It is Friday, the 26th day of May, two thousand and twenty-three, gateway to Memorial Day weekend and the pinnacle of our Catskill dry fly season. It is 35 degrees here in Crooked Eddy.

Once again the spring season has reached it’s climax, too quickly it seems after proceeding in fits and starts from that quizzically warm second week in April. It could be my own tainted recollections, but it seems this has been one of the windiest runs of spring weather among my decades stalking Catskill rivers.

My longtime friend Mike Saylor rolled into the Eddy yesterday for an all too infrequent visit. He battled Boston traffic during the early morning hours, heading south from a visit with his new granddaughter. Mike and Cheryl have been travelling the world since his retirement, both with and without a fly rod in hand. It is good to see him back to enjoy some of our old Catskill haunts.

That spring wind was brutal here in Crooked Eddy as we shared greetings and donned our waders for an afternoon of fishing. Fearing the worst, we found conditions much better once we reached the river and waded in.

The trout were waiting for us. Numerous soft rings interrupted the ripples from the breeze across the shallow flats, good fish delicately taking the scattered shad caddis. My CDX brought music to the scene quickly, as the little Hardy was urged into song by an angry brownie. He was gorgeously colored, plump and firm in the net as I twisted the little fly free and sent him back to ponder his dietary choices.

It was pleasant fishing for a pair of old friends, easy wading, and smooth, gentle casts each time the breeze abated. The wild browns were strong and willing, though as always demanding of perfect pattern and presentation.

When Hendrickson duns joined the caddis on the water, the trout quickly shunned the CDX, and an Atherton Inspired 100-Year Dun replaced it on my long 5X tippet. The fly was immediately accepted, and that familiar chorus rose amid the rustling notes of the wind.

We tallied half a dozen fine fish between us, and Mike made sure to call me over to help him out by netting his twenty incher. A fine reunion for two friends who fished often during thirty years of friendship. We have waded the rivers and streams of the Catskills, Montana and Pennsylvania, chased steelhead in Ohio and Michigan, always eager for one more cast.

Another day lies before us, so I will tie a few more flies to tempt those brownies…

For the prime time of May, fishing has been a bit slow of late, so when my friend Andy found a couple of days to spare, I couldn’t offer too much encouragement for him to toss his gear in the truck and make the half day drive to Hancock. I told him about the past week, and that things can change at any moment, finally adding my own personal rule: whenever you can go fishing, you should!

Andy rolled into West Branch Angler right behind me on Monday afternoon, and it didn’t take long for us to uncase the bamboo fly rods. Yes, I have to take much of the responsibility for infecting him with that disease, along with the friend who gave him his first cane rod as a wedding gift. I’m not apologizing for my role for, as I noted two years ago watching him fish his vintage Granger on another Catskill river, bamboo suits him.

I watched his casting with the lovely Sweetgrass pent as we encountered a few rising brown trout at an old haunt of mine. He fell for the 8-foot taper that Jerry Kustich had designed for me back in 2020, a crisp four weight that offers anything you might want when fishing Catskill rivers in summer. Andy loves the rod, and it shows in his fishing. The fine presentation that duped a very nice West Branch brownie early in our little tour of rivers, complimented by the wide smile as the fish took line against the arch of gleaming bamboo, made that crystal clear.

That initial success helped us enjoy our time together even more, as our sparse little parade of mixed mayflies and thus the rising trout vanished rather quickly into the afternoon haze. We headed out for the wide expanse of the Delaware, hoping to find a good evening rise, but though there were some scattered sulfurs and a pair of March Browns drifting past, the trout we encountered played an oft repeated Mainstem role. I expected rainbows, keyed in by their constant movement and the splashy little spurt rises, and told Andy we might have a lot of fun, or a good dose of frustration with these trout. The effort to cash in, to finally put our flies in the spot at least one of those traveling bows was heading toward kept our energy up, though it proved to be unrewarded. Andy did cross paths with one of them near dark, though his celebration looked a lot like a man standing in a river admiring his broken leader. I wasn’t quite so lucky.

