Five AM on a Sunday and sulfurs are taking shape here at my bench. There are more to come, some biot cripples and then there will be some olives in the crippled, dead and dying modes. Hard to figure that, with so few mayflies this season, our wild trout would ignore the sparse numbers of drifting duns on a heavily chilled and misty afternoon and sip here and there for some drowned, crippled or otherwise mangled mayflies. Such are the wages of fishing pressure and evolution. The better we become as predators, the better they become as prey!

Summer is still new at this point, somewhat uncomfortable I suspect with it’s new role as bringer of warmth and plenty. We have already endured a short, serious heat wave, and on my last fishing day my hands were so cold I found myself unable to tie on a new tippet. Perhaps the weather will come around once the land and rivers get used to the idea. The glory of a Catskill Summer is something special: golden sun dappled days in the seventies caressed by gentle breezes.

I have begun to find a few hunters on the prowl. Battles have been won and battles have been lost of late, but it is good to take up a fine bamboo rod and stalk the rivers after so many missed days. The breadth of summer lies in wait. Pray that it will be as lovely as memory and as bright and fresh as this sunlit morning!

Here on a steamy early morning, thwarted by high water, it is easy to slip into memory of Catskill Summers past…

Summertime brings new challenges, the game is different now, for the changes in conditions can be subtle yet alter the habits of the trout. Storms and runoff are the big chips in this game, but something as gentle as a slight change in humidity, or a nighttime low a few degrees cooler than the past week’s norm can trip the switch and put a trophy brown on the hunt. I learn more each season.

Summer is almost always a stalker’s game. The regular hatches are finished with the passing of spring. Oh yes, there can be flies in certain areas at certain times, but they are more capricious than those of spring. Are there a few spinners at dawn? Perhaps, or a ten-minute drift of tiny olives. Spotting a roamer sipping such dainties begins the approach, tense and urgent, as I know it may not last long enough for me to slip within casting range.

Morning cruisers are a test: one rise, one cast, and that cast must be immediate and perfect. Trying to guess the direction of an unseen cruiser and offer a second chance tends to bring disaster, and spooking one may spook others as yet unknown that lurk nearby.

Low light and fog ads another kind of intensity. Stand and listen, you may hear that solid plop, quickly stifled by the thickness of the damp air. Where? How far? Wishing I was there right now; listening…

Wading without a trace, pulling my hat brim down to shade my eyes as they search for the nexus of that sound. It always amazes me how subtle the evidence of even a huge old brown’s rise can be, how quickly it can vanish!

At last, my Catskill Summer has arrived, though it comes in the garb of springtime. Storms and high water continue to keep this dry fly angler at bay. This season it seems has kept me waiting for the fishing that most stimulates my soul, the careful stalking of the best of our wild trout with the dry fly!

Thunder drove me to consciousness yesterday, as we were assailed with severe weather warnings from early pre-dawn hours. The west side of the Catskills proved most vulnerable this time, with flows on the recently gentled West Branch Delaware rushing to a peak of some 6,550 cfs! Though the flows have dropped considerably this morning, Cannonsville Reservoir is spilling again this morning.

I hear that people were fishing the Beaver Kill and Willowemoc late yesterday, the worst of the storms failing to wreak commensurate havoc upon the heart of the Catskills. Alas, we now must face a heat wave that will drive water temperatures up!

Seven years ago, I “celebrated” my new retirement and finding a small home in these Catskills in similar manner; by not going fishing. It was a high-water year, and continued to be throughout the summer, keeping me away from the rivers of my heart. This year looks to be an anniversary in effect.

None of us know how much time we have here, and as the years pass, I feel that more acutely. Precious hours lost upon bright water are lost forever.

I wait and hope, like all who feel the call of the rivers.

The name Ed Van Put is truly legendary in these Catskills and along the Delaware River. An angler of these rivers for sixty years, our region was saddened by his passing in December. As fellow members of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild expressed our condolences and support for his wife Judy, she told us that he had reached a final goal, one that was most important to him, before his death. Thanks to Ed’s perseverance and the work and support of his family and friends, he has shared that goal with all of us.

“A Flyfisher’s Revelations” (ISBN: 9781510783331) will be released by Skyhorse Publishing on July 8th. Copies are available in Ed’s hometown of Livingston Manor, New York at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum.

