Just enough, glistening, frosted with white to bring the reminder that spring remains but a hope. Heady days, teased while imprisoned I watched, filling my lungs in the warmth air while the sun brought life in my bones, yet naught save watching and dreaming. My soul wishes to rush, embrace the season headlong, but the time is not mine.

My fate is in other hands, my plans belong to others, and my freedom and control has been stripped from me. At best, if the season shrinks for now, I will benefit. Lest I not miss a moment when it comes in due time.

I retreat in decades of golden moments in a blessed angling life.

I am wading the fringes of the West Branch, haunting the riverbank forsaken by the crowds. While the others search in vain for rises in mid-river, I alone find them, delicate, shy, sipping in the shallows, drawn to the smaller, ruddy duns, in the traces between the tossed slabs of rock… wolves!

The rain increases and the river rises steadily. I am working along the edge of a favorite bend, wading carefully lest the heavy flow takes me feet away from me. I am casting a big Isonychia, and the fly must all but touch the vegetation to draw a strike. When I probe successfully the in-between, I am rewarded: the lithe wand bucks with life and power as another brown departs from the edge and dives into the tumult of the rising water!

A morning, decades from the past, and I stalk the meadows of the limestone springs. Ed Shenk has shared the secret to his White Minnow, and I have crafted each from my vice in strict conformance to his instruction.

The seven-foot rod works in such close turns, and the line reaches to place the minnow just so, such that it slips beneath the surface that the current rushes beneath a dark little cavern. Twitched once, then twice, and the rod is alive and nearly taken from my grasp! A tense duel, unseen, until leviathan reveals in the light of day. Subdued, the fly slips easily and I, hands trembling, I guide him back into the silver froth!

Shall a new morning greet me at riverside?

Another milestone has arrived, and yet time still seems to be spiraling. Snow is a promise, and yet just hours from a warm sunlit morning. Turmoil in the heavens, turmoil here in earth.

The Beaver Kill has a fine freshet, to clean it’s gravel free from the old and welcome the new. Shall new life wriggling between those stones seek the sun when April dawns?

I began to fill a fly box tasked for winter’s new crop of patterns, but I soon lost my steam, the task left unfinished. Concentration evades me.

The rods are still cased, and none have dallied in the hand, no polish has buffed the luster behind all the years since untold casts have launched a hope and a prayer. Time stands, circling…

I wish to think forward, to plan for that first cast when a soft ring elicits a quickening in my heart rate, yet the mire pulls me down, prevents my spirit to rise to the light.

Waiting…

I can hear that line over and over, Tom Petty’s signature whine… Yea, it’s hard indeed.

I sat out on the porch yesterday afternoon, once the sun came through the clouds: eighty-four degrees there in my old chair; March in the Catskills. I almost tasted a cold, crisp Cold Snap rolling down my tongue, but that has to wait too. I simply sat there, feeling what felt like an early summer afternoon, watching the whisps of clouds glide over the top of Point Mountain.

I can’t quite to make the usual plans that I would be plotting daily as we are coasting toward mid-March. There are too many pressing things that I have to try to get done.

I’d simply dream back into one of these unseasonably warm days in March, wandering along Big Spring, back before things got so damned complicated. There was a time when I’d stalk along those meadows, watching every inch of the bottom, a shine beside a weed edge, evidence that a big rainbow was lurking…

Of course, the take obviously wasn’t a guarantee, not even with the three-weight I would have along on a winter’s day. One of those insane fish would go berserk if you did get a little hook in his jaw! That shallow, clear water you would just watch those ripping flashes of all those colors and a boiling furrow in the water as it streaked away. They always knew where the next weed bed was, even if the one they wanted was seventy yards away… yea, the one with a cluster of big chunks of limestone in the middle of a big ball of weeds. A trout measured in pounds on a size 20 hook and a 6X tippet, and a prayer!

I thought it was complicated back then, but it wasn’t turned out that way. Funny how your perspective changes.