We dodged dust and guide boats, meeting in the fly shop parking lot the next morning, bringing back many memories of decades of mornings at West Branch Angler. I had hoped we would find the river uncrowded with our morning start, and though solitude wasn’t in the offing, we found enough room to search for a rise. We each found only one, neither the consistent kind we craved, but gave them some time and plenty of casts, just in case. By Noon, I decided it was time to execute my afternoon plan, the one that came up rather golden as it turned out.

Rather than dealing with more waiting and a paucity of bugs, we fished through three different hatches in the course of a few hours. There were sulfurs on the water when we arrived, and a few soft rises showed nearby. I was still giving my friend the lay of the land when his rod arched with the pull of a big, angry brown trout. “Hey what are you doing, I’m talking here”, I laughed, “you should be paying rapt attention, not catching fish!” I was answered by a grinning “I’m showin’ you up old man” punctuated by the ratcheting scream of his reel. Luckily the “old man” wasn’t the one who forgot his net, and kindly landed the youngster’s brightly colored nineteen-inch wild brownie!

We spread out and got to work, fishing through the sulfur hatch and right into a very nice hatch of Shadlfy caddis. As soon as I exchanged my sulfur for a CDX, I felt the big bend of the Paradigm’s classic progressive action as the result of choosing just the right riseform to cast to. Now my old Hardy rent the air with screams of torment. Ha! Vengeance for the old man! That brown measured a cool 21 inches.

We each landed three hard fighting trout, and missed as many more. When the caddis finally petered out, we looked at one another and Andy said “what do you think”. Before I could answer I spied a flotilla of taller gray wings drifting by – Hendricksons! I had three fish in a row, sipping delicately in shallow water. Neither of the first two tolerated a cast, despite my most gentle presentation. Big fish are not comfortable in inches of water! I dropped my fly further above the last trout in the row, and I guess he must have slipped down beneath it to give it a real close look. The surface parted, his white mouth opened, and I was a split second too quick to raise my rod. Goodbye opportunity for a last taste of Hendricksons!

We waded further, searching for additional risers. Despite of good number of big, juicy Hendricksons drifting down the current, we failed to find a taker to set up on. I was headed toward a devilish lie, one where I hooked and lost the same big trout twice in the same day last season, first when the hook simply pulled free, the second two hours later when a hard pull straightened it. I found no one at home.

Andy spotted a single rise, never repeated, and thus we called our day complete. We were smiling and talking as we waded back to our exit trail, happy and fulfilled for the excitement of the chase which highlighted our afternoon. Until next time, my friend!

I learned this morning of last week’s passing of Greg Hoover, a celebrated entomologist, gentleman fly angler, writer and fly tyer. Known widely for his expertise in the study of aquatic insects, Greg was a lifelong sportsman who freely shared his time and knowledge with his fellow anglers.

I would see Greg annually at the Fly Fishers Club of Harrisburg banquet and other angling functions around the Commonwealth, always enjoying our conversations. My fondest memory, from nearly thirty years ago, involves a talk about hatches on my little Falling Spring Branch. I mentioned the small hatch of Yellow Drakes (Ephemera varia) that occurred in the lower reach of that limestone spring. Greg acknowledged that these large mayflies were somewhat rare in Southcentral Pennsylvania’s small streams. He became excited when I stated that they hatched quite reliably about the 20th of May each spring. Greg counseled that varia is typically a late June emergence in the slow, finely silted areas of eastern rivers and questioned my timing. I assured him that I kept written records as I gained knowledge about my home water.

Greg thought there was a chance that these mayflies were a different species, one thought to be extinct, rather than Ephemera varia. We made a date to meet at my fly shop and visit the Falling Spring to witness the emergence. Greg arrived fully equipped with a large collecting net, magnifiers and specimen bottles. We relaxed and talked about the treasure of the limestone springs until the first mayflies appeared near dusk. He successfully collected several male imagos as required for DNA testing, a process that he waited several years for the opportunity to perform.

Whenever I would see Greg thereafter, I would ask about those tests, and we would relive our little twilight adventure. When at last the results were in, he let me know that the flies were indeed varia, attributing their early emergence date to the stability of water temperatures throughout the year. This had been my guess during our original discussion, but only that, and I appreciated his sharing his broad knowledge. That discovery has remained with me all these years, for it has given me some confidence in the degree day theory of hatch timing.