As an author, Ed Van Put has contributed greatly to the history of our region. His previous works: The Beaverkill, Trout Fishing In The Catskills and The Remarkable Life of James Beecher represented a monumental amount of research driven by Ed’s love for the Catskills and their people. Revelations is the product of his love of trout fishing and his decades of time spent along Catskill rivers both as a remarkably effective angler and as a fisheries professional.

This is the book that many Ed Van Put fans asked for, an opportunity for him to share the knowledge acquired in his decades of work for New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation as well as his fifty years spent studying and chasing the magic of trout and fly. Ed kept journals of his fishing, detailing the locations and conditions of all of his fishing days, and recording the flies used and the number, species and origins of the trout taken.

Part of the Van Put legend comes from the fact that he caught remarkable numbers of trout using a very small selection of flies. He was known as the champion of the Adams dry fly, catching seventy percent of the trout taken on a dry fly on that favorite pattern. To begin this book, Ed examined thirty years of his journals in detail to answer his own questions as to what made him so successful in catching trout, taking time to consider these memories and reevaluate the conclusions that shaped his angling techniques.

A Fly Fisher’s Revelations is a lovely read, full of the honesty, honor and humility of a true gentleman angler. Van Put appreciated the beauty and mystery of Nature and never tired of the magic of his immersion in the beauty of a Catskill trout stream. There are lessons to be learned here for each and every angler. They are offered gently, with the kindness and grace of a gentleman. There is no sales pitch, no insistence that this master’s way is the only way to catch a trout. Revelations is more like a quiet, friendly talk with a mentor, one willing to share his passion without any overbearing airs.

What constitutes classic tackle? Are classics simply artifacts from the last century, or does that title connote something more?

The H.L. Leonard Rod Company did not create the first ever fly rod from split bamboo, but they are considered the fountainhead of classic bamboo rodmaking in America. Founder Hiram Leonard revolutionized the craft with his marvelous machine, the beveler, bringing a new precision to a hand craft industry. His innovations allowed the growth of his business, and he showed impressive judgement in assembling a cadre of talented craftsmen to make the rods his fame created a demand for. Leonard, Thomas, Edwards, Hawes and Payne comprise the pantheon of classic rodmakers, each eventually leading their own companies and partnerships to the top of the art.

Of all the heralded Leonard fly rods, the model 50 DF became their most revered and highest selling. It grew from the Catskill beginnings of dry fly fishing in America and today defines classic in bamboo trout rods. As dry fly fishing grew, the 50 DF was refined, its tapers modified to meet the demands of new generations of fly casters. Late in the company’s history, a rodmaker named Tom Maxwell came to Leonard to supervise their rod shop.

Maxwell was one of the “two Toms” who revitalized bamboo rodmaking after synthetic tackle had taken the lion’s share of the market. Maxwell and his brother-in-law partner Tom Dorsey called their venture Thomas & Thomas, and became known for uncompromising craftsmanship and gorgeous fishing instruments.

At Leonard, Tom Maxwell set about polishing the legendary name of H.L. Leonard and bringing their rods back to the epitome of the industry. He quickened tapers and rod actions, and set higher standards for rod finishing during his short tenure, modernizing the classic rods including the 50 DF. Last May, I acquired one of the 50 DF fly rods made during Tom Maxwell’s reign, and it is a powerful casting instrument, equal in performance potential to the highly touted graphite rods of it’s era yet offering the grace and control of traditional bamboo. It may be rightfully called a modern classic.

In early 2021, I learned of Vlad Rechenko and his company VR Design. A Ukranian aerospace engineer and fly angler, Vlad had made his mark in fly fishing by designing and machining amazingly beautiful and functional fly reels from titanium. He offered a new design for a traditional trout reel, the 3″ diameter Trutta Perfetta, machined from aluminum and thus priced in reach of most serious fly anglers. I ordered a reel that winter and paired it with a custom rod designed for me by Sweetgrass Rods. Enamored of the Perfetta’s quality and performance, I waited for Vlad to introduce a larger model for 5 and 6 weight lines and rods. Several weeks ago, I saw his announcement that the first small batch of 3-1/2″ Trutta Perfetta reels was available and I ordered one immediately. Thank you, Vlad for another modern classic!