Back in Crooked Eddy, and that is a comfortable situation. I was just a couple of days away, as one counts the days, but in another sense I was very a long way from home. Lost for a time.

I met a lot of new people, too many I still have a hard time to sort them out and put the names on the faces, but they were very important to me, even some which passed through in a whirlwind. So thank you very from the bottom of my heart dear ladies and gentlemen.

Here has dawned the thirtieth day of my annual countdown, the last few turns along the path to a new dry fly season. Winter is fighting in and out while the new glimpses of spring tries to make a few inroads, between with a few warm, sunny days. There is still snow in front of my doorway, but there is finally some open water flowing along the rivers of my heart.

In a normal year, that last thirty days bring a fair number of soft days which draw me out on the rivers, previews, moments of wandering bright water and testing with a few flies cast and swung and getting to know the feel of the best half of the year. Two thousand twenty-six is going to be different, and there will be some serious challenges to meet along that lost stretch of the road.

I’ve been there before, though there are some new turns along the road. I don’t know anything about the mysteries that I will have to work my way around along the darker turns. I won’t be able to get my boots in even one step in shallow water, and I won’t be able to make even one early cast to prospect the currents, but my heart will wanting that caress of bright waters. I’ll keep that spirit, that dream of closing my hand, squeezing the cork and sending that first cast toward a soft subtle dimple in the surface.

Those dries, today, were Isonychia, Century Duns and a 100-Year Dun on big size 10 hooks. They were fashioned with a hope that I see those big claret-colored mayflies come early June. They have been spotty these last few years, as have many of our mayflies.

The sunshine drew me outside, though I knew it’s shining warmth was a lie. The air still hovers below freezing, though it feels a bit warmer walking in the direct sunlight. Saturday’s thaw was short lived, and I recorded all of seven and a half degrees this morning after sunrise.

I enjoyed my riverwalk, hailing the bald eagle soaring down along the strip of open water along the east bank of the East Branch. I doubt he had found anything fishy along that shoreline, with most of the river still silent under a cap of ice and snow. The snow and ice we have been warned of for the morning won’t make tomorrow’s hunt any better for him, but Wednesday afternoon is boasting of 49 degrees and sunshine, with Thursday just about as warm and bringing nearly three quarters of an inch of rain. The combination just might be enough to break the ice’s hold on our Catskill rivers.

It’s tough to try to hold onto expectations for March, for a few days of mild, sunny weather can tease you into believing spring has sprung, then be followed by snow driven by thirty mile per hour winds.

I look at March as a take what Mother Nature gives you kind of situation. I know I won’t find any dry fly fishing, but there can be a run or two of really nice days when it simply feels great to get out on the water. I can wander riverbanks and swing a Copper Fox, take a slim chance on running into a big, hungry brown.

The slow swing, bumping rocks along the river bottom is an easy way to get my casting muscles into shape. It is comfortable fishing, devoid of any serious expectations. Trout don’t feed much when the water is in the thirty something degree range, but there is always a chance to find one down there poking around because it’s his day.

I’ll take one of my old Orvis’s, or the Steve Kiley eight-footer with a heavy six or seven line. If there’s a stronger flow, a clear intermediate will get the nod, while low flows call for the floater. I don’t need a vest, just a bit of a chest pack, a small box of flies and a spool of 3X tippet. There often aren’t a lot of those days, so I enjoy one when it comes, saving the cold blustery days for drift boat chores, etc.

The ghost in my laptop just popped a tiny snowflake onto the bottom corner of my screen, with a message I don’t want to see: “3 in. of snow Tuesday”. I’d rather that system pass quickly through overnight and let Wednesday’s warmup arrive a day early!

Just maybe I’ll wrap a few Red Quill bodies and then rustle up a Cold Snap while I let their hard lacquered coating dry. Sounds like a plan…

At last, the punishment of February lies behind us; though Nature and her Red Gods have their tongues thrust deeply into their cheeks. It is twenty-six degrees with snow falling here in Crooked Eddy.