I had thought of Greg a couple of seasons back when my friend Mike Saylor had asked about periodic cicadas on Catskill Rivers. I found his Penn State email address still listed on the University website but failed to reach him. It was a number of years past his retirement. Hoover likely had more knowledge regarding this mythic seventeen-year cycle mega hatch than anyone.

I remember Greg as always being generous with his knowledge, ever with that light in his eyes when discussing stream insects, flies and fishing!

Rest in peace my friend and may all the mayflies perform for your delight as you fish on around the bend!

One of the qualifiers to the marvelous spring fly fishing here in the Catskill Mountains region is the prevalence of strong winds on open waters. We have been having quite a run with them lately.

My favorite online weather forecast provides just a two-day window for it’s wind predictions. You get today, tonight and tomorrow and beyond that, well, you just have to wait and see. Our winds seem to outperform the forecast more than they don’t. Monday didn’t look too bad for example, with winds from 10 to 15 miles per hour expected. Growing up in the flat topography of Southern Maryland, I would see that and expect a nice day with a light breeze, and maybe an occasional little gust that flirted with fifteen miles an hour. Life in the mountains is different, and life on the rivers leads to a very different interpretation of that forecast. What I would expect, and incidentally what I got, was a fairly steady blow in the neighborhood of fifteen mph with higher gusts. There were a lot of gusts.

That is more than enough wind to defeat the dry fly angler, for what makes our fishing here so special is that we have sublimely educated wild trout. Our rivers produce a great deal of natural food and host a great many fly fishers, so our trout grow to impressive sizes and display a very high level of selectivity. Your dry fly has to be a good imitation of the insect the fish are feeding upon and it has to be presented perfectly. That means casting accuracy and delicacy is paramount, often at greater distances than most Eastern fishermen are accustomed to.

The absolute key to dry fly success is delivering your fly consistently with a natural, drag free float. Gentle, accurate and drag free are the requirements, and to all of these, wind is the enemy.

I spend a great deal of time and energy trying to plan my fishing to counteract the worst the winds have to offer. I know from long experience that, if I am in the wrong place for the winds, it really doesn’t matter much whether there is a good hatch or not. Those wind forecasts are vital to my planning, though it is a shame they aren’t more reliable.

Yesterday seemed to be an easy decision. I had business to take care of near the West Branch Delaware River, true, the winds were forecast at ten to twenty miles per hour but were supposed to be from the West. I planned to fish a reach of river with a high western bank, a reach where I expected some bugs and rising trout. The river flows north to south there and that high western bank will block a westerly wind very effectively. I should be golden!

The Red Gods were otherwise occupied when I first arrived, and I entered the river under quite calm conditions, even though the winds had risen a couple of hours earlier. Despite the fact that this was a Tuesday afternoon, the river was crowded with wading anglers and a steady procession of drift boats, but there was a clear path ahead.

I took my time crossing the river, rather suddenly at low flow, and scanning a wide swath of shallow water in front of me. I could see the bottom clearly, so I moved slowly and gently and, there it was, a very subtle little rise about sixty feet ahead. I had knotted an A.I. 100-Year Dun in expectation of a few Hendricksons, and I pulled enough line from the reel to make the cast. There was no sign of that riser, but I know that trout often move about in shallow water to intercept their choice morsels from the sparse numbers of bugs available. I extended my casts gradually and voila!

The take was subtle and the reaction bold, with a very nice brown jumping and streaking away from the pressure of the rod, my Hardy singing merrily! We had a wild time out there in the middle of the river, the brown rushing in and out and trying to thrash the tippet with his tail while I alternated reeling and giving line and doing my best to keep him off balance and away from the larger chunks of rock. He still had plenty of vigor when I scooped him in the net.

I was about to continue my mid-river search when the Red Gods noticed my presence, no doubt tipped off by the music of the little Hardy and the jumping trout, and turned on the fans to chase any other bug sipping brownies off those flats. Undaunted, I eased my way over to that protective western bank and waited.

Do west winds usually blow from due north, due south and east? It seems they do here. The expected calm would have made fishing that bank easy pickings, at least as easy as it ever gets for our PhD West Branch browns; the strong and ever changing winds did not.

