As the wind driven rain tapping on the glass moved me into consciousness at two AM, I knew this would not be a fishing day. Another day left to my thoughts where, as on many a winter’s day, I turned to fantasy. To begin the day, I immersed myself in “Chasing The Taper”, watching that lovely film for perhaps the two dozenth time. Later I checked the Classic Flyrod Forum and tied a trio of Isonychia mayflies, the rusty dun hackled 100-year Dun variety the trout have taken a liking to.

Afternoon advanced and I finished Gene Connett’s book “My Friend The Trout” yet the sunshine and cool air beckoned me outside. I took a copy of a magazine from long ago out to the porch with a chilled ale, “The Bamboo Flyrod” from twenty-five years ago. I read Per Brandin’s primer on rod design and various articles before I came to the last piece in the issue, a beautiful “Bamboo Odyssey” penned by my old friend and mentor, Ed Shenk.

Ed was the major proponent of short fly rods for many years, as rod manufacturers spent great sums advertising the perceived virtues of longer and longer flyrods. He kept a special place in his heart for his collection of diminutive bamboo fly rods, and I felt that love again through his words.

Of course, reading of my friend’s adventures with little cane brought me to memories of my own little bamboo treasures. My first came as the result of meeting Tom Smithwick, a fine gentleman rodmaker, and an absolute wizard with tapers. Tom came to my Cumberland valley fly shop with his little prototype in a long, slender aluminum tube, a deal was struck, and that rod became mine. Upon retirement, Tom moved into the valley, providing numerous chances for me to cast some of his other creations. The original shares space in my rod rack with Tom’s 6’6″ one piece built on an original taper crafted from the same design theories, and a unique seven-footer he made for my quest to take large brownies out of dangerous cover, something a shorter fly rod does better than a long one.

The 5’5″ rod was my brook trout tackle when I headed upslope into those Pennsylvania mountains, but its most adventurous memories involve the limestone springs. There was a hot ticket brown just over eighteen inches long we battled in the Falling Spring one evening, and a like sized trout from the larger limestone influenced waters of the Little Juniata River. The rod is short and beautifully light, but it handles larger trout with authority.

The 6’6″ Smithwick forced a strong and willful seventeen incher from a West Branch Delaware log jam on it’s very first visit! Not to be outdone, the seven-footer comes from the same taper design lineage, and presents flies from 60 feet or more with a double taper five weight perfectly.

I acquired one of my friend Dennis Menscer’s sweet casting 6′-8″ three weights several years ago. He told me that model was no stranger to larger trout, so I took him at his word. A heavy bodied eighteen-inch Delaware rainbow will test any trout tackle you’ve got, and I tangled with mine in fast water with a little CFO reel. Suffice to say the rod was doubled over and the reel screaming wildly throughout, and I loved every minute of it from hookset to net!

There is one more rod and one more special memory, and it is tied directly to my departed friend, the great Ed Shenk. I was able to acquire Ed’s Hardy Featherweight fly reel from his estate, and I commissioned friend and rodmaker Tom Whittle to design the ultimate seven-foot four weight cane fly rod to honor Ed’s memory and allow me to fish with my late mentor on our wide Catskill rivers. Fittingly I fished the rod on the historic Neversink River and brought a beautiful brown to hand with an original fly inspired by one of Ed’s classic patterns.

There is a special joy in fishing a short, lightweight bamboo fly rod, and the Master kindly showed me that fact. Reading his words again brought all those emotions to the fore. May the trout all rise for you in Heaven my friend, as they did on earth!

Fishing a comfortable piece of water can be a lot like visiting an old friend. You have walked that reach a hundred times, know where the trout are likely to rise, even expect them in those favorite corners.

Yesterday was one of those comfortable days, a warm high summer afternoon with intermittent breezes, both sunshine and clouds, and even a few tiny mayflies drifting on the surface now and then. While those flies were too few to capture and identify, I guessed them to be the little pale olives common on summer afternoons. My size 20 imitation however, was blatantly ignored whenever I cast over one of the sporadic rises I observed. I had seen something dark and drowned in the film once or twice, so I relied upon a small Grizzly Beetle to turn the tide in my favor.

The wild brownies I entertained weren’t large, but they fought with all of the strength and vigor their junior proportions could sustain, giving me a smile and a good time.

There was one that left a question in my mind, for I had seen a couple of heavier rises at a distance. When my wandering took me near their locations, I traded my beetle for a larger terrestrial.

