Flycatcher

When the weather finally turned irresistible for the craft of venturing into the stream-lined depths of mother nature, I got on the West Branch Genesee and, later, the main stem Genesee. There, among the hills and hollows of the dual-state watershed, I made my evening peace with the caddis fly. For three nights straight, I was ready for the Grannom fly (Brachycentrus americanus), and the hatches were spectacular.

scruffy but effective

The West Branch is typically narrow, rocky and alder-lined, but the dark gray caddis was fluttering moth-like from the surface, and the wild trout were punchy drunk with expectation. I was reeling in a small brook trout when I was saw the golden flash from a larger fish beneath it. Releasing the little fellow, I decided to try a Muddler Minnow for the bigger trout. Before I could tie the Muddler on completely, though, the wild fish, a lengthy brown, made an unsuccessful but gorgeous leap while chasing a Coffin Fly (Ephemera guttulata) that sailed low overhead.

This was the kind of stuff that passionate anglers live for, though I don’t know many who are willing to sacrifice their ease to fish this kind of brushy water to obtain its sweet reward. I abandoned the Muddler Minnow for an imitation of the Coffin Fly and quickly put the brown trout on the line.

On each night of the Grannom hatch, I was greeted by the Vreep! Vreep! shrieking of the great-crested flycatcher and the quieter, weepy notes of the alder and willow flycatchers as these songbirds posted nesting territories along the stream and took their share of hatching insects. A fly-fishing lover of birds could go bonkers in a place like this.

On the second night along this headwater stream I hooked and lost a large fish in addition to catching and releasing a lot of smaller brown and brook trout. The big one grabbed the drifting Grannom fly and fought me hard, flipping in all directions till it tangled line and leader in an undercut and freed the artificial from its lip. I like to think that specimen was 17 inches, plus.

The third night I was down below Genesee village where the headwater branches all converge to form the main stem of the river in New York. The Grannom was hatching by 6 p.m. and only intensified as night came on. As if gravity was giving up the ghost, the wild and stocked trout rose with the emerging insects.

Fishing the river with a nine-foot four-weight rod was calm and leisurely compared to nights of casting on the headwaters, but the Grannom fly, the songbirds, and the willing trout were equally exciting. In a day or two, this caddis hatch would be over, and the fishing would be downbeat for a while.

an extra on the set

The Genesee angler will be happy if the fly box held a reasonable imitation of the caddis, or be frustrated by refusals if the imitations lacked a similarity in color, size and profile. Either way, the angler will be ready when another late spring season sends its dark gray caddis to the world beside this river.

Good Days

I prepared for the long holiday weekend by assisting middle-school students in the planting of flags at the gravesites of veterans and fallen soldiers. The Veterans Administration Cemetery at Bath, N.Y. is a huge place, with thousands of gravestones on a landscaped hill, and the kids did an impressive job while trying to grasp the meaning and immensity of it all.

wild columbine, one of my favorites

My son and his wife joined us Saturday from D.C. and we revisited Letchworth State Park where the home river falls dramatically through an impressive gorge. The weather was dreary and wet, but our walks to the Middle and Lower falls and other sites were stimulating. We eventually hit the road and headed for Corning’s Market Street Brewery and the Glass Fest revelers jostling in the streets. We settled at a second floor table of the brewery on a deck above the crowd. Our food and drinks were delivered by a waitress named Alyssa– who doubles as a daughter of Leighanne, my wife, and me.

Good times.

family contemplations

On Sunday we buried my mother’s ashes at the family farm beside memorial stones established for the parents. Following some special recollections, we repaired for food and drink at my brother’s home nearby. The good times would continue as I visited the upper Allegheny River and worked through the selective feeding habits of rainbow trout responding to insects hatching near the surface.

above Kettle Creek

On Memorial Day, in Slate Run, Pennsylvania, we said goodbye to Brent and Catherine (returning to the tropical and politically toxic environs of Washington, D.C.) following a tasty lunch prepared by Wolf’s General Stone which, conveniently enough, is enjoined to one of my favorite fly shops on the planet.

a black swallowtail, methinks

After lunch, I assembled Chester the Fly Rod and equipped him with the first of several imitations to be cast while walking a familiar creek. Several mayfly species hatched sporadically along this beautiful water and suggested that a dry fly was the ticket to success. It took a deeply drifted nymph, however, to connect with a wild brown trout measuring 16 inches in the net.

a wild brown

Good fish.