I feel certain that the gusts topped twenty miles per hour several times, leaving me to do my best to adjust. After all, it isn’t like this kind of scenario doesn’t occur most days of the season. The trout I had to fish for seemed to be spread out in the slightly deeper band of water close to the bank, taking advantage of the rocks and logs that populate the bottom. I got no more interest from the Hendrickson, not even after a few naturals appeared around three o’clock. The occasional rises indicated moving trout and the only thing on the menu were tiny Shadfly caddis. I gave up on the mayfly and tied on a long 5X tippet and a size 20 CDX.

One of the other “advantages” of spring winds is the multitude of color they bring to the water, seed pods, bits of leaves and stalks from all of the freshly vegetated trees and bushes, all bearing very similar hues to the light tan wings of those caddisflies. Tracking a windblown size 20 dry fly takes on a whole new challenge amid hundreds of other things that look similar from fifty feet away.

I managed to intercept another moving target, a twin to the first brownie, while constantly checking my back cast to keep it free from the passing boats, and casting between the then downstream gusts. Those winds must have liked blowing straight down from the North, for they ceased their earlier changing of direction and put their best efforts into maintaining a steady blow, eventually ending the rises along my little reach of riverbank.

No complaints here, just a wry smile in appreciation of a typical afternoon on the river. I had a nice little mix of fishing and boat dodging and took a pair of very nice wild browns despite the Red Gods and their games. Let’s see, which direction is the wind supposed to blow from today?

It is the sixteenth day of May here in Crooked Eddy and my porch thermometer reads 34 degrees. Though I am still running the furnace overnight, and paying the ever-growing gas bill it brings, such mornings are a blessing for our freestone rivers. The forecast high for Hancock, New York today is 76. The sunshine that affects that forty-two degree rise works on the flowing waters too, so the cold nights are buffer and balm. I have been told a significant run of dry weather is expected, and the evening chill will remain most welcome.

I fished yesterday at a place I have not visited for a while, one that tends to awaken for the season in the middle of May. Most of that fishing involved three hours of sitting on a riverbank and scanning the windswept reaches of the river for some sign of the mayflies I anticipate at this season. Though our hatches seem to be just about level with an early to normal spring progression, I saw nothing but a handful of the inexplicably tiny shadfly caddis, and nary a rise.

I walked out around half past two, stretched my legs and ate a snack with a fresh, cold bottle of water, then decided to take another look at the river. Walking back down, I stopped at an overlook and saw something completely unexpected, a trout’s rise. I backed away, cut down river through the bushes, and emerged below a fallen tree. The rise had been upstream of the obstruction, so my plan was to stalk up close to it to allow an upstream cast, one that would be short enough I would have some chance if this turned out to be a big bruiser of a trout determined to dive into the fallen tree.

When I reached that position, I cast a shad caddis to no avail, even after the rise was repeated. It was at that point that I witnessed another unexpected development. Just after the second rise, a bug tumbled through the roily surface film: it was a Hendrickson.

I clipped my caddis and selected a well-used A.I Hendrickson 100-Year Dun from my vest, one of the flies that had treated me so well during this year’s hatch, more than two weeks ago. You can guess the rest: a couple of casts, a rise to the fly, and a hooked trout. Brought to hand, I displayed my trophy across the width of my palm, four inches of quivering, wild brownie! I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself. After all, I had spotted the rise, stalked into position, identified the hatch, and made the perfect presentation to ensure success, exactly as planned. This would not be a fishless day, at least not technically.

I walked back upstream, taking a last look at the river as the winds swirled, still laughing to myself about my “luck” at finding a rising fish to save a fishless day. I was enjoying my final moments on the river when I saw a rise at the tail of a broad pool. A trout seemed to be gliding about the tailout, picking off stray Hendricksons before they tumbled over the lip of the pool; or were there two? It can be hard to tell when trout are moving about like that, but there seemed to be a difference in the rise forms, one much bolder than the other.

