I was late to the river, life taking my full attention earlier in the morning, and the sun had already warmed away most of the mists and clearly defined the lines of light and shade. I had chosen the sweet, old St. George to accompany the vintage 50 DF and felt the balance was about perfect in my hand.

As I have learned more about the legacy of old Hiram Leonard, I have recognized a definite preference the rods demonstrate for a classic double tapered line. The reel however wore a modern favorite, one of Airflo’s Tactical Tapers, so I turned away from the intended water to make a short cast to see if the old rod approved. It turned over all sixteen feet of leader perfectly, so I took the fly in hand and waded gently into the river’s flow.

One of the lessons decades upon bright water teaches is the importance of drift lines. These are not the main current paths with their seams and chutes, their lurking boulders beneath. Consciousness of such are among the first lessons an angler learns. The drift lines I speak of are the subtle, minor currents, those traces through a pool which may only appear to the observant. They are revealed sometimes by nothing more than an occasional glint of light, a few specks of leaf matter or foam. Time has taught me to observe and consider this evidence.

I chose one such line of drift for my first fishing cast of the day, and the sweetness of classic bamboo placed my chosen dry fly in the heart of it. There in the early shade the little hopper drifted four or five feet and met another lurker interested in that same, subtle line of drift.

There is nothing to quite compare with the voice of a classic Hardy click check when a good trout runs for his freedom. It is a sound that thrills my soul!

August has arrived with that lovely morning chill and sunny, warm afternoons! Summerfest has come to the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum this very weekend, and I wandered the tents and tables with glee for yesterday’s opening. I even tied a fly at the Guild’s table! Casters were working their best for the Hardy Cup and vendors offered much in the way of classic cane, vintage reels and memorabilia. Master hackle grower Charlie Collins brought down a beautiful assortment of capes for the fly tyers to covet. Of course, I bought a couple myself!

July bowed out last week and blessed us with a day of rain which cooled off our boiling atmosphere, leaving August’s dawn delightful. I wandered the rivers, shivered just a little in the early morning breeze, and found an unexpected hatch.

A few tiny sulfurs drifted where a riffle tailed out, and here and there a larger mayfly could be seen. I fished with the more plentiful small sulfur, but the better rises seemed rather strong for these mayflies. No trout touched mine, so eventually I got the message. Though barely a handful of larger sulfurs emerged, those were what the best fish wanted!

A size 14 100-Year Dun, a pattern put away since May, replaced the 16, and a strong rise began a long engagement with a beautiful 20-inch brownie! I slipped him back after retrieving my fly and he shot away back to his lie. Looking for another? Such gifts are usually brief, but to be there for the right half hour can be sublime!

I tied a couple more of those canted wing fourteens early yesterday morning, after donning an insulated shirt to ward off the 50-degree chill here at my bench. Taking it easy on this Sunday morning I added another to re-stock my summer boxes, along with a CDC dun variation and a trio of my Pale Isonychias.

My tyers log stands at sixty dozen, just a month past the halfway mark for 2025.

Sitting hear and dreaming, I can still feel the last of the morning chill, though we are headed past eighty today.

It is more or less the mid-point of our dry fly season, and I hope that this second half will be fruitful. Driving along Route 17 in yesterday’s morning mist I asked that September be a little cool and wet as opposed to the hot, dry, low-flow riverscapes of recent years. Good, cold river flows might just stimulate some more surprise hatches like those sulfurs! Sometimes I wonder if Nature holds a few in dormancy when unfavorable conditions predominate. There is still much we do not know about her magical control of our ecosystem.

Between enjoying the prime days of midsummer, there is much left to do at the rod shop, for the Catskill Gathering is barely a month away!