Returning home in late afternoon, we stopped at Pine Creek (above the mouth of Babb) where I hoped to re-experience the fabulous Brown Drake hatch that had vexed me there some 30 years before. Those problematic drakes had left an indelible impression on a young angler’s mind. Well, the hatch was there again, much smaller than the one that introduced me to it long ago. The big mayflies rose up from the water like a net for catching dreams.

gave Chester quite a bend

It wasn’t easy getting action from those trout. The browns would snap at the big dry fly, missing, till I switched the “Catskill tie” to one that had a parachute design. Finally, a heavy brown trout fell into the net, and it was time to bid the waters adieu.

The month of May is wonderful, but gone for now.

I hope you had some good days, too.

Middle Falls, Letchworth

Middle Falls, Genesee River

Lower Falls, Genesee River

Lower Falls @ Letchworth

Pine Creek @ Blackwell

 

 

A Few Words From the Photos

Kettle Creek eagle says, I’m not that far away. Photo Guy shoulda had a zoom lens with him.

When the big streams weren’t producing I’d go up the little feeder streams to check on the brookies.

Like this…

a good gravel road culvert that allows trout passage to the spawning grounds…

Southern Tier makes a good beer for rivertop ramblers! Looks like I refilled this w/ a shot of setting sun…

Nature makes a tasty mayfly morsel (March Brown) for rivertop inhabitants…

This 16-inch rainbow from the creek called “Oz” believed the streamer was a live one, not an alternative food…

I chased the rainbow thru deep riffles before it filled the net…

a small Oswayo colony of moccasin flower produced only one bloom this year…

wild azalea (pinxter) with a smell as sweet as these streams are beautiful…

at eleven-inches-plus, this headwaters trout can be considered big for New York State…

It said, What happened? I said, Thanks, and placed him back in the stream…

Staircase Run

The day surely started out on a bright note– a little birding in the early morning sunshine of the yard, my small binoculars picking up a bit of the warblers waving through– Blackburnian, black-throated green, ovenbird, Louisiana water-thrush and, later, the black-throated blue warbler– beautiful emissaries from an avian world that migrates through too quickly.

I had a simple plan to fish a Pennsylvania trout stream on my bucket list, a first-time visit to a small feeder stream in the mountains near Cedar Run. The gravel road was sloppy wet and pitted; the sky quickly clouded over and promised rain, and I aborted my trout stream mission after unsuccessfully fishing it for half a mile. I didn’t quit, however.

I returned to Cedar Run whose fully-flowing waters weren’t exactly welcoming to the likes of me. I noticed a small cascade, a side stream splashing in a curve from a deep and forested ravine. It seemed to beckon– maybe the brook trout would be more accommodating in its heights. I chanced it, and I’m glad I did, although the red rocks of the little gorge were slippery and a trick to maneuver on.

the Mineralist looks at the Minimalist (Cedar Run bedrock looking like a map)

I called the water “Staircase Run” because the stream reminded me of that– a natural ladder to an untouched beauty and the first small brook trout of the day. Reaching the second waterfall of Staircase Run I paused to consider my position. It wasn’t worth risking an injury by climbing farther past the falls; I’d caught one fish on a day that just didn’t feel like it would be productive. After all, the fishing had been slow for the previous two weeks. It could only get better now with the prospect of good hatches soon to come.

note the “stairway” at left

I turned around for a slow descent toward Cedar Run. Another cool shower began to penetrate the forest. Reaching my vehicle, I didn’t quit. I simply headed south to where the sun might be shining and the trout more willing to feed.

I fished two more runs that day, this time in the Slate Run watershed, and I did a little better in the warm sun of afternoon, with several species of insects coming off the streams sporadically. It was slow as hell, but it was fishing. When the day was done, I had said hell-o to five small streams in a matter of hours.

What kept me going was the view provided earlier at Staircase Run–  a view from a tiny world enclosed by walls of dripping shale, by evergreens and reddish bedrock.  I couldn’t see much beyond a few hundred feet of deep ravine with tumbling water, but the elements all pointed toward the best part of an angling season, to the few short weeks ahead, a prelude to the summer.

