Watching river gages has become a staple of my daily routine. Even when things go bad, like the photo above, I watch then whether it is a fishing day or not. I live from river to river, gage to gage, for I am a fly angler.

The rain finished up yesterday and the sun came out to dry the grass enough so I could mow it. After a porch sit and a cold beer, I walked down around the corner to take a look at the Big East as it turned against the slope of Point Mountain. Big and brown, just as I expected.

It’s Friday, my last fishing day of this first week of September. The rains have been beneficial, and we are still sitting in a band of blessed Catskill Summer weather as I begin counting the days until autumn steps in. Unfortunately, I only enjoyed one fishing day out of this week, so I am watching those river gages with the 66 ACM leaning against the armoire expecting to find some action today.

Taking my first look this morning, I found that some more rain fell while I was sleeping, so all of those gages that were dropping when I turned out the lights are rising again. Areas that were dropping and clearing when I went to bed are once more questionable. My day now comes down to some more patience and then the boot test. That involves gearing up, driving to the reach of river I hope to fish, and wading into the flow and see if I can see my boots when I am at least knee deep in the flow.

The bottom line of course, is that I really need more than just one fishing day this week, so I am going to go out there and hope the water I find is clear enough to let a big old trout see a big old dry fly. I’m going to pack along a stick that has a big dose of mojo, do whatever I can to hedge my bets.

An angler realizes that rainfall, winds, clouds, sun, fog and all of the events of Nature make fishing interesting. No, not interesting; they make it magic! Day after day and season after season of perfect conditions would be horribly boring.

That conjures up a tale from one of the late Charles Fox’s classic books. An angler has passed on, and he is led to a beautiful sparkling stream bubbling around a bend through a lush, green meadow, and he is told that this if for him. A trout rises, and he casts his dry fly and catches a beautiful 15-inch trout. He releases it, sees another rise in the same place, and catches an exact copy, if not the same trout. After he repeats that identical sequence of events a few times, he walks upstream around that bend and is confronted with the same identical scene where he began, sees the rise, and catches that same 15-inch trout. After a couple of hours, he realizes that, while he thought that he was in Heaven, he’s been really condemned to the other place.

Simple things can be wonderful out there on the river. I often stop and appreciate the utter beauty of the character of the light along the water and the landscape. The views are startling, and often bring to mind similar scenes and moments, but it is never exactly the same as another. Each moment is unique, precious, and I savor every one!

Looks like the river’s flow has stabilized after that second rise. That gives me hope that that surprise overnight rain wasn’t too hard and didn’t muddy things up. The boots will find out…

With rain pretty well promised, the cloud cover seemed a very solid bet. That kind of cloud cover ensures the water temperatures will stay considerably lower, and that had me gather my Paradigm and it’s Perfect and take a ride down onto the Delaware.

I was surprised when I saw the river, or didn’t see it to be accurate. I have never seen fog that thick and so widespread on the big river. Indeed, the coldest upper reaches of our tailwater rivers look like that many days out of our season, early and late typically, with the mixture of warmer air and forty-something waters. Finding the mighty Delaware in that condition was downright eerie.

There wasn’t a soul out there, just a lone truck with boat trailer parked out along the road, and I felt somewhat like the first man stepping onto a rogue planet. With the mist hugging the surface, the river was bathed in a moving, silvery sheen which vanished my dry fly as soon as it landed.

If there were any flies out there, or any rises, I wasn’t going to see them, though I did occasionally hear the sounds of trout activity. Wading out, with an unshakable feeling of trepidation, I was eventually able to pick up a quick white spurt here and there in the riffly water, but fishing a dry fly was hopeless. There was no evidence of any hatch, not even a measurable drift of insects of any kind, and I could not see my fly once it laid down upon that vaporous silver sheen I knew to be the surface of the water.

Considering the flies arrayed in my fly box, hoping something that I might be able to track along a drift, I saw a pair of larger Partridge & Pheasant Tails and I smiled to myself.

Casting this simple, traditional soft-hackled fly, I let the current take control to let it swing down, just settled into that sheen. Working the same water where my dry flies were ineffective and invisible, this old tactic soon had the bamboo coming alive in my hand. It is impressive just how hard a foot-long wild Delaware River rainbow will fight you. You don’t let them wiggle for a moment and then pull them in. Until you finally get them in close and see them, you will swear you have a strong fish measuring in the teens.