I had just tied on a new 5X tippet before I approached one of those promising lies, and I lofted a long cast with the Menscer hollowbuilt. The wind blew a lot of slack in the line while the fly was in the air, and I overreacted a bit when a good rise vanished the fly. The line came away freely after a split second of marginal resistance, the tippet knot having failed. Some sort of a fish might have spent the afternoon sulking near that deadfall, munching on my fly and four feet of tippet. I worked along down river with a fresh fly, but there were no further signs of the big brown I coveted.

Before I turned back upstream, I knotted an Isonychia pattern to the third fresh tippet of the day. There is always a chance for a few of these flies to hang around into midsummer, though the main hatches occur in early June and September. That claret bodied 100-Year Dun did bring a few more browns to the surface as I reworked the best lies along my way back.

I took my time, covering all of the old haunts, just in case a big boy might be looking up. That’s the way it is with familiar water. Experience keeps you focused on the places trout like best, and all you have to do is make good casts, almost from memory.

Friday was a particularly gorgeous summer day on the West Branch Delaware River. With plenty of sunshine and cotillions of windswept clouds passing, the light conditions changed continuously, offering a comfortable challenge to spot the odd trout sipping little sulfur mayflies in the moving currents. I had prepared for the challenge, opting for my five weight T&T Paradigm rather than a customary summer four weight.

Yes, a good eight-foot four will handle breezy conditions in the hands of a good fly caster, but experience leaves me forewarned when forecasts predict “winds 10 to 15 mph”. Here among the Catskill Mountains, that hopeful little euphemism most often means sustained winds of at least twenty mph, with higher gusts! I enjoyed the better end of that proposition though, the forecast being accurate for a rare afternoon.

The West Branch browns were on their game, as they typically are in this hard fished river. I spotted a soft swirl in the film here and there, the hints offered by wild trout moving restlessly, and taking the occasional mayfly while doing their best to avoid detection. For a while, none offered a trace of their existence in the same location more than once, feeding surreptitiously and moving. Eventually though, one made the mistake of taking a second time within inches of his previous rise, and the Paradigm placed my 100-year Dun a foot above the swirl.

That brown must have realized his mistake a split second too late. He took the fly, but not in a traditional sipping rise. My eyes were glued to the bobbing dun and then it simply wasn’t there. I tightened gently, almost tentatively, and the rod tip bounced down hard as the trout shot away toward mid-river, flying out of the shallow water fifty feet away. The sight of that first aerial burst, and the music of my vintage Perfect told me I had found the end to my dry spell.

My friend sought the safety of the clouds thrice more, shedding some of the accumulated green slime from my leader with each leap, and thus giving me a better chance of bringing him finally to the net. A solid, nineteen inch aerialist makes a fine slump buster!

I found no more subtle swirls in the aftermath of that battle, and only one soft, testing little rise as I wandered down river. I worked on that fellow as the wind turned to gusts, and I though I had him when one tiny ring seemed to envelop the fly. Hooked, he came out from the bank with a heavy feel, but something was off. He headed downstream steadily, though not at all rapidly, taking my line and half of the scant fifty yards of backing my classic reel provided. Eventually netted by the guide anchored in his drift boat more than fifty yards downstream, that fish displayed my fly in his dorsal fin, not his mouth. I laughed along with my impromptu net man as I pulled a few pounds of green slime from my leader in search of the treasonous fly.

Yesterday I made a trip back in time. It has been thirty years since I first visited Manchester, Vermont while working toward the opening of my Cumberland Valley fly shop, Falling Spring Outfitters. JA joined me for a visit to the American Museum of Fly Fishing to enjoy their Summer Festival.

Driving through the village, there wasn’t anything I recognized. The old Orvis store is gone, replaced by a beautiful structure that looks more like a major angling or ski lodge than a fly fishing shop. Inside it is more clothing store than anything else. We found no trace of an Orvis bamboo rod within, despite the company’s recent press heralding the history of Orvis rod making and their new commitment to the future of Orvis bamboo. The clerk we asked responded wistfully, as if he had a vague memory that bamboo rods once existed, though wasn’t really certain they still did.

The museum too has changed, housing a great deal of paintings amid the absence of the rows of historic cane fly rods and reels I remembered. Much of their space now pays homage to the late Orvis magnate Leigh Perkins. The displays are interesting and tastefully presented, though I feel it pales in comparison to our own Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum.