Muddler

 

We’ve had a lot of rain and cool air of late, and Saturday’s tree-planting event was right in the thick of it. Nonetheless, the Upper Genesee Chapter of Trout Unlimited managed to plant more than a thousand small trees along our project water, ensuring greater soil stability and improved trout habitat at least in one small corner of the planet. We got wet, of course, but if trout can live full-time in water, the least we humans could do is to view their aqueous realms and appreciate them for a few soggy hours.

In addition to the trees we planted Saturday, I was given a bag of 100 willow trees and 25 white pines which I half-heartedly accepted for planting on the headwaters of our project stream. I took them, figuring I could get them in the ground within five days or so, as long as the rain held off and didn’t require the construction of a Genesee River ark.

By Wednesday the weather was gorgeous and comfortable and the job got done. I muddled about the stream banks and enjoyed the song of flowing water and the sight of darting trout while accumulating more mud than a tri-claw mud machine in March (I haven’t actually inspected one of those alien devices, but the phrase came handily and sounded good).

Planting trees is a thing we do to reinforce the feeling of hope and continuity. Once the trees are in the ground, we more or less forget about them and perhaps inspect them a time or two each year. Many don’t survive, and the ones that do hang on might grow so slowly that to try to watch them more regularly could drive you crazy. Trees are planted for the long run, for a time beyond my final day, and they help to clarify my own existence. Planting helps to minimize the sense that I’m just muddling through the hours with little purpose.

Naturally, all work and no play makes the rambler a grumpy old bastard, so I did manage to squeeze in a few hours of fishing when the streams receded and grew clearer. I had another good outing on a local brook trout stream as trout rose readily to a dry fly. Next day, however, after planting was done, I fished the West Branch of the river and had less to show for my efforts, although encountering such May beauties as the season’s first orioles belling among the apple blossoms lent a feeling of total freshness to the hour.

Fish were not inclined to take a dry fly. They would strike a weighted nymph and break it off in surging water. Messing around, and losing hope, I cut back the leader to a stoutness adequate for a cone-head Muddler Minnow and fed it to the larger pools. Ah, now there’s something different– a trout sweeping across the pool to grab the fly! Once again, the Muddler Minnow had its hour in the sun.

Muddler on cane

Don Gapen tied the first Muddler Minnow in the 1930s along the banks of the Nipigon River in Ontario. It wasn’t long before his streamer pattern hooked up with a 10 lb. 4oz. brook trout in the famous river. The Muddler could imitate a sculpin, a crayfish and any number of subsurface food items (plus dry terrestrials when treated with floatant). It became one of the world’s best known and most versatile patterns. It’s essential, in my opinion, like a fresh new row of willow trees along a marginalized stream. In seasons of high water, it’s good for an old muddler like myself who enjoys a tightened line.

the muddler takes flight

Brief

When the human world seems absolutely maddening (the insanity triggered by such trifles as fidget spinners with kids, the rush for smartphone upgrades in adults, and the latest threats to the economy, environment and world peace from the fools who guide our destiny), I’m thankful as hell to find a brief transcendent hour on a local trout stream.

That’s right– just an hour’s peek at the more tranquil aspects of nature in early May can set things right again, if one delights in solitude and a short communion with such entities as wild trout, trillium and newly arrived tanager.

Late one afternoon, returning home from work, I stopped to fish a small stream near my house, and the native trout obliged me with a quick inspection of their beauty followed by a fast release. Nearly a dozen waterfalls accent this little stream, and the plunge-pools offered their peeks at the eternal– catches of brook trout only five to 10 inches long, beauties for the eye and solace for the soul.

In this time before the full leaf of the trees, when the song of flowing water is rhythmical and strong (if not downright torrential), the trout are hungry for the latest insect offering. Switching from a dry fly to a Hare’s Ear nymph, the simple upstream cast into plunge-pool often tightened with a fish. Since my last post, I’ve probably sampled another half dozen streams and rivers, but this outing in my own “backyard” seemed special.

What a respite, what a sweet transition from the crazy realm of work and business. One could open up the senses here and breathe it in– a shy peek from a fox pup out behind the house, a brief appearance of a spring morel beside the driveway– the mindless sanity of nature on the job.

