April Fools

This coming Monday, April 1st, is Opening Day for trout in NYS public waters.

It is also "April Fools" Day.  

Where will your foolish soul be flipping flies???

A perfect title from my favorite Fly Fishing author.

Tight lines and luck to one and all on the season opener.  

"Two things we're never late for..."

A River Runs Through It.  A classic and a film that never tires for me.

"Church and Fishing."  One of the greatest lines to come out of the greatest fly fishing film, "A River Runs Through It".  I have said that many a time to a friend or relative who has been late to arrive roadside, boat side, stream side or wherever we decided to meet at whatever ungodly hour.  I have NEVER been late for fishing.  Not once.  And then there was today.

I can't blame daylight savings, or an upset stomach due to who knows what in the wee hours of attempted sleep or a faulty alarm (I mean the thing must have gone off...since when has my cell phone ever failed me???).  I guess that just leaves myself to blame.

My patient and gracious brother-in-law took it in stride.  After the fourth text, he went to grab some coffee and came back to the homestead and waited a bit more.  All told I threw the day off by a good 20 minutes, which, as you know, can be a game changer (at least in my superstitious or crazy-when-it-comes-to-fishing mind).  I hoped out loud that the fish gods would repay him for his virtue.

It was 28 degrees when we arrived at the snowy banks of the East Branch of the Croton Reservoir.  It wouldn't warm up for quite some time.  There was ice in the guides and there were leaks in our waders.  As it turns out, the fish gods were on the right side today and my partner netted the one and only brown trout of the four hours or so that we fished.  Nymphs, streamers, droppers, split shot, no split shot, you name it we threw it and moved up and down the river too!  Oh well, them's the breaks and I was late so what's a guy to do?

All in all, the coffee was hot, the laughter was kind and the stones were smooth and slick under ripples of fluid water and the early call of spring birds.  And the sun, when it finally beamed over the hills, felt to me as it must feel to the crocuses that are fledgling here in NY about now, just bursting through the melting snow without thought or reason.  Just kind of opens you up.  Spring is almost here.  The trout will soon be rising.

And I never did make it church.

The man with the patience and the only fish of the day.

(*** As it turns out, in the River Runs Through It quote there were three things they were never late for; work, church and fishing.  Well, It's Sunday and I don't want to think about work on a Sunday, let alone write about it. ***) 

Welcome

Some may call it a hobby.  Others, an obsession.  A way of life.  What have you.  I'll just call it fishing and you can come up with your own conclusion as to what you might call it for me.  I do wonder what you call it for yourself although I can probably guess what your wife calls it (at least in her head as you scrawl yourself out of the bed at 4 a.m. just to get a jump on the dawn).  For the record, I am happily married for nearly 14 years and as many times as I've gotten out of said bed at all hours of the morning just to wet a line, she has graciously always let me back in it.

Welcome to my blog.  A place where you most likely won't learn anything new but where you'll hopefully get a sense of what I am learning, be it about fishing or, well, just life.  Maybe you'll find through this blog that you and I have something in common.  Maybe you won't.  That's okay too.  I'm easy.

I do hope to lend some practical fishing knowledge at times and ask that you politely return some through your comments regarding your experiences on the water.  I request that you please respect the old adage  "If you don't have anything nice to say..." well, you know the rest.

The title of this blog is just a reflection of how I came back to "wade the river".  For many years, I have been actively fishing the great Kensico Reservoir which is just north of New York City.  I have had days full of luck and days without but each of those days has been rewarding.  It is the rivers that I had neglected for years and the rivers that are at the root of my love for angling.

As a kid of 14 or so my father used to take me along on his weekend fly fishing trips to the fabled Beaverkill and Willowemoc Rivers.  He and three or four of his buddies would twice a year swap their collars and ties for flannels and waders and all that came with it.  It was then that I fell in love with the sport.  It became a part of me without me knowing it.  It took a hold of me.  I managed for a long time, however, after my father passed in May of 1990, to escape out of it's grasp.  I dodged it from one state to the next, one decade after another like a speckled Brown Trout darting from rock to rock. The rivers and streams of my youth held too many memories of Dad.  I guess it just took some doing for me to heal.  On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of my Dad's departure I began to assemble some close friends and family to revisit my youth on these waters.  With fly rods in hand, and everything to learn, we all made the trip.  It is now an annual event where we are able to swap our work week with the ease of the current just as my Dad and his buddies had done so long ago.  At last I am able to wade the river.  I will never look back.

My first trout on a fly rod.  This was May of 1988.  I was 14 and my Dad snapped the pic.

He was a proud papa.  Here he beams while I clean our catch.  He would die just two years later.

Since taking our first trip two seasons ago, I have been opened up to a whole new world of fly fishing.  It is as if I have found a new lease on an old fishing life.  There are many streams here in Westchester and Putnam Counties where I live and work as well as many others from Pennsylvania to Maine and back.  I plan to fish as many of these streams and rivers as I can over the years as well as continue to fish the lakes and reservoirs of the area.  I hope that you will check in on my journey from time to time.  Thanks for stopping by and "tight lines" always.  -- Mike

A nice looking 17" Brownie that I got in the fall out of a local stream.  The fish was released unharmed.

A late Summer's dawn on the Kensico Reservoir.

Wading the river, at last.

 On the banks of the Willowemoc River, autumn 2012.