, a playful little plop good trout often display when taking these little caddsflies leisurely. I lofted the line, false cast twice to work out some more, and made a cast, shocking the rod then dropping the tip to acheive the required drift. Plop! The ancient cane came up into a deep, deep arch and the fish started straight for me. I knew I had a good trout, as I stripped line madly to keep tight to him, but I didn’t know quite what I had just yet.

When he turned that hideous bow returned to the frail bamboo, and I though about the casting wonders of old Fred Thomas’ fly rods with their fine, delicate tips. My suspicion had been rainbow, but instead of the classic run and wild abandon of the Delaware rainbow, my foe parlayed short bursts of power to win his freedom. We fought at close quarters, so I kept that fearsome bend in my rod tip. The first time I brought him near the surface I saw him clearly. You know a two foot brown trout as soon as you see him, there is never a doubt.

We battled for a long time, each slugging hard and neither giving up. Each time I tried to bring him to the net, I reeled the end of my line and half my leader through those tight vintage guides, and each time my heart skipped a beat as he took it back, the line/leader connection hanging on each guide and the tiptop. Each time he rushed away I expected the frail tippet to part when that connection fouled at the tip, yet each time the rod showed enough power to turn him just enough to avoid disaster. Clearly, this one was meant to be.

I got a good measurement, checked it twice, and fumbled one handed for my camera while I held the laden net down in the water. The comedy of trying to lay the fish below the rod for that quick snapshot offered some flopping and tense moments, but I managed to click off two shots, then set the camera on a clump of grass so I could quickly revive and release the fish. Twenty-four and one half inches of wild Delaware River brown trout: last year’s opened hook? I’ll never know for sure, though big fish tend to haunt favorite areas, just as old trout fishermen learn to haunt them.

Finally now in the middle of May we have a run of perfect spring weather! The mountainsides are green and friendly looking and the rivers are rounding into perfect wading conditions once again. I was pleased to hear from my friend Andrew from Chambersburg and to firm up plans for his visit this week. I have been trying to get him to join me for some Catskill fly fishing for several years, and at last the time has come.

Andrew is a physician and has a large and growing young family, so there are countless demands upon his attentions. He measures his opportunities to relax for a little fishing in hours, sometimes minutes, rather than days. The weather and our rivers seem poised to show him a good time, and I hope they bestow a few of the special gifts they have shared with me for nearly three decades.

I sorted through the flies I had tied for him this morning, filling a fly box with the dries for the current hatches, and leaving others in the pill bottle they have occupied these past months. I filled that box out with some caddis, spinners and sulfurs, as well as a few March Browns; the hatches we hope to meet during his stay. Oh, and there are still a few more to tie…

I blame myself somewhat for my friend’s infection with the vintage bamboo bug. My love for fishing old Granger’s rubbed off on Andrew, and he can be found casting a couple of his own when he steals away some time on the stream. I truly began to appreciate mine when I brought them here to the rivers of my heart. I hope he makes some lasting memories of his own here this week.

It was a beautiful morning, sunny and clear, and not a breath of wind. Mine was the first boat out of the launch so I knew I had untouched water before me. I was anxious for a repeat of the action I had enjoyed on Monday, and I slipped quietly down the first few miles with my spirit as bright as the morning sky.

I didn’t expect to see any activity in the upper river that early, and I didn’t. At the end of the last long riffle I drifted easily along the bank searching ahead for rises. Seeing none, I dropped anchor and waited. It was a perfect scene, I was early, alone and I had time to relax and wait for the flies to increase in number and the trout to rise. Perfection doesn’t always last.

The wind rose quickly into a full downstream blow. The forecast had been for 5 to 10 miles per hour, but this was a lot more than that prediction foretold. I slipped the anchor, moved downstream and stopped again, hoping that the water a touch further down from the riffle would be conducive to feeding trout. The flow gage had read 2,830 cfs at dawn, up 500 cfs from Monday, and now there was the additional wind current to deal with. Fewer protected pockets along the banks means fewer feeding trout.

I found a pair of risers, a little further down on my third drop. The initial gusts, the ones I hoped were a phantom wind, one of those quick little blows that comes suddenly out of the mountains and then vanishes, had made it clear they were here to stay.

Fishing to bank feeders sliding up and down in tiny pockets of softer water is a presentation game. Long leaders, long tippets and reach casts are required to give a fly as much time as possible in each pocket with a natural drift. Fishing these lies from a drift boat means casting downstream and across, then reaching upstream; on this day right into the wind. This would be a day of difficulties, of splashy refusals when the casts were accurate, for the wind would straighten every precious curl in the tippet by the time the fly alighted. A dues paying day.

That first pair offered three refusals between them. Throughout the day, when I was able to find rising trout, this scenario ran on repeat, just like a video loop. A calmer moment between gusts would allow a cast with a little bit of slack, and the drift would be almost perfect, until that last inch. The trout would come to the fly until some tiny unnatural movement would trigger his marvelous instincts to refuse, splash it but decline to take it, and the angler would raise his rod into nothingness.

My solitude evaporated a bit later than my expectations. In early afternoon I turned around to count seven boats bearing down upon me. I had no deck gun, no crew to repel boarders, though it was hard to shake the feeling that I needed both. It wasn’t a battle. A few anchored above me and waited: that guy’s found a fish rising, we’ll wait and try it if he doesn’t get it! I didn’t, though I did get three or four refusals. The others simply rowed past, fishermen with puzzled looks wondering if this was all they would get for their $500 day on the river. Weather is the great equalizer. Even luck finds it hard to triumph over it.

I had one chance at luck, down river at my last stop for the day. It had calmed for a few minutes, and I was sitting at anchor waiting. A few roving trout began taking the odd Hendrickson mayflies that were drifting by on the surface, their light patterns finally clear to see on the flat, smooth surface. I stood slowly and made a few lazy casts to rings downstream. I knew those trout were moving, that it was a game of luck, but I played my hand. On one of those casts I watched my fly drift out of sight into the glare. A moment later the water bulged nearby and I lifted my rod: a strong pull, a good boil, and the hook came away. Luck nearly gave me one big fish for the day.

The wind rose again a moment later, so I sat down and waited for the next calm spell. When it finally came, it didn’t last long enough for me to stand and begin looking for bugs or rises. Neither did the next calm spell.

A gorgeous, sunny day on a spring trout river, and I had a few laughs, finding the humor in the circumstances and the vagaries of fishing. I think I’ll live longer being able to laugh at splashy refusals and missed fish than groan and curse at those occurances. I have seen fishermen beat the water with their expensive fly rods and stream all manner of profanities at a fish that splashed their fly. That has to take the joy right out of fishing for them.

Fishing is much more than success, it is more than big catches and bragging about your numbers, the kind of talk you hear around the fly shops and bars. Fishing is a lesson in life, in joy and humility, in beauty and wonder, a lesson in patience and appreciation for the little things.