The Festival itself was enjoyable, though unexpectedly smaller than our CFFCM Summerfest. We both talked to a number of folks including neighbor John Shaner who drove up from Stilesville on the West Branch. We found him browsing sporting books at the booth of my favorite booksellers, the fine folks of Callahan & Company from Peterborough, New Hampshire. I enjoyed meeting Ken and Diane after many telephone conversations about the classic sporting books I have sought and ordered. JA seemed to meet someone he knew at every turn, beginning before we reached the first exhibitor’s table!

We carried a few books home, though neither of us found any bits of vintage tackle which proved to be beyond our resistance. I came close when I encountered a near mint Orvis 99 fly rod offered at a very reasonable price. Local vendors catered to our thirst and hunger pangs with a smooth craft beer and excellent pulled pork barbeque. I can offer high marks to the Straight Bourbon crafted by the folks at Smuggler’s Notch Distillery as well. Somehow, I managed to head home without a fifth of that spirit in tow, a regrettable lapse of memory on my part.

Wandering about Manchester brought back memories of my own history. Thirty years ago, I was ignited by the beauty and challenge of fly fishing and enjoyed sharing that fire with others through Falling Spring Outfitters. If anything, my passion has grown through the passing decades!

At last I return to the river…

Feeling the cooling sensation in my legs as I wade deeper, step by step, and the caress of the morning breeze, I know that I am home once again.

There have been family things to attend to, work around the house, and then a bout of searing pain in my casting shoulder from out of nowhere. As a result, I have found just a handful of moments to be where I belong.

Stalking bright water again, I see the first soft ring in the distance, and pause to knot a tiny pale olive dry fly to my tippet. As I reach for the fly box in my shirt pocket, the wind rises behind me, and a chuckle leaves my throat: the Red Gods have bidden me good morning.

The wind grows and wipes away all trace of that cruising trout, though I grasp the fly with the box tucked tight to my chest, protected from the gusts, and knot it to my tippet. Each season there comes a run of days when luck and opportunity both seem to desert me. I have fished hard through many of those periods to no avail. Perhaps that is why I more easily accepted my time away this summer, a sense of the inevitable, the angler’s dry spell.

My spirits remain high as I let that strong, following wind buoy my advance upstream. There will be no more evidence of trout. I expect that, more or less, though I know these dry spells might end at any moment. The current one though, will not end today.

I have a good friend who keeps little patience for the ups and downs of the fishing life, his mood turning easily if trout are not quickly and easily taken. I recognized long ago that our sense of time on the river differed. I expressed the feeling thus, telling him that we must take what the river gives us, whether it’s bounty is counted in rising trout and epic battles, or in the momentary beauty of light on the water, a wading deer, or the wind coming up just in time to blow the day’s sole cast to a rising trout off target.

I rejoice in my time along bright water! I take what the river gives me… and give thanks.

Rain has drenched our landscape once again, with spotty explosions of severe storms, including reports of a tornado in Deposit; a wild and woolly season to be certain. Rivers are high and rising, so once again my only fishing will be in thought this day.

Summerfest showed us a nice day, though the breeze rose toward afternoon adding challenges to the Hardy Cup competition. I browsed the vendor’s tables for choice bits of classic tackle – talismans for the magic pursuit. I talked to a few friends encountered during my visit, missed the chance to connect with some others. There seemed a somewhat larger turnout this year, both in vendors and visitors, and that is a welcome sign for the Catskill Museum.

I have been planning a trip to the American Museum of Fly Fishing’s Fly-Fishing Festival this summer, and that has flooded my mind with thoughts of New England. Two decades have passed since I have visited the mountains, valleys and towns where my family tree sprouted, and my thoughts run back to people and places found dear in those travels.

It was Labor Day in 1998 when I first cast my late grandfather’s bamboo fly rod on his home river, the mighty Deerfield. As I fished through a week on the waters where the magic of fly fishing first touched the Sturtevant gene pool I met a wonderful couple of Massachusetts anglers, Fred and Marilyn Moran. They joined me for dinner at the Charlemont Inn and we traded tales of bright waters, family and the mysteries of Berkshire trout. When I mentioned my difficulties tying flies in the inn’s historically lighted rooms, they kindly offered the tying desk in their fly shop, Points North Outfitters. When wind chased me from the Deerfield the following day, I headed over the mountains to Adams, to visit their shop. After tying a few of the tiny caddis I had seen on the big river, Fred and Marilyn directed me to a beautifully tumbling little brook not too far off. My Fox Squirrel Specials and Letort Crickets proved just the thing to entice the wild browns and brookies to put a bend in my rod!