I had one of those far too rare chances to fish with my buddy the other day. It was a nice, misty morning that warmed into brilliant sunlight on bright water. I had high hopes for success, but of course realize that doesn’t come around whenever we want it to. It is enough to go fishing…

We fished on through the mist and into the brilliance of full sunlight without a hookup. Our plan was to fish a couple of pools, one early and one late, and JA was moving to the bank as I came slowly down river. I took a moment to make a couple of critical casts.

A long cast was sent on it’s way, the line mended judiciously to extend the drift, as I watched the Grizzly Beetle float down, down, down into the promised land. There was no take that I could discern, but a sudden soft bow in the line told me something was afoot, and I tightened into a state of nirvana.

The river was cold this early and this trout was feeling his oats, ripping the line in mad dashes so that my little Hardy Bougle` was screaming, shattering the morning silence as we danced. JA made haste in his photographer mode while I gave the old boy all of the muscle the eight feet of vintage Colorado cane could spare. Finally tired from those runs, I led him close enough to slip the net beneath.

There are not too many things more beautiful than a gorgeously colored wild brown trout in the glow of Catskill morning sunlight. I eased the fish into alignment with the measuring centerline of the net and smiled as all two feet of him splashed a bit of that cold water in my face; and then the bubble burst.

I spotted my reliable Grizzly Beetle right there in the top of his neb. Had he taken the fly and spit it out by the time I noticed the line movement and tightened? Or had he come up and bumped the fly once a hint of drag betrayed it as a fraud? I’ll never know the answers, just as this wonderful brownie will never grace my log as a fair catch.

This has been a difficult season to say the least. Such are the wages of angling, though I am thankful for every day, each hour that I am graced to wander these Catskill rivers. Perhaps Mr. Neb and I will meet again. A bit of leader adjustment, a modification of fly, or a change in casting angle may prove to be the key to success…

July is almost behind us; the second half of the season begins slipping away…

My thoughts are clearing slowly this morning, looking to focus on my trip to the Rodmaker’s Workshop in a few hours. More strong coffee will be required before I am ready to meet the challenges ahead.

July has been as consistently hot as advertised, it’s fishing up and down as has been the character of this 2025 season. But a couple of days have brought the pleasant weather I know and crave in the lovely images of memory: Catskill Summer.

Fishing has meant some long days, rising well before the sun and stalking the mist, then extending my search through the bright, steamy afternoons. The body feels the strain, as age is relentless. I feel what I have always considered to be a good tired, one borne of a fulfilling and noble pursuit, but the dues increase with each passing year. The work of angling though, has not been without it’s rewards!

On one long summer’s day I turned the tables, adapting to a new season of change. I fished an afternoon reach just after daybreak and found a worthy adversary. He charged from cover in a rush as the steel found it’s mark!

Long runs highlighted the battle, until the pull of the arching cane led him ultimately to hand. Just shy of two feet, he was beautiful there among the meshes, quickly returned that he might recover the great energy expended for my benefit. With turnabout working I migrated to a morning haunt come afternoon and was blessed to encounter his twin as the winds stirred the summer air!

There seem to be additional dues to be paid for such successes this year. I missed a fine trout at week’s end, changed the fly and cast again. Unbelievably he took, though our association ended just as quickly in a broken strand of fluorocarbon. Another hour of searching brought this days’ search to a bitter end, when a backcast collapsed, the rod broken summarily at the ferrule.

I have several rods out of commission it seems: one broken along with my heart, a loose ferrule here, chipped varnish there. Of course, the clock is ticking on my own rod making project, a call I must answer today.

Make no mistake, the joys of this Catskill life are many, but the dues paid have proved stiff this season. On my last visit to the Rodmaker’s Workshop, I found one glued up rod tip ready for finish work, the other though mysteriously uncured. Alcohol removed the gooey mess of the faulty epoxy, and the tip was reglued thanks to John’s persistence. Today’s trip will reveal whether this second effort brings success. Much work remains, as I wish to complete the Angler’s Rest Special for the 31st Catskill Gathering in early September.