That particular location is not back cast friendly, so I had no choice but to ease into the water and try to get closer to the rises while wading away from them. Luckily the river level was low enough that I was able to ease into a reasonable casting position without swimming. I was carrying a rod with a double tapered five line, a re-creation of a Payne 102H that is as close as I will ever get to owning a rod by the man considered the greatest bamboo rodmaker of all time. I did get to cast the real thing last year, though not side by side with my copy, and I finally can say that it’s feel and casting ability seem favorably close to the real thing. I Have always liked that rod, and I knew it well enough to be confident it would shoot the DT line so that I could cast the long line required with the shorter back cast available.

I made several attempts to put my fly in the path of that moving target and, at the end of one lovely long drift down the glide, he bulged the flat surface and took it cleanly. The fish shot away toward the far bank and vaulted into the air, leaving me to feather all of the slack line retrieved during the drift in a hurry. When he turned though, still short of my being able to get him on the reel, he came at me rapidly. More wild stripping and hand control succeeded, and I finally got him on the reel where he could strike up that classic, vintage Hardy chorus.

Your average Delaware rainbow is a hard fighting fish, and this fellow was well above average, but I brought him to net thanks to the grace of split bamboo. Twenty-one inches measured, with a wide flank that gave him plenty of purchase against the current in a fight, I dared lift him from the water for only a quick snapshot in the net, then sent him on his way.

As I enjoyed the grin on my windburned face and stood watching that glide across the tailout, the other rise appeared again; so there are two of them feeding.

There weren’t a lot of flies out there, but every once in a while that second roving trout would find one, just as he eventually found my A.I. Hendrickson. Though smaller than that spectacular bow, this one still gave his all against the pull of my arc of cane. Though I had suspected another rainbow, this was a brown trout, not big, but a quality fish of about seventeen inches. I slipped the A.I. from his mandible gently and offered my thanks as he shot away.

Sometimes, patience is rewarded.

It is thirty-seven degrees here in Crooked Eddy, with the expectation of sunshine and highs above seventy. Rivers have fallen, and prime conditions for wade fishing are with us.

I just finished cleaning the ferrules on my hollowbuilt Menscer rod, a necessary task with bamboo. Ferrule fitting is perhaps the most mysterious of the black arts learned by master bamboo rodmakers like Dennis. Another rod crafter I knew described it as fitting smoke, and I thought that the perfect analogy. Mating surfaces should be cleaned for each day of use, wiping gently with denatured alcohol on a soft, clean cloth or a Q-tip for the female, no abrasives whatsoever, and the alcohol must never touch the varnish!

The nine year old Airflo fly line on that dedicated CFO IV was freshly cleaned and lubricated as well. I am particular about the care of my fly lines, one reason that I can still fish that line after nine hard seasons. I desire the best performance out of the tackle each time I take it on the water, one of the little details that make a great difference in taking difficult trout. We have all experienced those moments when our best cast fell inches short of the feeding lane of the trout of our dreams, again and again. Gaining those magic inches can come down to small details.

My friend the ghost will join me today. He has earned the name by vanishing outside the dry fly season, only to return when mayflies take wing in springtime. It will be good to talk with the ghost, to catch up on where he has been and what’s afoot since he vanished last summer.

Of course, we will both keep our eyes glued to the surface of the water, searching for the sight of wings, or the soft rings made by large trout feeding secretly. Would that we do witness those events, the beginnings of the magic on bright water!

I did my best to pick a perfect day for my first solo float of the season, favorable temperatures, some cloud cover, and the bonus of very attractive changes in the flow regime, but, you know what they say about best laid plans…

I was excited at the prospects! The City had lowered the release into the West Branch, allowing the water temperature to climb into the fifties, even sixty degrees by afternoon, and there was a very nice dry fly flow provided by reservoir spill. It looked like chances were very good for fly hatches, and my boat bag was loaded with Hendricksons, Shadfly caddis and Blue Quills. Throw in that cloud cover with a day in the upper sixties and northerly winds of just 5 to 10 miles per hour and it all seemed too good to be true! It was.

I saw a few shad caddis early on, but just a few, and they were tiny. This caddisfly is typically imitated with a size 18 dry fly. Yes, I know the fly shops tell you 14 to 16, but it is important to look at the insects closely. Caddis have long wings that extend back past their bodies, and they look larger in flight. You select your hook sizes based upon body length and you find that an 18 dry fly hook is just right for the Shads, or Apple Caddis depending upon the locality of your fishing. Mother Nature though, likes to throw some curves.