Driving back from Flyfest in yesterday afternoon’s bright sunshine, I read fifty-seven degrees on my old Jeep’s thermometer. Driving into town with the windows rolled down was exquisite: kids running along Front Street in shorts and tee shirts, snowmelt everywhere. Everyone felt the release, that sense of freedom with the outdoors at last beginning to be unlocked!

Yes, there is hope once again, despite the falling snow. Thirty-six days lie between this moment and the beginning of the new dry fly season.

Last year I was freed from my icy prison on the tenth of March, walking in sunshine and swinging flies upon the hallowed Beaver Kill. Another week had passed before those slow arcs of swinging fly line found resistance and the season’s first brace of wild trout came to hand.

The dry fly season flirted shyly and teased for another month, until at last my Maxwell Leonard settled a Dark Red Quill 100-Year Dun upon the surface to be taken by a beautiful brown of twenty inches!

March’s first few days are bound to revisit winter memories, though warmer and wetter days are ahead. Perhaps the great thaw will open the rivers, and they will clear and fall to wadable levels before too many more days have passed behind. It is time to stretch my aching indoor muscles, to build back some strength and flexibility sacrificed to January and February’s deep freeze; for fishing is coming!

Betrayed once more! Just yesterday I pinned my hopes to our local forecast, with but three inches of snow throughout the ten-day prediction. I awakened this morning to watch the Weather Channel pounding their contrary view and, checking the local just now, I see eleven more inches across that ten-day span!

It seems I shall have nothing save dreams and memories to cling to as cruel February winds into March.

Once winter has nearly beaten down my spirit, I often watch some short fishing or fly tying video as I take my breakfast, and yesterday I watched two of Davie McFail’s. He was tying a couple of patterns using CDC fibers for body dubbing, something I had not done for a good many years. Back on Falling Spring, I had tied a personal version of the classic Usual dry fly. I dubbed the fly’s body with pale yellow CDC fibers, using the original snowshoe rabbit’s foot hair for the tail and wing. I also tied some of these using pale dun CDC for the wing.

Both of these flies worked very well on the wild and heavily pressured Falling Spring trout, particularly in the short, sparkling riffled areas of that limestone stream.

I had learned of the Usual and it’s history from one of Fran Betters’ books, and really learned to appreciate the pattern on an early Catskill trip. I had selected a few size 16 Usual’s from the bin’s at Dette Flies upon Mary’s recommendation and taken some lovely Catskill trout on them almost immediately. For some reason though, that classic, rumpled every fly fell out of my tying regime and my boxes over the years.

Yesterday’s wandering thoughts recalled those moments, and I decided that a CDC dubbed body would be ideal for a few of my CDC soft hackles. A mixture of sulfurs and olives took shape quickly. I plan to tie some more of these as I do my best to let good thoughts of sunshine and bright water stave off this frontal assault of winter blues!

The power chords erupt from the depths of my memory, and I can clearly hear the voice of the late Ozzy Osbourne: Lying snowblind in the sun…

Snow is falling once more in the Catskill Mountains. My brain needs to balance between the Weather Channel’s warnings of “a big nor’easter”, and the much more tractable local forecast amounting to maybe three inches across eight of the next ten days which bear snowflakes in their headers. I want to believe that local story, but I can still hear Ozzy’s wail.

I have had enough of winter!

Baseball begins today, and I welcome the distraction; and Flyfest comes around next Saturday, maybe even an evening out listening to Nate Gross’ incomparable blues guitar. All of these are sorely needed to set my mind free from indoor temperatures in the fifties and this ever enduring white landscape!

Right now, I have to get myself through the morning. Perhaps I will plan out what I’ll tie at Flyfest this year, set aside the materials I’ll need to stock my travel kit. I am leaning toward some of the new patterns I’ve been working on, maybe some old, old ones like the soft hackle dry flies… Terrestrials might inject a little warmth into the spirits of my fellow anglers and fly tyers…

Right now I just have to get through another week, for beyond Flyfest and the blues lies March! Yes, yes, it will still feature cold winds, perhaps more snow and ice, but it is finite and ends in springtime!