When a big fish beats you, its pretty much expected that a return engagement is warranted. Ma Nature and her trout don’t always allow another opportunity of course, but some of us that remain impassioned by this grand game tend to seek them anyway. I have been guilty of carrying that to extreme, maybe even obsession.

With one day of fishing remaining last week, my thoughts were centered on that trout that didn’t rise, yet managed to keep my Grizzly Beetle at the early ending of our surprise encounter. The forecast was bleak: rain and thunderstorms, winds 15 to 20 miles per hour, with a side of hot and humid despite the overcast. Of course I was going fishing.

I made one concession, taking along my old Winston BIIX four weight, yes a plastic fly rod, as I didn’t wish to get my choice bamboo soaked when the deluge came. I know how the Red Gods think, and I figured I was due for another soaking.

The little Winston has mojo. It served as my everyday rod on the Cumberland Valley spring creeks for a good run of seasons. Winston even put my name on it. In my humble opinion, the mid-2000’s Boron II X rods were the best of the boron/graphite fly rods that Winston made. They had a really nice flexing medium action, particularly that little eight-footer that could do everything required on my spring creeks.

So, mojo in hand I set out that afternoon to find the forecast was about 180 degrees off course. Hazy, hot and humid ruled, with nary a drop of rainfall and a fair amount of sunshine. The trout seemed to be elsewhere as I worked the same plan of attack as I had the day before. The Red Gods did have something in store for me though.

I was getting close to the location of my non-rising, tippet breaking foe when my solitude was interrupted by a terrific splashing and rustling near the downstream shoreline. I quickened my wading to the limits of stealth, but I was going to come up short of my target. Three wader clad individuals emerged from the bushes with an electroshocking rig, fine meshed nets, buckets and assorted gear, courtesy of New York State. They were just far enough downstream that their sloshing about hadn’t immediately sent waves across the river toward the primary lies I had come to fish, seeking a rematch, but they began to move upstream.

I managed to get into position as the seconds ticked away toward disaster, wading deeper and with poorer footing than I had planned, and started casting the venerable Grizzly Beetle toward fate’s doorway.

I was watching my casts and my drifts, and looking over my shoulder to check the progress of disturbance, with my nerves getting frazzled. Turning back with my line retrieved for another cast, I caught a streak of motion beneath overhanging cover, and then a soft wide ring opened and radiated outward. My arm dropped and I sent a side armed cast low and gently beneath the lie’s ceiling, checking my wrist to drop the fly downstream of tippet, leader and line. I watched those little barbs of grizzly hackle catch the light, and tracked them right into the spreading rings of another soft, wide ring of the rise.

A pause, a solid strike, and then I was backing away and stripping line to draw the trout from the cover he had so effectively used to defeat me. Avoiding a dunking when the precarious footing sought to betray me, I managed to control the big fellow and get him headed downstream against the drag. No teeth would cut the tippet this time.

In the net at last, he was a gorgeous, heavy and uniquely colored brown taping 23 inches. I found no fly in his mouth save the one still attached to me and my little Winston. The same fish? I cannot know with certainty, but the chances are good. Caught just in time, before the Red Gods new little twist of fate could rob me of the chance!

Hot weather has dominated these Catskills for the first half of July, there is no question about that. There is a little relief in the forecast, but for the most part the heat will continue.

Usually, July’s hot weather brings good fishing, but this first half for 2025 has been hit or miss. The summer heat is good for my style of fishing, stalking trout out hunting for a good meal, but just when things started to pick up in that regard, those trout seemed to vanish. When the fish change habits, the old angler has to change his tactics. I did that yesterday, though I probably should have tried it a week ago.

I went deep into stealth mode, dressing for the afternoon heat, wading deep, and downsizing flies. I worked some water that looked more than simply inviting but offered no signs of life. I kept at it of course, moving with agonizing slowness and placing long, delicate casts where my instincts said they should go.