24/365

The old cliché says “Earth Day everyday,” but in a sense it might be true. I’m old enough to remember the original Earth Day celebrations on campus, and the week in April 1992 when I gave four public poetry readings centered around the concept of this special time. I’m also young enough, at last, to realize that this planet is the only one we’re ever likely to have. So, instead of simply consuming the Earth on a daily basis, we’d do well to give something back. The notion of giving back needn’t be complicated but it should be real. It can be small and given from the heart– a token of thanks for what sustains us daily as we wake to the blessing of “another day on Earth.”

could aliens drop in with these balloons?

Day 107: A sunny and comfortable Monday morning. Made my first catch of the day before I even reached the stream. I chased a couple of Easter balloons that were tied together and attempting to leave a wind-tossed field before I could reach them with a swat of my old Phillipson fly rod. I’ve never taken kindly to feral balloons dropping in from heaven. I snagged these babies and killed them with a piercing fly hook. Unlike the fish I land and give back to the stream, balloons and other bits of renegade plastic do not benefit from a catch-and-release ethos.

a work project site

Ten minutes later I was fishing Spring Mills Creek when I found yet another holiday balloon, perhaps a gift from Erie, Cleveland or Chillicothe. Geez, these things are getting plentiful, like those crumpling  tubes that once protected infant trees from deer and rodents in riverine habitats. Thankfully, wild brook trout brought me back to focus on the here and now of small stream fishing. I caught six or seven on a nymph or dry fly before proceeding to the headwaters, a project area for our chapter of Trout Unlimited, happily reviewing our success there near the border of New York and Pennsylvania.

the NY/PA border

Day 112: Earth Day. Cool and overcast. The streams and rivers were running high and muddy from recent rains. I fished the three branches of the upper Genesee, my home river, in a rite of spring that I perform one time each year. At the East Branch I caught a stocked brown on a Woolly Bugger and had strikes from two others. At the Middle Branch, on the summit of the Triple Divide, the stream was clear but extremely challenging for its small size. No catch there, but on the West Branch near Genesee, PA I managed to hook up with another brown.

All in all, no great shakes on Earth Day. And that’s okay. In fact, this day was pretty much like any other for me. I didn’t do much, if anything, to improve the world. The sight of garbage at a few locations was disturbing, and I collected a bit, but thankfully I also noticed several individuals gathering trash in or near the villages.

Phillipson rod & hemlock tree

Although I didn’t add to the human population of the world, which increases daily, I probably added to the carbon imprint simply by driving to the streams and cranking up the lawn mower for another season of cutting grass. We just do what we can to help things out– by staying aware, and minimizing this for maximizing that.

Genesee River at Triple Divide

In the evening, just before dusk, I watched the “sky dance” flights of a territorial woodcock from a point behind my house. As the male bird spiraled higher and higher against the clouds, I imagined its view as the perfect one– telling the fields and woodlands it was doing what it must, that the simple act of telling was what mattered now.

Eleven Mile Run

Day 113: A beautiful morning on Potter County’s Eleven Mile Run, the old South Bend 290 cane rod laying out a nice streamer but to no avail. Who cares if the trout aren’t biting on a day like this? There’s no sport here, just the passion of fly-fishing, the latest outing in a way of life. It’s been given to me, so I try to give something back.

In late afternoon, I brace myself for TU’s spring highway clean-up near the Genesee. Highways are never pretty in themselves, but we sweat and fill those big orange bags with trash. Perhaps we’ll get community recognition, but even if we don’t, we’ll save a bit of crap from drifting into the river. Soon we’ll be planting trees in critical riparian habitat– just willow trees, without plastic tubes. Small potatoes, surely, in light of what’s happening to our planet now, but it’s something almost anyone can do.

a resident at T-2 Manor

Trout lily/South Bend 290

Grass and Glass (BRB, Part 3)

Intending to spend the whole day fishing the Rapidan River inside Shenandoah National Park, I fished it and even took a pleasant side excursion on a brook trout tributary.