I was thinking about those days and the Morans this morning as I had found that surname while browsing the list of vendors for the Vermont museum’s festival. A little searching led me to a Berkshire Eagle newspaper column about fishing with Fred, written by Gene Chague. The small world of fly fishing continues to amaze, as I met Gene this spring. He accompanied his fishing buddy Paul Knauth on their first trip to fish our Catskills. Paul and I had connected by virtue of our interest in classic tackle and discovered various ties between our families while messaging back and forth. We gathered for a meal at Roscoe Beer Company before I showed them a few spots along the historic Beaver Kill. Conditions were tough then, in early June, but these two seasoned Berkshire anglers persevered and had a great trip.

There are many places I wish to revisit, the Deerfield, the Railroad Ranch waters of the inimitable Henry’s Fork, but the pull of the Catskills remains strongest in my heart. Still now, I linger in memory: look, its first light at the pool above the Cold!

I’ve been sitting back today, reading a bit, and enjoying the freshness of new mown grass on the cool air wafting through the window. It is hard to beat the fragrance and the feeling of rain washed mountain air!

At last, that endless run of dark, stormy heat and humidity has departed the Catskills, and all seems lovely and new again. It is a Sunday and the rivers are high and off color, doubly not a fishing day, and there isn’t much of anything I have to do.

I watched a Canadian TV show on YouTube this morning, one showcasing Atlantic salmon fishing on Nove Scotia’s Margaree River. My friend Dennis Menscer recently returned from his own trip there and I wanted to see some of the places and people he told me about.

I have always been intrigued by the thought of salmon fishing, it’s great history and literature have entertained me through the long days of winter, particularly the tales of the Golden Age recounted by the late Dana Lamb and his contemporaries. Cape Breton Island and it’s Margaree are beautiful, and I have seen the magic of the Atlantic salmon touch people like Dennis and my old friend Ed Shenk.

I sat and talked with Dennis about a week after his return, and the energy of the place was still strong within him. I could hear the excitement in his voice as he related his experiences and spoke about building new bamboo rods for next year. Of particular interest was the summer dry fly fishing on the Margaree, a special kind of magic that would easily captivate me!

I have long dreamed of a salmon fishing trip, but that remains as much a fantasy as a mythical sojourn for Labrador brook trout. I have no expectation of being able to experience either, though the dream still lingers…

Across the room there is and old, dented aluminum rod case that bears some split cane with a salmon angling history. That 5-5/8ths ounce Orvis Battenkill was owned by an author, Dr. Livingston Parsons, who shared his years at a family salmon camp in his book “Salmon Camp: The Boland Brook Story”. A classic Hardy Zenith reclines nearby in a tackle bag, the perfect compliment to that fine old rod. Sitting back and smelling the freshened air with pictures of the lovely Margaree in my mind, it is easy to imagine myself casting that Battenkill on one of her famous salmon pools.

It has been more than a week since I last stalked a Catskill river or wielded a fly rod; a time for taking care of many of the other necessities of life. For most people, nine days away from fishing would not be abnormal. Most anglers fish a weekend or two during the course of the year, the most fervent perhaps half a dozen weekends from spring through early summer. In retirement, I am more fortunate, for it is from these rivers that I draw the essence of life.

Now I am acutely aware that it is not the prime-time fishing that I have missed. In fact, heat and spotty storm systems have made this last half of July less than productive. Even though time on the rivers may not have resulted in memorable fishing, I miss the energy of the flow, the magic of the hidden rise, and the mental challenges of solving Nature’s puzzles.

I am very much looking forward to August, and it’s first week bringing the quintessential Catskill summer weather I love! Summerfest comes to the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum in Livingston Manor on the first weekend, when the faithful gather to browse vintage tackle and share thoughts and memories of their seasons. August is corn on the cob at farmers’ roadside stands, misty mornings stalking trout, the first rays of golden evening sunlight that says it’s high summer and the season is turning.

Such golden light brings me hints of autumn and grouse on the wing, warm, breezy afternoons with ants or hoppers touching down to send the trout into an impromptu feeding frenzy.

For today, another stormy day is promised, but we hang expectantly on the cusp of change. Perhaps I will even tie a few flies to move closer to that first warm embrace of August!

The first month of summer, and the first month and a half of summer fishing conditions lies behind us, and we shall soon embark upon that lovely turn of the season known as high summer! Cornfields tasseling in the sunshine, morning mist upon the rivers, and the gradual increase in that golden cast to evening light are the signs, and the drier air and cooler nights provide the feelings.