Pairing these two amazing pieces of tackle was inevitable, and like my original Trutta and Sweetgrass, a beautiful Catskill June morning would be the scene. I found a rapid reach of river to meet the challenge of distance and control amid strong, gusty winds. The 50 DF laid my little size 16 olives gently upon the frothy currents despite the buffeting the Red Gods unleashed, and the Trutta Perfetta controlled the rushes of the big, wise brown trout in deep, fast, rocky water. Reel makers have fashioned spring and pawl drags for well more than a century, many allowing some adjustment. Rachenko has designed his own version, offering perfect resistance without need of adjustment. Perhaps the ball bearing smoothness of his design is responsible, or his asymmetrical pawl. Whatever it is, his reel is matchless for smoothness and control with light leaders and heavy trout!

Brown trout exceeding twenty inches have been scarce this season, with too many lost fishing days, and compromised hatches and water levels. I appreciated this one, a perfect foil to christen my new pairing of classic tackle!

Awakened once more by the sounds of running water, rain tapping upon the roof and running down the gutters. You should have seen the clouds holding tight to the river, well beneath the mountain tops as I drove to the Rodmaker’s Workshop last Saturday. Should have stopped to shoot photos.

All of my tip strips have been finished planed! I made it through after sixty hours or so of toil, and soon they will be glued and subjected to the same filing and sanding the butt and mid sections are getting. At last, I can actually envision these coming together into a rod blank. Much still remains to be done of course, with ferrules to be fitted to the bamboo along with the lovely nickel silver and curly maple reel seat the folks at Classic Sporting Enterprises have crafted for me. I have a spool of rust colored silk I believe will complement the cane and the maple!

We are a week and a half into June and I still seem to greet each day with thoughts of rising rivers rather than rising trout. I stole a day yesterday, hoping that the rains that awakened me early would not resist my need to wade bright water. I thought perhaps the cool, damp day might elicit some insect activity and bring a good trout to the surface, though I walked away come afternoon still wanting.

They say the Red Gods have another half an inch or so in store for the Catskills today.

The perennial high water has forced me to fish graphite rods, rather than the delight of bamboo. When one cannot wade within ideal presentation distance for the situation, every foot of distance casting is called for. My old Thomas & Thomas Paradigm casts with a familiar grace after more than two decades, but the sweet magic of bamboo is missing. If the Red Gods allow me to go forth today, perhaps the 8-foot Paradigm shall walk with me. If I find that one fish rising between my longest cast with cane and my longest cast with sibling graphite, so be it!

I was fishing yesterday evening, hoping for a taste of the kind of action that has been largely missing from this spring season. The air was warm, the river still a bit higher than ideal for fishing effectively, there were even a few insects showing at a distance. I saw one very hard rise. Now I peppered that entire area of faster water with accurate casts and good drifts, but the fish that had wanted something so bad didn’t want anything more; at least, not what I was offering. As I conceded and wound the fly line back onto my reel, I saw it. Out there, beyond my reach with my chosen tackle at this level of river flow. God, I know what lives there…

We, and I mean a very large area of New York’s Southern Tier covering all of these Catskill Mountains and more, are under a serious flood watch as I write this. More rain. More, with the Delaware reservoirs still spilling from last week’s downpours, and most rivers still high for ideal wading. Well, it’s a hell of a lot better than a continuation of the drought.

I’m wavering, half determined to rise and grab my waders to try to get in a few hours on the river before the storms begin. Though these past two days have been hot and summer-like, it is still spring, so I don’t truly have that summer itch for early morning fishing. I know my luck too. I am far more likely to find no activity and get drenched with a sudden storm. You gotta have that itch, that sixth sense that says yeah, today. Go now!

This may be the toughest spring season I have had since I retired to these Catskills. We all have dry spells, but this one has staying power, and another band of drenching rains might just push my count of too much river to fish days right through to the beginning of summer. There are a lot of things good about this season though.

Foremost, there’s the fact that I am still alive and well and out there fishing when the rivers allow. I didn’t have a long expectation when I turned my back on the grind in 2018. Stress will kill you, and it had done a damned good job of killing me. Ever stumble over a stone and find yourself off balance at the edge of a precipice? Well, that was me. I regained my balance, walked away from the stress and the crazy. Cathy and I built a new little life here in these mountains that I love so deeply. I fish, you see.