I tie some smaller caddisflies just to cover my bases, and for the Shadfly and tan caddis, that means some size 20 patterns to complement the standard size eighteens. I was well prepared with twenties, but the naturals weren’t even close to being that big. Too small to catch, these flies appeared to be in the range of size 22 to 24, and for most of the day they were the only fly consistently on the water. When I found a trout sipping these guys, my twenties were regularly ignored or refused.

Having your best efforts at matching the hatch soundly defeated by Mother Nature’s twists is part of the game, but it is frustrating. No matter I told myself, and kept rowing, this day still looked perfect for a big hatch of all of the Hendricksons that hadn’t been seen on the West Branch this season!

After a couple of hours of the morning had passed, I noticed the wind beginning to build. This was supposed to be a calm day remember? Ah yes, the Red Gods were joining the game early. Let’s see if we can make the fly fisherman crazy!

I encountered more boats as I made my way down the river, a little surprised because there had been a single trailer parked where I launched. I took my time, stopped at a lot of places where I should have found some good trout working, and fought the urge to rush to my sure-fire spot for a Hendrickson hatch. The wind kept building, though there were calm spells. The way the Red Gods play this game the calm spells come when you are moving from place to place, saving up the wind gusts to blow when you actually find a rise. They are used to winning.

After a stop for lunch I made my move, as there were now boats up river and more below me. As I drifted toward my target spot, I saw one anchored and thought I was out of luck, but it turned out he was 100 yards or so above my spot. I glided past him, left him some water to fish, and eased into the target zone. By the time I had anchored, I saw two or three rises, so I slipped the anchor to drift a little closer. It was easy to do, since the wind was blowing directly into my stern.

Initially, these fish looked to be eating the tiny caddis. The wind accelerated and made casting very interesting, as I had to throw downstream at a very sharp angle, requiring my backcasts to go directly into that wind. One fish finally appeared to take my fly, just after a big gust blew the line out of my fingers in the middle of a mend. Refusal, or a miss? I will never know, since I didn’t get an honest hookset while chasing those loops of slack line.

The wind roared right down the pipe, as I eased along that bank wishing for a bend that might offer me some sort of windbreak, and then the Hendricksons finally appeared. There was one little pink dun sitting right on the boat’s fly holder. I quickly changed from the caddis to a pink Hendrickson, and continued my battle with the wind. That wind tried to be helpful though, it put several flies into my sweatshirt, so I’d have spares.

As predicted, there were several trout rising along that one severely windblown stretch of riverbank, the only feeing activity I would find this day.

One good trout took the fly, I lifted the rod and felt nothing. Couldn’t spot my fly on the next cast. Oh, there is no fly on my leader !#x&!!

And so it went, a beautifully frustrating day. Red Gods 4,356,203, angler nothing. Like I said, when they play they generally win.

A full week has been lost to the power of weather and water, though at last I find myself on the cusp of better days!

I awakened this morning with a new fly design in my head, the full pattern crystalized in my sleep. I think the lack of fishing, of missing a week out of the prime of the season, must have spurred my resting mind to work it up. Some outlet is necessary for all of the stifled passion!

It is a Saturday, and the rivers remain unwadable, but relief is in sight. Morning sunshine is streaming in my window, and this seems the day we may finally expect it to last. I rushed to mow the lawn yesterday afternoon, finishing under the chill of light rainfall when a big, dark cloud settled right over Crooked Eddy, so today will be a day of ease and preparation.

I took straight to the vise this morning, eager to tie a few examples of that new March Brown. You may be puzzled at the name, though I have mentioned the changes observed in this large mayfly during three decades of Catskill angling. Though I have observed color variations in mayflies as long as I have carried a fly rod, the history of our March Browns intrigue me.

For twenty years, every March Brown mayfly I plucked from the waters of Catskill rivers was the classic caramel brown colored fly, with dark venations and blotches in wings shaded with a translucent brown. During the past decade, these flies have appeared pale yellow, with lighter wing markings within a pale translucent yellow background, with one remarkable exception.