I have not written in a while. Summer fishing has reached a low ebb and other things have taken my attention, but I am looking forward to the grandeur of the Catskills in high summer and stalking wild trout in the quiet of the mornings.

Summerfest is just two weeks away, when angling souls will gather upon the Museum grounds to share tales of leviathans hooked and lost, favorite flies and fine old bamboo rods. Fairs and village festivals bring music, food and laughter throughout the mountain valleys. Fishing too will improve, for it is just the beginning of the second half of our dry fly season.

High summer is the time for tiny flies and light rods! The mayflies are there, though they are not the meaty specimens of springtime. Sulfurs and olives in the twenties, perhaps the miniscule tricorythodes, flying ants too small to see when they pepper the film on an August afternoon, these are the hatches of summer. It is time once more to open the chest of fly boxes and select those packed with these tiny high summer patterns.

I hope to haunt a few grassy banked runs before the season runs it’s course, so there will be one box with hoppers tucked inside: Shenk’s Letort, my own Baby Hopper and the limestone creation from decades ago that wooed them East and West!

Fairs, festivals and fishing! ‘Tis a grand season to be sure!

When fishing is difficult, I like to keep my mind open and consider any patterns of trout behavior I encounter. I note what I find on the rivers on any given day and look to repeat my hard-won successes when similar situations occur. Sometimes though, it is easy to fall into a pattern myself.

I was fishing yesterday afternoon, looking to find a good trout or two hunting once again. The water conditions looked very favorable, and there were periodic strong winds as little storms in waiting wandered around the Catskills looking to join forces as thunderstorms like the one that awakened us at four this morning. It was hot too, when that wind was not blowing, and that tends to be a recipe for terrestrials.

I failed to move a single trout, though I did see one good rise behind my shoulder in a piece of water I had fished very thoroughly a few minutes earlier. I cannot say whether that trout had been sitting there throughout, or if he was a traveler. I do know that he paid no attention to a number of casts that I immediately put over him.

Wading downstream in the heat, it occurred to me that those wonderfully educated Catskill trout might be patterning me. Perhaps they had become accustomed to my approach and tactics. No matter how slow and stealthy my approach, I never fool myself into believing that my quarry doesn’t know I’m there. Sure, I can usually avoid alarming them, but their awareness of their watery realm is sublime.

That was the second time in a couple of days that I had that feeling of being patterned by the trout. I was fishing over a known lie, where a trout had risen softly once or twice, while I watched from a distance. Once I cast to him, he had quietly stopped rising and ignored my careful presentations. On that occasion, I considered that the fish might be getting wise to my tactics and employed a little reverse strategy.

I gave that area a rest and moved carefully away. I fished another spot, one that never seems to hold a fish, and didn’t again on this day. When I returned, I approached as stealthily as I could, and stayed well away from that trout’s lie. When I reached a suitable position, I fished from a completely different angle, with a very long cast and an extended drift. I worked the cover surgically, sending my fly deeper into the money zone with each cast and drift. When I presented my fly to the lie where that earlier riser had been sitting, I extended my float and waited.

I watched that fly drift slowly for a long time. Finally, there was a weak little burble in the film and then a soft little ring. He never knew what hit him! I fought that trout hard to get him free of the cover he had felt so secure within, but I managed it. Once out of his realm, he took to running and spinning the Trutta Perfetta!

I am convinced that the only reason I caught that twenty-inch brown was because I recognized the reason for my failure and changed tactics drastically!

Angling for the wild trout of the Catskills is always a challenge. Their beauty and wildness, and that challenge, are what make the experience magical!

There are trout that truly demand you earn the right to fool them with a dry fly. I earned two, well, let’s call it two and a half yesterday, on a hot, sunny, and overly weedy reach of river. The fish I will call the best of the day demanded perfection, accepting nothing less.

He was situated along the riverbank immediately below a submerged branch with current bubbling over and around the remaining twigs. In a foot wide swath of flowing water, there were three very distinct bands of current: bubbling fast, a smooth quick glide path, and ultra slow, turning back upon itself. The trout was not feeding. At best he was taking in a very occasional snack from the procession of sulfur duns dancing down those three bands of current. He took some of them in the middle band of flow, the glide path, and one or two from that far band, the one turning back upon itself and swirling slowly.