Despite the slim pickings with my beloved Hendricksons, there have been a few special moments this spring. Every cast doesn’t end with a trophy fish brought to hand. I’d get tired of it quickly if that was the case. Sometimes the best experiences don’t end in victory. I spent a lot of time working on one supremely difficult fish this spring. Perhaps the epitome of those encounters was the last day I saw more than a handful of Hendricksons. It wasn’t a heavy hatch by any means, thin might be the best adjective. My foe was feeding in the middle of a very gnarly bit of cover. The wind was ridiculous, blowing whitecaps upstream and right into this trout’s lie. The few duns that drifted through the spot got bounced around and tossed back upstream a time or two by all of this, but that old warrior would just wait for one to recover from a wave and then suck it down with a smile! I did everything I could do with a fly rod, a sweet old Leonard, to put my Hendrickson in his face with a good drift, but nothing was good enough. There can be a lot of satisfaction in a dissatisfying experience like that.

I expect this dry spell will find it’s end eventually. I mean, this entire wild and wet spring has been about Nature healing these rivers. She heals them so they may heal us, the travelers who find solace amid the caress of their currents.

I’ll keep a favorite cane rod handy, and there are always plenty of trout flies around this place. I can slip out and be knee deep in a Catskill river in ten minutes, and I’m pretty darned happy about that state of affairs.

Can it be June already? So little of May was spent upon bright water. June has begun, though on a bright note despite high waters.

A group of anglers gathered yesterday to celebrate the life of Ed Van Put. The Wulff Gallery of the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum was filled with relatives and friends, fellows of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild, food and drink. The Guild presented a special shadowbox of flies to Judy Van Put, who the night before was honored by the Museum as a Catskill Legend. The flies were all Ed’s favorite dry fly, the Adams, tied by the Guild during the first Zoom tying session after Ed’s passing in December, and Judy was visibly touched. She had attended that session, though the collecting of the flies and Pete Leitner’s masterful making of the shadowbox was kept secret until yesterday’s celebration.

Judy told us of Ed’s last book, and introduced a special guest, author, publisher and professor Nick Lyons, who had come out of retirement to edit the book and ensure it’s timely publication. In my own sentiments regarding Van Put’s passing, it was Nick Lyons’ story “The Emperor’s New Fly” that summed the gracious ways of this renowned expert angler, conservationist and gentlemen. It was this story that Nick shared with us yesterday in his brief remarks.

Among the small group of favorite authors, those whose works I revisit frequently, Nick Lyons occupies the top shelf. He has been a favorite for some forty years, a gentleman I had always hoped to meet.

Thirty years ago, I sent a manuscript out to inquire about publication. I sent that manuscript to Nick Lyons, a writer I recognized as a kindred spirit. Getting a fly-fishing memoir published is a difficult quest, for they are not the commercial component of publishing for the genre. How to and where to tomes rule the bookshelves of fly shops and sporting booksellers. I was deeply moved by Nick’s kind letter in response to my manuscript. He liked the work, saying it deserved to be published, before telling me that he sadly could not take it on at that time. I still remember his words; that he received some 500 fly-fishing memoir style manuscripts each year “and I read every one”. He explained that, with his existing commitments, and the fact that he could publish only one or two volumes each year, he simply could not take on my “Limestone Meanderings”. Though it was a rejection letter, that letter has meant a great deal to me for all these many years.

It was wonderful to shake Nick’s hand, to say how much his writing has meant to me, and does again each season, and to let him know how special his letter was in encouraging me as a writer. I came hard up against that how to, where to wall when I submitted to a few other publishers in later years. I continued writing my weekly Outdoors column for Chambersburg, Pennsylvania’s “Public Opinion” newspaper for twenty-two years, most often sharing moments in fly fishing and fly tying. After retirement and relocation to the Catskills, I began this blog, still feeling the need to share the magic of angling bright water. Nick Lyons’ influence continues to move me.

I awakened to rainfall this morning, a full, steady drumming punctuated by the brighter tapping notes against the window glass. It seemed as if our Catskill rivers just reached ideal wading levels, though a few were getting low with warmer weather on the way.