Wild trout play their part in tune with the Red Gods of course, and they couldn’t resist taking a few jabs at my psyche. Fifty yards into my deep-water creep, I heard a little plop back upstream. Ah, so there is life up there… This wasn’t the situation which allowed me to back track, so I kept working, sticking with my plan.

I was a couple of hours into my hunt and made several casts to an old favorite haunt. No sign of life once more. My mind wandered back to the early years of my retirement, when this place was red hot. I took some great fish during the hatch season and even more when summer arrived! There seemed to always be a big old brownie in this location. I didn’t always catch one there, but there was almost always one there to match wits with. The spot had gone cold a few years ago, and I mean ice cold. I had not seen any evidence of a trout using that hide for something like five seasons. I often wondered if there had been some bit of unseen cover that had washed away in high water, some way that Nature had changed that lie to make it unattractive to trout.

All of this history ran through my mind as I creeped along and worked my casts around the edges and then deep into the hole. Nothing. No surprise. One cast drifted my fly along the edge very tight to the bank as I squinted in the high sunshine to follow it’s drift. I never saw a take, but slowly saw the long leader start to bow as if the fly was no longer floating free. Tightening gently, I felt resistance and raised the rod to a boil in the calm surface.

This was a big fish, and I got him started toward me. When he bulled against my pressure, I made the fatal mistake. I held my ground and reeled up the slack line to get him on the reel, and he used that moment of stalemate to wrap me around something. I felt the tippet break and the line go slack.

I do like to play big fish from the reel. Loose fly line has a knack for tangling on anything available, even itself. Line management is one of the little difficulties of fishing fine and far off. Getting that slack line back onto the reel and out of trouble is important. Did I break a Cardinal rule? Well, everything in fishing has some flux depending upon the situation, but it usually pays to keep a fish coming away from any cover you hooked him in. I thought I had him in a safe spot, but I didn’t.

I have never given up on that particular trout lie, despite five seasons of wondering why the fish seemed to have abandoned it. Maybe time has let me take a few things for granted, and maybe I wasn’t giving my fishing the full concentration required in the moment. I will be looking for that cagey old fellow the next time I fish that reach of river though! You can bet on it.

The rod is called Trout Bum, and it has some history to it. Sweet Water rods were the creation of George Maurer, a Pennsylvania rodmaker who left this earth far too soon. He left a significant legacy though, for not only did he create many interesting rod tapers for his beautiful bamboo fly rods, he shared his genius by teaching others seeking to follow the craft of split bamboo. One of those seekers was an old friend of mine, a young man from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania by the name of Wyatt Dietrich. Wyatt made several hundred fine bamboo flyrods over some fifteen years, including honoring George’s legacy by making a memory series of some Sweet Water models in cooperation with the Maurer family. My Trout Bum is one of these memory rods, made in a classic three-piece configuration.

You may have heard of a guy from Colorado who was supposed to receive George’s first Trout Bum model. We lost John Gierach early too, just last October. His story “Lost Rod” speaks to the fate of Maurer’s gift, which had to be given twice after some culprit stole the original, leading to our writer friend receiving an empty shipping tube.

Mine was a 3-piece because I had planned to travel to Colorado and fish some of it’s Front Range waters, a plan derailed by a little unplanned visit to a heart surgeon. It’s a terrific rod, and thinking about that rod and it’s unique circumstances had me take it out, clean it’s ferrules and take it fishing late in June.

I mounted one of my favorite 3″ St. George reels which complemented the eight-footer nicely in balance and appearance. The line is what I think of as a five-and-a-half Cortland, a half a line size heavy five weight that matches perfectly with the Bum. Wyatt suggested this model was happy with either a number 5 or 6 fly line, depending upon caster’s preference, and this midsize Cortland was perfect!