I did catch a trout on a dry fly though. I was walking out and saw a rise nearby, but even in close range I could not see my fly on that magical surface. I was sure the Halo Isonychia was the answer, but I found that it’s wonderfully visible Trigger Point wing blended perfectly with that alchemy of fog and diffused light which had replaced the flowing surface of the river. The little bow I finally bludgeoned with multiple casts fought hard too, though he was hooked on a short line and perhaps just short of ten inches long.

A very quiet afternoon of fishing? Seemingly so, though there is a unique sense of solitude alone on a big river where you couldn’t see another angler more than a cast away from you anyway. Besides the eerie surroundings, there was some additional excitement.

Leading the fly line innocently down the current where I had witnessed one of those tiny spurts of foamy water, something hit it hard enough to stop and tighten that slack line like a shark. The rod arched fully and for a moment whatever was down there just held it’s position and vibrated with energy! Thus ensued the toughest battle I have fought for a number of seasons.

This fish insisted he was going to stay within the bubble line where he hit the fly, and he offered no quarter. When I tried to force him out of his comfort zone, I feared for the life of my rod tip! The standoff couldn’t last, and the fish made the decision to orchestrate the preceding’s via the click check of the vintage Perfect. Run hard, half turn and then dig, dig, dig against the pull of the rod, over and over again. With a lot of time and effort, I eventually led him to the bank, and he shot back out and into his bubble line to the tortured screams of the Hardy. We continued as if we had just begun.

Twice we worked to the bank, and each time he raced away again so we started over. I had almost decided that I had foul hooked him, but on that third trip I could see the fly clearly nestled in his mouth.

A fourth trip to the bank was honestly the first sign that this trout was tired. I got him right to the edge and met him with the net when he turned to run back to the river. I took the hook out of his mouth and I swear he just glared at me, twenty inches of mean green, crimson and silver. As soon as I dipped the net into a foot of water after I checked his length, he shot out of it, right back to his riffle!

I would be choosing my tackle for the day, with a ride to the river just minutes away, but prudence has stayed my plans. An angler must be adaptive, and this morning’s threat of severe storms has me adapting mine. Most of the risk is centered on the morning hours, so a few thoughts may be laid down, and a few flies may be tied while Nature plays out her intentions for these Catskills.

Should storms decide to favor our rivers with gentle rain rather than downpours, some afternoon fishing could still be in the cards. I’m thinking this could be the day to carry a T&T Paradigm, the perfect rod for a quiet contemplative visit to the river. Followers of the marque know the Paradigm fly rods, both bamboo and graphite, were conceived to be the finest dry fly rods imaginable. They reward a smooth, deft casting stroke with perfection!

A day like this leads me to tie on an isonychia dry fly and stalk some of my favorite haunts along the Upper Delaware. Should the storms pass by, the cool, cloudy afternoon will keep the water temperatures favorable below Hancock, and the cold water flow from the West Branch still retained good clarity when I visited yesterday. It is the kind of day I have found the big, claret duns appearing over the years, and the memories tease my interest.

I have already gathered several iso dries, and tied some others, so I have just to place them in the evolving seasonal fly boxes in my summer vest. The Paradigm will be ready with a wipe of the ferrules, and a Perfect with a number five line is as close as the armoire behind me!

Eight o’clock, and a gentle hint of rain is falling. Clouds obscure the peaks of the mountains at all sides. The Red Gods’ intentions remain unclear, but it is time to allow the day develop.

The weather forecast tried it’s best to discourage my plans for fishing this morning. I had mostly decided to take care of an errand, yet I tossed an old pair of waders and my boots in the Jeep as a just in case afterthought.

After a long talk, trading stories with my friend Ben at West Branch Angler, the rain so certain earlier hadn’t appeared after all, so I decided to drive down the river and see if I could find a quiet spot. Wading in, familiar waters welcomed me. By the time I had knotted a fresh tippet and a dry fly, the first few rises appeared.

Age and familiarity change our approach to most things in life, and so it goes with fishing. Seeing nothing apparent floating out there in front of me, I assumed whatever the trout were daintily sipping were small, terribly small. The experience of thirty odd years on this river told me that, but age led me to knot a size 16 Cross Special to that fresh tippet.