White trilliums were the flower of the day, nodding their invitations to an angler with a camera and a sense of curiosity. The sky was moderately overcast, a security blanket for a guy intent on catching and releasing wild trout. A fellow hiker approached me on the trail and said, “That’s  a nice old bamboo you’ve got there,” and I appreciated the comment, but added, “Actually the rod’s only a few years old. It’s been used a bit, and grown a couple of grey hairs already. Life experience, you know.”

trillium

Life experience reoccurred half an hour later when I took a tumble along a rocky path beside the Rapidan, and Chester the fly rod flew to the ground ahead of me. Thankfully, the rod escaped real damage or serious scarring. My favorite Shenandoah river had a full-flowing body, wild and April cool, and its brook trout rose occasionally from the depths to strike the floating Stimulator and to spike excitement in the bloodstream.

The hiker who commented on the fly rod also asked if I was heading up the Staunton River (no doubt named for my friend Bob S.,the Flyfisher, although the spelling has been altered to protect an innocent stream) . I told him I might investigate it on my way back down the Rapidan, and he said the fishing could be decent on the rocky run.

I’ve tried the Staunton at the lower end, but the so-called “river” hasn’t looked larger than a brook on those occasions that I’ve seen it in the past. The hiker said that the holes and plunge-pools are enticing at this time of year, but you’ve got to hike and climb the stream for a mile or so to really appreciate it.

That sounded good to me. The stream would be like a buffer between a social venue and a wilderness. I hiked and climbed it for about a mile, and I’m glad I did. If I fish it again, I’ll have a smaller rod to cast with, say a 6’6″, rather than a longer stick.

As for the Rapidan, I’ll be quiet at this point and simply say that the world is a better place for a stream like this. Let’s keep it clean and looking wonderful.

My last couple of days fishing in the Blue Ridge were mostly spent trying to find new streams and interesting water close to my napping spot in Blossom Town. My god– the dogwood, redbud and azalea blossoms covered with birdsong were a sweet distraction to a guy putting on his waders (leaky ones at that).

golden ragwort

One day I fished the Pocosin and caught a couple of brookies there. Another time, Leighanne, Richard and I hiked the lower White Oak Canyon near Syria VA. The climb to the lower waterfall was stimulating despite an overabundance of hikers like ourselves. The run’s variety of holes and plunge-pools called to several fly-fishers, including myself and a younger guy from South Carolina. The two of us seemed to leap-frog past each other testing the waters of this pretty stream.

Comparing  fishing rods, the Carolina fellow said that I was using “grass” (bamboo) and that he was casting “glass” (fiberglass). Together, along with a hundred hikers, we reached the scenic waterfall, and some of the  mob continued on toward Skyline Drive.

The trout were as sparse as the hikers were numerous, but one of the trout was memorable…

Switching from a dry fly to a bead-head nymph, I connected with a good fish in a deep, rocky pool. It had shoulders on it and a weight reminding me of stocked fish that had overwintered for a couple of years. Okay, you see it coming here– the fish bent the rod and shook its big head several times before breaking off the fly and digging under the boulders.

No doubt it would have been my biggest Blue Ridge trout to date. It could have been…Well… let’s leave it there. I was happy to bend the “grass” in that pool, and to start packing out some memories from my buffer zone in spring. It was a nice week for rambling– in a place between the timeless mountains and a world that passes all too fast.

[Part 3 concludes the Blue Ridge Buffer series. Thanks for coming along!]

bloodroot

Blue Ridge Buffer (Pt. 2), No Plan B

1. I love Monday mornings in the Blue Ridge, especially before the hikers, dogs and fishermen start to activate the paths inside Shenandoah National Park. The sun is out; the temperatures are headed for the 70s; Louisiana water-thrushes are at song; the violets and geraniums add their shades of pink and purple to the edges of the trail.

I love casting there in solitude, although at times like this I wouldn’t mind the company of a kindred spirit with whom the fun of catching brook trout can be shared. Before long, I pause at a favorite pool and see a nice trout rising to the surface at the base of a cliff.

I start by casting the April greys– a Blue Quill and a Quill Gordon– but get nothing other than refusals. When I finally see a bit of hatch activity, I switch to a Little Black Stone, a wet fly, and am not surprised when the brook trout nails it on the first or  second cast.