I think that George Maurer’s original idea when he created the taper was to make a versatile trout rod that could fish most any kind of water, and he scored a direct hit. The Trout Bum has a great feel and boasts a smooth kind of power that easily reaches any distance you might require on larger rivers, and yet still will send a small dry fly somewhere close and tight and demanding with great delicacy. Can’t ask much more from a great fly rod than that.

The Trout Bum accompanied me on my first days of this Catskill summer, my favorite time of year, and it delivered a lot of smiles and remembrances, as well as a couple of big, powerful wild brown trout I hunted up in low, technical bright water. That kind of fly fishing requires what amounts to perfect casting: deadly accuracy, delicate presentation and the kind of control of line, leader and tippet that allows long, drag-free floats. My old friend’s Sweet Water delivered just what was needed!

I hope you are enjoying life out there Wyatt, and taking time to cast some of the many great rods you made over all those years. Remember there’s a friend here in the Catskills, and some great fishing…

There are a few constants when it comes to a particularly tough season, first that there are some high points that are absolutely spectacular, and second, that we have to keep on paying our dues for those high points.

In my mind, I think about the fact that Mother Nature rather severely disrupted the lives of the trout, to say nothing of the lives of the insects and baitfish and, of course, the anglers. Well, there is high water most years some say, and that is true, but for 2025 she brought down two very sustained events during the prime of the season, the time when the majority of our mayflies are either hatching or preparing to hatch, and all of the other baby organisms in their food chain are swimming out to investigate their new world. That flushed a lot of food away, and a lot of next year’s food too if you think about it. That means our trout have to find as much protein as they can during the summer.

I figure that our trout are going to have to move a lot, to work harder to get their shares of a diminished food base, to consider new options. My thoughts jump back to the snake I watched get devoured in one hell of a rise recently. I have already seen how that adjustment has affected my own fishing, changing patterns learned through decades of days on the water.

There’s another factor to consider too: dropping rivers. After all that rain in May and June, we seem to have returned to another drought cycle. Little of the rains predicted during these past few weeks has fallen. Lord, might you send us a three-day bundle of cooler air and gentle rain?

It was hot again yesterday, and the early morning hours and lack of sleep had caught up with me, so I did my best to sleep in. That didn’t work out so well, but I did at least try to rest a little, catch up on a blacked out ballgame, and save my fishing for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

It was another dues paying day. One decent trout insulted me by eating something a few minutes after I had thoroughly fished his location. It was a sizeable rise, and I changed the fly and worked that stretch over again, then once more with a third pattern. No rise, no movement, no nothing. Perhaps he was simply passing through and found a quick roadside stop for a sandwich. I’ll never know, but I have caught a lot of trout over the years in just that kind of situation. Once a hunter has betrayed his presence, there is a good chance that I will take him.

I kind of think he jumped right back in the car and chewed on that sandwich slowly after he hit the road again, looking for the next stop to catch his eye.

I took a moment myself, standing there alone and winding my line and leader onto my reel after clipping off my fly. I looked down river and couldn’t help but marvel at just how beautiful the scene before me was…

I felt pretty good for a guy who has been awakening at four in the morning. I do my best to ignore the aches and pains, though there are more of them this year. I allowed myself the full two mugs of coffee. The damp air and cold water should wake an angler up too, but somehow I just wasn’t at my best.

My casting was right there, accurate at distance with good presentations, my Sweetgrass pent laying the fly out there in the fog on it’s first day of use since 2024. Summer is in full swing so I figured it was about time to get one of my main summer fly rods out on the water. Last summer, I found a pretty good nick in the tip section, some sort of hook dig I guess. I had fished it on through the summer, then sent it on a long distance trip to Butte, Montana, where Glenn Brackett made me a brand new tip. This day would be the shakedown cruise, and the rod cast like it had never left my hand.

I was working along, and the fly settled perfectly on an edge, drifted maybe a foot, and then was plucked from the surface very, very gently. Somewhere during the few seconds required for that sequence, my mind wandered elsewhere. I stared at the water where the fly had been for an extra second and when I raised the rod there was nothing there.