I get myself going each March, getting my boat ready, fussing with the tackle I plan for the opening salvos of the new season, and actually wandering riverbanks, wading those rivers, and casting a fly. I know I will begin to see tiny black caddis and early stoneflies and I will dream I can see the ring of a rise once more! Once in the past seven years my first dry fly trout of the season was actually landed in March, so miracles can truly happen, not just appear in waking dreams!

Forty-five days remain; but thirty-one shall be in March!

Our February warmup has fizzled, leaving the river gages still frozen and a great deal of our last snowfall still on the ground. While temperatures improved markedly over the past five days, the sun failed to make more than a brief, last gasp glow in the western sky.

The Beaver Kill is our larger, undammed watershed, and though the flow rate gage is iced and inoperable, the gage height shows an increase of four tenths of a foot since yesterday, the product of sporadic rainfall and whatever snowmelt that began. Added flow is good flow at this time of year, and that gives me some hope for the early mayflies that deserted my favorite reaches of that iconic river last season.

I tied a trio of my Century Duns to match the Quill Gordons late this morning, more of a subtle plea to the Red Gods than an act toward filling any direct need in my usually overstuffed fly boxes. They are sitting here in front of me now.

I have nearly finished this, my third reading of the father’s Notes and Letters, yet I catch little things, points and mentions memory does not recall. He wrote often of the terrible troubles he had acquiring quality hooks and materials for his flies. Should he appear across the room from me I would put one of Charlie Collins’ gorgeous dun hackle capes in his hand, bid him to take it along back to neverland. I think he would appreciate my own personal tribute, the 100-Year Duns I tie, inspired by his own flies and writings. I hope so.

I have been working on prototypes this week, rounding out a selection of some new and old styles of flies to cover the major hatches I hope to see when the dry fly season begins some forty-seven days hence, or thereabouts. And, though this week’s warmup has not featured the sunshine I had hoped to draw me out to watch the snow melt, I have welcomed the end of shivering indoors.

I have also written and edited my column to be published in March’s issue of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild Gazette. Instead of writing about proven patterns, I shared my thoughts and motivations for my new Transitional flies, and the writing helped spur me on to produce additional prototypes. It is too early in my process to tie these flies in quantity, for they will have to be cast upon the rivers and examined closely to fine tune their design.

The idea behind these new Transitional Duns involves pushing the abdomen deeper into the film and slightly below that threshold. I am counting on the absorbency of the wrapped pheasant tail fibers and the copper wire rib to accomplish that, allowing the CDC puff wing or the sparse hackling of the Century Dun variations to provide just enough floatability to keep the thorax of the fly hanging in the film. The design allows adjustment, by adding heavier wire ribbing, or even wrapping additional wire underneath the pheasant tail fibers, but I cannot judge the “hang” until the river ice vanishes and I can cast these patterns on flowing water.

The Catskills are expecting rain today and, coupled with a high temperature near forty, that should cause some significant snowmelt and raise river flows. Whether the past few days’ warmer temperatures and that flow increase will be enough to soften and loosen the river ice will be the question of the day. The advance forecast reveals a full week with low temperatures below freezing and highs in the thirties once our warmup subsides tomorrow, so I don’t really expect to get nearer any of our rivers than a drive by until March winds into view. No one here would mind an early spring, regardless of that famous Pennsylvania groundhog’s prognostication.

I have also continued working up additional styles of soft hackled dry flies. With 175 or more years of history behind them, I am sure there are already too many patterns, but I do insist upon choosing my own dubbings and feathers to agree with my own observations of Catskill bugs in our twenty-first century.

I expect another month of winter, despite my preferences for an early spring, though I will undoubtedly push the timeline if Mother Nature offers any kind of a window, some flash of unexpected warmth!