There was a time I happily carried several miniscule specks of thread, feathers and fur intended to match those nearly invisible olives, but today’s eyes no longer see them so clearly as they once did. The Cross brought no response from those sippers, even though I had seen one similar sized pale mayfly flying past. Familiarity had me expecting that result, so I produced a size 20 olive, knowing beforehand it was still much larger than the sippers were drawn to. Experience made that result clear as well.

An Adams poster, a size larger, but buggier and indistinct, tried to convince me while I tried to convince those trout. At some point, I stooped low to the surface to satisfy my expectations had been met. Indeed, a miniscule set of wings answered any remaining question: a dark olive, size 24 perhaps, or 26, and far too small for me to carry them in my vest anymore. I simply cannot see them clearly enough to tie them on.

So, I continued happily casting something I could tie on and see to those sipping trout, while they continually sipped “nothing” and ignored my flies. I spent the hour and a half the stalled rain allotted me, standing all alone in that wide reach of river, casting well and fully assured that any chance of catching a trout was as minute as the midget mayflies they were actually eating.

As the first trace of rain began the flies and sippers ceased seemingly in unison. I thought, as I turned to wade back to the bank, and marveled at just how many hundreds of days I had stood in that river; and in every vision in memory there was one thing which was always the same, just as it was today. I was smiling…

Yes, September is waiting.

The final weeks of summer lie ahead, and an angler’s hopes look toward cooling rivers and an increase in mayfly activity. I always search for the big claret hued fellows which have been scarce these past seasons, the isonychia. The old timers may speak of the White Gloved Howdy, and the Pennsylvania boys will be asking of their Slate Drakes, but they are most welcome when any dry fly angler finds them regardless the name they’re called.

Isonychia are typically a sporadic hatch, they come in small flotillas during afternoons when they come. While the September brood brings 12 or even 14 size specimens, not the big number tens of spring, they are a robust mayfly that catches the interest of opportunistic trout. The Delaware River rainbows seem to have a particular fondness for them, and I have brought some wide shouldered, high-flying bows from the big river’s faster stretches with some of my favorite dun imitations.

The attraction of one of these iso duns dancing atop the surface has salvaged any number of quiet, hatchless afternoons during Delaware summer wanderings. I’ve taken many fine brown trout on these flies too of course, but isonychia seem to have a magic to pull a big rainbow to the top out of seemingly lifeless water.

In more than thirty years on Catskill rivers, I have seen just one heavy, sustained hatch of these flies, and it was epic! That has been so many years ago that I no longer hope to encounter it’s likeness, but dreams are still for the dreaming.

I’ve been watching rainfall and water temperatures along the Mainstem, hoping to draw me to those long, wandering afternoons with one of my best distance rods and a box of those claret beauties. Rains can bring cool, clear heightened flows from the East Branch and mix with the seasonal muddied flow from the West Branch, keeping the Delaware dry fly friendly. Those are the conditions I desire.

The Red Gods don’t cooperate thus every season, but I long for the rarer seasons when they do. A lower, clear, cold and wadable Delaware is a wonderful September gift!

Well sir, another tornado warning right here in Hancock, New York has just passed. I didn’t hear too much wind while the weather man on the television was talking about measured velocities at 3,500 feet of altitude, but we certainly had some beat down rain! The rivers are already rising, just a few minutes after the storm passed.

This is our third tornado warning right here in the southwestern edge of the Catskills, three in eight years, and the second one not long ago produced an F-1 tornado touching down just along the east end of our village, snapping and tossing a forest of mature pines along the East Branch of the Delaware. There seems little doubt that our climate is changing. Things have gradually become more extreme. Summers are hotter and drier, but the winters have been longer and colder too. The droughts have been worse and the storms too.

Anglers are more comfortable with fairly frequent gentle rains, moderate balmy summers and mild, wet winters. All of those things are good for the rivers we cherish and the trout and insect life which provide the magic in flyfishing. I think most of the people in this region would like those weather patterns too. Most, either directly or indirectly benefit from the rivers and the fly fishing they provide.

Our rivers will probably have some color tomorrow but will clear up and be fishable for the weekend. The tailwater rivers might just get a boost in the contents of their reservoirs too, depending how far north this storm front travels. Most importantly, we managed to get through this one without the mayhem of another tornado!