Missing a fish on a summer morning is never a good thing. Summer is when I expect to be at my peak, having shaken off the long winter both physically and mentally. Perhaps those recurring four AM wakeups is taking a toll on my concentration.

After berating myself, I continued fishing, certain that I had awakened my concentration. An hour may have passed, more or less, and I saw a little sip, placed the fly perfectly, and tried to rip that fish out of the river! No hookup, and no fly this time. I overreacted so badly that I didn’t even feel any resistance, though I still managed to break the fly off.

Trashing two opportunities is simply disastrous, for this isn’t the kind of fishing which lets you make up for those mistakes. Our hatches have been generally light this season, and at this early point of summer, I have passed more days without seeing any mayflies than I have witnessed even a ghost of a hatch. That realization shook out the rest of the cobwebs in my head, and I vowed to fish at my best level for the rest of the trip.

I backed off a bit, taking advantage of the Sweetgrass rod’s ability to present the fly from a distance. Jerry Kustich had designed this taper for me during the Covid summer of 2020, based upon email conversations about what I wanted in an ideal summer four weight. I asked for 5-strip construction, something Jerry started experimenting with back before the Booboys left Winston. A good pent has a little something, a crisp feel, and the rods I have fished are accurate. My Sweetgrass has proven to be everything I hoped for when we began our discussions.

Working from greater distance makes you pay better attention to your casting, the timing and finesse required to make a perfect presentation. That helped me to get locked in and stay that way.

I made one of those long pitches to a bank where I had been teased a time or two, most recently by watching a little snake vanish in one Hell of a boil! The take came, I paused half a breath, and then I set the hook solidly with complete control. That new rod tip arched heavily as the trout bore down into cover!

I gave that fish everything my tackle could dish out, and I turned his head just enough to lead him out toward relatively open water. He put the test to the drag of my VR reel, and it sang proudly again and again. Every time I started to bring that fish close and reached for my net, he was off again. Finally though, the good mojo of that Sweetgrass pent urged all twenty-five inches of that brown trout into the net.

Gotta love a good rod with mojo!

Sunday July 6th, 5:35 PM and the official porch sitting temperature here in Crooked Eddy sits at 100 degrees Fahrenheit: a pleasant summer evening here in the Catskills. I am not sitting on my porch, though I am sitting here in front of the fan thinking about fishing. The fan is on high, so tying flies is impractical to say the least. One cannot tie a dry fly when the feathers and the dubbing keep blowing away across the room.

I tied the balance of this weekend’s two dozen dry flies this morning, with the air at a comfortable 60 degrees. They have been packed in the single fly box which is occupying my small chest pack, ready for the morning. Warm days and low water is upon us, New York City having decided to drop the releases from the Delaware system reservoirs despite the fact that they are nearly full (98.5% of capacity). Trout don’t count much in their world, and trout fishermen count even less.

I put the five weight Leonard back in the rod rack and drew my four weight Sweetgrass from the tube which harbored it since last September. Dennis Menscer’s three weight is on standby as the week progresses. I checked the line and leader on the Trutta Perfetta reel my Sweetgrass is comfortable with and rebuilt the business end of the leader. Good to go with the sunrise.

There’s no ballgame tonight, and no chance I would try any evening fishing in this heat, so I am here musing about long summer days. A lot of guys seem to want to fish the evening rise to exclusion, but the fact is the rivers are at their warmest point at that time of the day. Yes, even after sunset. I hope they carry a stream thermometer and use it. Earlier in the spring was the time for evening fishing, and even then I find myself spending my days on the water rather than my nights. I spent both out there when I was younger and dumber, but now I like to see what I’m doing, as well as the glorious places I get to do it.

It looks like this week will be all eighty and better degree days, though the early mornings will feature the more friendly sixties. I guess I won’t be getting too much sleep again, but I’ll be driving to the river with the windows open!