I felt very confident that I had the right fly, for my little Classic Sulfur 100-Year Dun has proven itself time and again. Throughout this tenuous game, I never changed the fly.

Now, no sunny summer day here in the Catskills would be complete without a befuddling breeze. This one was intermittent, but fully capable of playing with the fly and tippet as they reached their target.

I played this game at something on the order of fifty feet, knowing better than to approach too closely. The distance helps keep the fish from spooking, but it allows more time for the breeze to screw with the cast. I consider that a necessary evil, since we all know we cannot catch a trout that isn’t there.

I did not time our engagement, nor did I count casts, but there were a lot of beautiful floats that landed an inch or two short and bounced down that nearest bubbly band of current. None of those ever got a look from Mr. Brown. There were also a good number of casts that danced down the seam between the near and middle bands, and those too proved fruitless. The only snacks this guy entertained had to slip down that glide path unencumbered, and such perfection of float seemed the unachievable goal.

This is a game where a step or two can make a difference, little adjustments of casting position to deal with the breeze or the currents between angler and quarry. I made a lot of those little adjustments too. It can be wonderfully difficult to lay a dry fly on a four-inch-wide band of quick gliding current fifty feet away with the perfect amount of slack in leader and tippet to allow two or three feet of perfect drift before the fast water between whisks the fly away. Without the wavering breeze, I would have managed it with fewer casts, but the result may not have been quite as sweet!

Yes, he took the fly, my Sweetgrass Pent coiled into a deep arch, and I swung him away from the remains of that tree branch. It was one of those slugfests, head shaking, darting and diving for masses of the weeds we know affectionately as “green slime”, and making short, powerful runs countered by the resilience and life of cane. Like all trout over twenty inches in length, this brown made me earn the privilege.

I found another opponent after half an hour or so of stalking down the river, this one likewise hanging close to cover and snacking on the occasional sulfur. No, check that. After a few moments of study, it became clear there were two, one a bit upstream of the other and rising more frequently in the same location. The second held below the first, and he was rising far less frequently and moving around. I recognized that I could show my fly to both of them on a single cast, at least with the right extended drift.

I know it seems greedy to try to fish two fish at the same time, and apparently the Red Gods agree. That is how I managed my half-a-trout for the day.

I made a number of casts, with long, beautiful drifts, and I was justifiably proud. The mover below was impressed, as he ate that little 100-Year Dun and lost his composure completely, rocketing out of the water no less than three times between runs and trips through the thickest beds of green slime he could find. It is hard to judge the size of a trout in the air sixty feet away, but I feel pretty confident that this guy was larger than the one I had already measured in the net. I will never know since the green slime performed even better than the fish and I.

I have long experience with the green slime. It is a tremendously effective hook disgorger contrived by the Red Gods to humble fly fishermen. As the trout runs back and forth through water choked with beds of green slime, the stuff collects on the leader in large gobs. Eventually, those gobs of slime slide down the leader to plaster themselves against the trout’s mouth, and the tiny fly hook. If the trout turns just right into the current, the mass of slime whisks the hook right out of the trout’s jaw. The angler lands a great big glob of slime! Inside, he finds his little dry fly which he spends five minutes pulling slime off of before washing it in the current. The smaller the fly, the more effective the disgorger effect. I could tell you stories of size twenty dries and absolute freight train trout, but I won’t.

I continued stalking down the river once I cleaned off my fly and regained my composure, but I didn’t find another fish on the fin. Eventually though, I saw another rise back upriver; the first in line of the pair I dared to fish to with a single cast.

I have failed to mention that, though there was never a heavy hatch of sulfurs, there were three different sizes of the little yellow mayflies: 16, 18 and 20. I had managed to interest my trout-and-a-half with my size 18 fly, but this trout wouldn’t buy it any more the second time we engaged than he did on the first. Did I change to another size? No, I did not.

I cut off my sulfur and dug a size 15 Grizzly Beetle from my chest pack, knotting it securely to my tippet. He took it on my second cast. This was another good, strong brownie who didn’t appreciate the hook included with his delectable terrestrial snack, and he let me know it. I luckily kept him away from the worst of the slime beds and finally scooped him and his medium sized glob of slime into my net.

I fished another hour or two after that little victory, still regretting the big one that got away, the high flyer that slimed me. I saw one trout rise twice a long way down river, but he wasn’t interested in a bug wearing a hook.

A hot, breezy day, a quintessential Catskill summer day, and yea, two and a half big trout to show for it. Well, the half-a- trout did show himself in the air, right?