Water temperatures have stayed mostly in the fifties, for our nights have required the furnace to ignite sometime before dawn. The Beaver Kill peaked above 62 degrees yesterday though, for the first time in this last week of May. Fishing has stayed somewhat hard to predict.

The long, wet month brought very high flows, and the drift boat armada flailed the rushing tailwaters in their madness for money over resource. As waters receded, the trout felt the marching feet of two months’ worth of wading anglers tremble the gravel, and their response to flies has been predictable. Nature’s gift of rain included a reasonable dose of mayflies, but the wild trout in well-travelled reaches demurred from surface feeding. It has been a hard spring for the dry fly man.

The appearance of the Green Drakes was welcome, though it proved more than challenging. During five days fishing I could count the number of duns I saw taken on the fingers of my tired casting hand, though the boils proved that the trout took advantage of the rising emergers.

I felt the excitement grow as I waded gently into the pool on Thursday, my brand new Crippled Green Drake knotted to a length of 5X fluorocarbon. I watched for a while, until a subtle sip in a knee-deep flat provided a target. I am pleased to say that the first wild trout I showed this sleep imagined creation to took it solidly. He fought well, a solid heavy brownie taped at eighteen inches, and I was giddy as I slipped him back into the flow. Creator’s rush? I wish I could say that fly was medicine for all of the feeders beneath the film, though I cannot. Inscrutable to the last!

The two best fish taken during those five days succumbed to the quill version of my 100-Year Drake. Imagine, two fish willing to eat a dun, a fly wholly on the surface! The first was the 22-inch brown reported from Monday’s campaign; the second expressed his dining preference late Thursday afternoon.

I had changed locations by several miles, choosing open water with just a pair of anglers in view. I walked a bit, searching the wide expanse of water before me with my gaze. A sparse mixture of Drakes and Gray Fox duns danced upon the surface. I have witnessed trout feeding on the move more than once there, and lofted a cast to every rise or swirl withing range. Nearly fooled, once my fly had drifted well below the swirl that drew my cast, I glanced away toward another above me. The take was hard, in that split-second when I turned, and I struck by instinct at the sound, as the quiet pool exploded!

Such a trout! Thrashing, running hard against the drag and boiling multiple times to betray a glimpse of silver! The hookup proved solid, though he gave me everything he had. Wild Delaware rainbows give no quarter, they fight with a mad abandon which straightens hooks and fractures leaders. A bow exceeding twenty inches is a special fish, for the challenges of life in the Upper Delaware rarely allow for a long life span. In thirty years on the Delaware system, I have been privileged to bring to hand five such specimens, this last stretching the tape to twenty-two inches. I wanted a photo badly, but this valiant warrior deserved an instant return to the cold, bright waters from which he came. I submerged the net as I twisted the hook free, turned him loose and watched him streak away.

There is a certain sweet pain in watching a three-and-a-half-pound wild rainbow launch itself into the air to blast a struggling mayfly, then cast your dry fly a dozen times over the fish’s lie without response. I feel that pain… deeply.

Yes, there have been a few Green Drakes this year, seemingly part of Nature’s gift of multitudes of bright water that has befuddled wading anglers for much of the prime time of the season. There have been some Gray Fox too, the first time I have seen these beautiful big mayflies in several years. The trout have been eating them selectively, that is, they have been eating those in transformation from nymph to dun as they struggle to rise to the surface.

My best dun has produced one 22-inch brownie and one splashy refusal. The emerger that fooled my best Catskill brown trout has been ignored. Soft hackles in the film, both dead drifted and gently swung – nothing. It is both Heaven and Hell for the dry fly angler. Nothing man may contrive from fur, feathers and steel will wiggle and squirm as it swims to the surface like those big mayflies.

Sometime in the middle of the night, my mind was working, conceiving the fly at the top of the page. By four thirty AM I was up and headed here to my tying bench. Just a few little touches: the partially shed shuck, the bright yellow-green ribbed abdomen, the struggling legs and a shortened, emergent wing. Can they make the difference? Might this new pattern flip the switch in a few of those big trouts’ predatory brains and light the Free Meal lamp? I will do my best to find out…