It was late May, two thousand nineteen, and Mike Saylor plucked a remnant dun from the water as we waded out after fishing fruitlessly during a nice March Brown hatch on the Beaver Kill. The fly in hand was a bright canary yellow, an unnatural safety yellow, though clearly a March Brown dun upon examining the wing markings and verifying it’s twin tails. All of the rising trout had refused every pattern we could offer while feeding freely, even exuberantly on these wildly colored naturals. Being the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival that year, the name was a natural!

The garish yellow bodied parachute was tried a few days later when I found one substantial trout taking in that same pool, after he ignored all of the usual patterns. That 21-inch brown accepted the Woodstock Parachute as freely as he took the naturals. I have tied and carried them every year since.

I have a feeling this new Woodstock fly will bring me some luck when the river finally returns to a normal flow. I am hoping that a good hatch will appear this year. I have not enjoyed a good one since 2019, though I have seen a few flies. Warm water kept trout from feeding on them during the single season I did see fair numbers of flies, but this season looks to be cooler and wetter. I can almost hear the riffles playing counterpoint to a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo, the bass line provided by the plucking sound of big trout eating big mayflies!

Twenty-two days have elapsed since my seasonal countdown hit zero, and I had fished sixteen of them, enjoying some great times during the Hendrickson hatch. West Coast steelheaders have a saying: “the tug is the drug”, and I can sympathize with the sentiment. Right now, as my favorite month begins, I have been forced into fishing withdrawal.

These precious May days shouldn’t find us with flood conditions on the Delaware tailwaters, but NYC finally plans to fix the millions of gallons per day leak in their Delaware Aqueduct. They have been hoarding water in the reservoirs that discharge to the aqueduct this spring, leaving no room for the inch and a half of rain the weekend delivered. I cannot fault them for fixing their wasteful leak, though I can for waiting so many years to address it. The engineers who designed the system should have included some valving or a release gate apparatus to be able to shut off discharges to the aqueduct for maintenance, but they either didn’t have the common sense and foresight, or the City determined it wasn’t worth the cost.

Cannonsville and Pepacton reservoirs were both over maximum capacity and spilling before this latest rainfall event occurred, and no one knows if wadable flows will return this month, before NYC begins drawing them down via high releases so construction may begin in October.

At any rate, here we are at peak season and the Delaware system is unfishable with dangerous flows and muddy runoff. The rivers should clear, barring another significant rainfall event, but it will take time for that, and for the flows to recede to safe, fishable levels even for drift boat fishing.

I confess, I am a wade fisherman at heart, even though I own a drift boat. I am a bamboo rod toting, dry fly junkie – and I need a fix! My only hope lies with the freestone rivers, however long it takes for them to recede and clear to wadable levels.

Weather remains the great question hovering over the viability of our freestoners. More rain, at least when it comes an inch or more at a time, means fewer days with fishable conditions. Hot weather can arrive here in May and very quickly warm up our freestoner rivers to the seventy-degree mark, reducing the river miles that are suitable for trout fishing. The angler’s ideal would be a balance between warmer days with cooler nights and weekly rainfall in quarter inch increments, but Mother Nature rarely offers such an ideal balance. I am hoping she might consider it this spring!

The peak of spring fishing was more than evident, depending upon your point of view. A mega hatch of Hendricksons, seemingly driven by a dark, moody storm front came on relentlessly, and then it was done. The aftermath offered some weak sunshine, a handful of flies on the water, and little to no response from the sated trout.

Coming just days after an EF-2 tornado ripped through Sullivan County on it’s way to Roscoe, this front thankfully lacked such destructive force, though it ushered in nearly a fortnight of wet, cold weather throughout the remaining days of April and on into May. An unsettled spring, typical for these mountains, keeps us all guessing.

I hold out hope for some Hendrickson fishing for the West Branch, for the river’s store of cold water limited that emergence while the flies took wing on surrounding rivers, but it will not be the warm, welcome, pleasant fishing that lingers in my memories of springtime in the Catskills.

As I write, the rain beats harder on the roof above my head, and my visions of fishing involve cold aching shoulders bent over the oars. There are snow showers in the forecast for mid-week, perhaps a perfect day to float in winter coat and gloves. The glow of soft evenings wading the flats below wide riffles, as soft rises sip spinners from the film, shall remain trapped in memory.