It’s good to climb the mountains, following the clear, full-flowing river, and fishing in a buffer zone between two seasons. Winter is gone except in recent memory, and spring is here like a long-awaited friend who hasn’t seen you in a while and isn’t sure about where you’ve been or what you’re scheming to do, but who accepts your offer of a beer and a comfortable place to sit.

Chester & the Stitchworts

I love fishing this mountain river near Charlottesville, but to really enjoy it I’ve got to do some serious walking to escape the crowd that also loves the river and finds it readily at the bottom of the Blue Ridge. Although the biggest trout seem to inhabit the lowest mile above the stocked waters, the density of fish seems to increase significantly the closer you get to the headwaters.

2. I love Tuesday mornings in the Blue Ridge, especially when my expectations get deflated and my sarcasm balloons. There is no Plan B for the day, which is a good thing, in my estimation. My wife and I cruise the Skyline Drive inside the park and stop at the headwaters of the river I’ve been fishing occasionally for about five years. The temperature is close to 80 degrees and rising. The stream is too small to bother with (and too difficult to reach given the steep rocky slope). We hike down for a mile and a half before discouragement overtakes us. Husband and wife, wedded in bronchitis (I’m overcoming it but she’s getting hammered), decide to turn around and make the tough climb back to the summit.

Without a Plan B, we’re actually free and able to do whatever the hell we want. We drive down the mountain and hit the Blue Mountain Brewery for tasty fish tacos and some of the best craft beer in Virginia. After enjoying this health spa in the sun, and with the hazy mountains for a back-drop, we head back toward Charlottesville. Leighanne sets me free inside the park to fish the lower river for a couple of hours.

I love it when I’m able to gravitate back toward fishing and manage to salvage a bit of my angling prospects. I catch six or seven brook trout, none of them very large but, as always, pleasurable in their company. The highlight of the evening is a couple of “holy crap” moments where a fish is on and the fly line has been artfully wrapped around an overhanging branch or a log stuck in fast water.

With a beer buzz and a brook trout bouncing in the surge of river, hanging on for dear life till my hand arrives to free it, fun has overtaken me, but I hate the moment, too. My waist-high waders make a poor choice of tearing just above an ankle. The waters come in to get me. It’s all too familiar. The waders aren’t even one year old. I’ll never order waders from that company again. Ah well. Leaks be damned; tomorrow I’ll hit another mountain stream. Plan B does not exist.

[Please stand by for more].

Blue Ridge Buffer, Part 1

[All photos in Part 1 are recent takes from a grey and partly frozen landscape in the north country. Rainbow trout from Allegheny River. Stay tuned for brighter and more southerly perspectives as this series progresses.]

As the new fishing season opens like the blossoms on the hills and valleys close to home, I prepare for another fly-fishing visit to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and reflect on how I went to that area in the first place.

Back in the late 1970s I lived for four years in northern Virginia, along the Shenandoah River at the base of the Blue Ridge. I didn’t fly-fish at the time but I got to know the mountains rather intimately through my frequent visits to the nearby Appalachian Trail. I didn’t have any family connections in northern Virginia, but through my work in a private school I met my wife-to-be, and she had family roots throughout this area that I would soon become familiar with.

I shifted back to upstate New York, and when my son grew up and eventually moved south to Arlington and the Washington, D.C. environs, my visits to the region increased dramatically. In 2012, I started to fly-fish the mountain streams of Shenandoah National Park, as well as the limestone waters of the southern district. The Blue Ridge Mountains and the trout streams of Virginia began to form a back-drop to my family and personal history.

As a northerner from upstate New York, I look back to my origin as a Blue Ridge angler and see it as if with an autumn migration of birds. In the mind’s eye, swallows migrate southward, not away from their existence or as if escaping their summer homes, but toward a place their bodies know when winter grips the north country. My motive was to get myself acquainted with a more southerly home for native brook trout, and to do that in the context of enjoying an extended family life near the Blue Ridge of Virginia. I was moving from a known place to the heart of something new, at least from the angling perspective.

In my case, the Blue Ridge is a northern angler’s buffer zone. A place where the old and new blend together and interact like voices of friendly neighbors. It’s a place where wilderness and civilization can exchange understanding glances with each other. I like to think that anyone can dig out a special place like this, a buffer zone of body and spirit where meaningful communication and peace are fished for and successfully landed.