I prefer to do my worrying about my dwindling supply of wood duck flank feathers, rather than destruction and floods. Being retired means I should be entertained by smaller matters: which fly line really casts best with my Leonard rods and should I buy more of the leaders I have been using this year before the maker changes them, so they don’t work for me. Of course, how in the world am I going to find enough wood duck has serious implications, though it isn’t going to knock down any trees.

I’m trying to catch my breath…

It seems the past two months have spun past like a whirlwind. It has been a great summer, allowing me to more than make up for the spring fishing that was lost. Things have slowed down, finally, and I am feeling a sense of relief. I would not begrudge the weather keeping me off the rivers today.

The energy of great fishing had me cruising through long days one after another. Now, with the slower pace of late summer, there is more work, more water to cover to find just one good trout to ply my trade, spin the magic of the dry fly.

Yesterday I covered a lot of water carefully, taking my time to dissect every possible lie my eyes could see. Casting from distance, there is no chance to observe just what makes a trout to rush into a spontaneous rise. I could see the odd trico spinner pass by in the film through the late hours of morning, but such fare does not bring an apparently idle trout to swirl hard and shower his placid abode with spray.

Granted, the larger terrestrials would seem to be the answer, but there was no proof. Cast after cast was ignored, even where there was some secondary movement to prove the fish I targeted was still in the area where he rose. When the evidence confuses, I often think that movement is the culprit.

By late August, these wild trout have been assaulted by an army of visiting anglers, throwing everything but the kitchen sink. They have been harangued and spooked. Some have been caught early on and more have been fooled by those of us who hunt stealthily and aware. By this time, they are as schooled as well as the best of us, likely more. There is always an equalizer in Nature, the attraction of an alive, wiggling, bite size something which finds itself on the water. The lack of frequency screams the laws of chance are at work!

Throughout my thirty-five years of designing and tying trout flies, the guiding principle has been to project the image of life. That is paramount – and exceedingly difficult. When the predator trout has been conditioned by a full season of heavy angling pressure, when the largesse of the spring hatches are but a memory, that image of life often comes down to movement. Ninety-nine percent of the time brother, twitchin’ ain’t gonna cut it!

A twitched fly is of course attached to a leader, and any movement imparted to a fly is accompanied with a great deal more movement, movement of unnatural things: the leader, the line, and all of the water disturbed by them. Yes, one can get away with a very subtle upstream twitch in fast water, but not in the flat sheen of summer.

A handful of early afternoon Cahills allowed me to present a Cross Special to a trout who was looking for one, and how surprised was he when that tasty looking mayfly fought back! He was a nice fish, but not a big one, but he more than it made up with surprised energy.

For a moment, it seemed there might be enough of those little pale mayflies to start something, but no. A rise here or there… and then silence.

I checked the time, after two, and so having determined those mayflies were not going to be the start of something, I changed flies and tactics.

The last cast of the day…

His movements betrayed him. He wasn’t rising, wasn’t finding the food he sought, but he clearly wanted some. I stalked him as slowly and gently as my tired bones were capable.

The most difficult decisions in that kind of game are choosing to end one drift, withdraw the fly, watch and determine the next cast. Care and a bit of divine charity let me to make those decisions correctly. I had worked all of the corridor of water he had been moving through, leaving me the only place he must have been holding, returning to when his little sorties returned no engagements. Thus, that last cast…

The drift was slow, as was the slightest little soft ring. No nose, just that soft ring…

He gave a wonderful account of himself, a pair of leaps, hard, quick runs against that deadly silent modern drag, all ignored by the sole other angler in the river not far away. Had it been a typical day, armed with a light cane rod and a classic, musical Hardy, he and I would have not kept our secret. Geared for bombing casts across two thirds of the river had me unpack the old T&T Paradigm number four; silence is deadly.

Twenty inches, right on the button, how perfect might be that last cast at the end of a long day!

I enjoy the sound of rain on my metal roof, sitting here predawn, and silently thanking God and Nature for these gifts…

It has been a good summer so far with about a week remaining in August. The tailwaters, which are the lifeblood of my summer fishing, have remained steady though at lower flows at times. July’s rainfall was a full three inches above the statistical average, and this rain could bring August’s to a happy plus inch. The result is that the Delaware reservoirs have been refilled somewhat rather than depleted day after day, and that is a very good thing.

The rains have added to the tailwater flows too of course, making things better for the fishing at the expense of somewhat higher water temperatures. Higher flows increase aeration and thus oxygenation in these rivers, so I think it evens out to a more comfortable situation for our precious wild trout.

As of Friday, Cannonsville Reservoir was 79.0 percent of capacity, well above than the levels we tend to see after three weeks of August. Frequent anglers have gotten used to muddied water in the West Branch and down into the Upper Delaware at this time of year, and dry fly fishermen aren’t joyful when we find it. I am hoping the rivers remain clear as September comes in and, such I am hoping here, it comes with nice cool nights and moderate afternoons and continued regular rainfall. I confess, I like to wade and fish the Mainstem in September.

I like to stock my vest with Isonychia, Light Cahills, Hebes and small olives and wander along the wide river with the gentle wading levels common to September. The mountainsides turn to the colors of autumn slowly under blue, clear skies, and the wild rainbows will come and sip one of those dry flies if you can put your fly in front of them quickly. I learned long ago that Delaware rainbows are movers, and if you dawdle when you need to cast quickly and accurately you may miss the opportunity. I like the challenge of that game.

When it isn’t one of those hot, dry years we have seen too frequently, September is truly sublime. After spending a lot of my summer days on the rivers, I feel like myself again. My legs are stronger, and I feel the itch to get out and wander along the big river. I began this abbreviated fishing season with a trophy wild rainbow, and I want to renew the acquaintance.

Long comfortable afternoons on that river seem to be the perfect way to wind up the dry fly season. True, I will continue my dry fly season on through October if the weather allows, but the later part of that season is and should be a celebration, and nobody says a celebration has to be a short-term occasion.

With it’s uncanny ability to reach across wide rivers with deft control and delicacy, it was a given that The Friendship Rod would journey to Sanctuary, and thus it has been done.

The river has lost that something extra that rain had offered, and so it flows as a thin, glowing pane of glass as it reflects the gorgeous clear blue skies of an incomparable summer day. August could do no finer.

Twenty-five years of memories flooded my thoughts as I waded, searched, and cast. Terrestrials fit the bill, and I hoped a reaction to the swift appearance of a substantial meal would lead to my reward. The beauty of the day could not be surpassed, but the trout had all but vacated the water after a week.

Today the fishing was superb, but the catching, well it seems the Red Gods had decreed that would not occur, not once, not in the least. Tom’s wondrous taper, so beautifully executed in John’s hands, laid flies both small and large as gently as the air itself, but if there was a trout hunkered there in that glorious reach of river, I cannot bear any witness to it.

At last, after working every lane of current, and every enticing nook behind some bit of cover, I surrendered to the beauty of the day, I clipped my fly on the frame of the stripping guide and enjoyed an hour to take a slow walk upriver, counting all of those memories made there. I watched the small pale mayflies drifting on that glassy surface, finding never a dimple or interruption to their passage. Indeed, it was a perfect day!

I just tied a new tippet to the leader on my Bougle`, readying it for the day ahead. The Friendship Rod is in the cue, and the weekend’s meanderings with tying some tiny flies sit here nearly invisible in the bottom of the pill bottle.

The air is punctuated by a gentle rain, a cooler weekend lingering just a few more hours. Sitting on the porch last evening, I watched the mist wraiths waft along the top of Point Mountain and smiled, thinking it is just fine for an August evening to feel cool and damp to the touch.

Those flies were more to satisfy a whim than really formulate a plan for the day ahead. Eleven flies, and the lot of them less than the mass of one standard size 14 Catskill dry fly. I wasn’t certain if I could still tie the tiny tricos, particularly after I rather botched a pair of the doubled patterns, but those size 24’s turned out just fine. They are joined with a trio of little rusty spinners, a couple of winged ants. A friend has been searching for tricos, and if he finds a fishable concentration I just might tag along, just to see if I can still catch a trout on nearly nothing.

Trico’s were a ritual on summer mornings in the Cumberland Valley. I opened my fly shop promptly at ten, but the spinners would generally fall by eight. The air temperature had to reach 69 degrees for the aerial mating to begin, and the fall would follow without delay. I recall the simple joys of those mornings, the soft beauty of the limestone meadows in summer…

It sounds like the rain is finishing up, I can hear birds fluttering outside the window. So, rod, reel, it’s line freshly cleaned and ready, and the flies I can’t see. Time to wash up and pick a destination and get to it!