Cayuta Creek’s beauty shines even before the forests come alive…

And part of that attraction is her ability to help me shake off the dust and lose the rust after a winter spent indoors. Her trout, some stocked, some holdover, and some wild, are always there waiting and often times willing.

Early season fly fishing on Cayuta is largely a stonefly game – little black stones – though traditional nymph patterns and streamers can also work well. Some years, like last year, the unusual early season weather brought caddis and mayflies in abundance leading to some very good dry fly fishing.

I usually fish Cayuta Creek at least once before the opener with fly angling friend Dan, profiled here before. We’ll meet up at a pull-off, rig up with nymphs or wet flies, and fish down or up – more or less walking the length of the special regs section above the Wyncoop Creek Road bridge – catching up, commiserating, celebrating the new season, and conjecturing on what the year might bring.

We met up the weekend before the opener and Cayuta Creek did not disappoint. It was Good Friday in more ways than one! I fished my standard early season pattern – the venerable picket pin – but this time it was one of my own. I fished it as the tail fly to a weighted prince nymph and to my delight, caught a feisty brown on my third cast.

First fish on one of my own flies…

Dan and I fished the lower stretch of the creek that day and found one particular section that was loaded with hatchery browns. We caught them dead drift and on the swing with our nymphs and wet flies. Sometimes they’d even jump a fly stripped in for another cast.

I fished Cayuta the next day, this time on my own, and I did nearly as well. The sun was out and later in the day little black stoneflies were hatching with abundance. They fell like heavy snow, on and off it seemed, and would float and skitter clumsily downstream. The trout did not ignore them, rising aggressively as they sailed down the creek. Unfortunately, I was ill-equipped. I did not have anything that matched those stoneflies, though a black caddis seemed to draw the trout up for a look. A picket pin fished weightless on the swing worked pretty well, though greasing one up to make it float would most likely have been better (again, ill-equipped – no floatant on hand!).

I returned to Cayuta Creek the Friday after Opening Day. I found a very different creek on that overcast and cold day. The water was up and had a dark green stain to it, no doubt the result of snow-melt and recent rains.

A brooding looking Cayuta Creek…

I fished a nymph with a picket pin tail fly and found little success and I wondered at one point if this disturbing finding on a section of the creek that allows artificial lure use only had anything to do with it…

What fly or lure angler would use a ‘Y’ stick…

Later I decided to switch up to a streamer – a picket pin streamer tied by Dave Pelachik of JJ’s Jigs. I fished it upstream dead drift, then stripped it on the swing. Wading downstream, I swung the weighted streamer through a deep run and felt a solid whack and then the head-shakes of a good trout – one bigger than the stockie fare. After a good tussle I landed a brown in excellent condition, heavy-bodied, silvery colored, and quite possibly a wild trout from what I could tell.

A nice Cayuta brown caught on a picket pin streamer…

I fished a little more, lost another decent trout and had a few more swipes from what seemed to be stockies. At one point, a nice older gentleman stopped by to check things out. He spoke to me from roadside, across the creek and I could tell from our conversation that he was an experienced fly angler. He was new to the area, having moved from Pennsylvania and thought he’d check out Cayuta Creek. I fed him with all sorts of good information on this favorite little creek. After a while of pleasant chat, he bade me good luck and told me he’d leave a glass bead midge larva pattern he’d recently had luck with on Kettle Creek. In a way I suppose, it was my ‘little gem’ thanking me for all the praise…

Yellow perch are a blue collar species of fish, and I write that with praise. They show up for work in their green-barred overalls trimmed in bright yellow as if they’re ready to watch a Green Bay Packers game.

Jack perch – the kind of yellow perch Richard liked…

They are the quintessential working man’s fish species; reliable as a quartz clock, massing in large schools, and endearing bait and lure anglers alike for their willingness to strike nearly anything that happens to scoot by their snouts. What they lack in size they most certainly make up for with a feisty attitude on the hook, and even better, their ability to grace the plates of anglers looking for deliciously mild fish. In some northern locales they are regular menu fare. I enjoyed some of them myself this summer while fishing with a good high school friend in the Thousand Islands.

I’d tangled with yellow perch in my spin angling days, but I’d never heard of ‘jack perch’ until I met John, a coworker and good friend. John’s father, Richard, a life-long Buffalo resident, fished for them in the Niagara River. Turns out, the jack perch is a bigger badder yellow perch, meaning that Richard preferred his perch on the big side.

John and I worked together a number of years, then went our separate ways to the call of different jobs, different careers. As is often the case these days, one must leave home to keep employed, and that’s just what John did, leaving New York to continue employment in Florida. We have kept in touch to this day, and until recently, I’d always ask about his father, Richard, and his pursuit of jack perch.

As he got into his 90′s, Richard’s health declined. John would tell me how he didn’t fish any more, but he’d still park by the river and watch others fish. And then came emails reporting hospitalization – good days and bad days – and finally, Richard’s passing.

In the aftermath, John shared a picture of his dad with a stringer of perch. He looked the part – a true fisherman – not all ‘tweedy’ as they say in some fly fishing circles. Plain and simple as the fish he pursued.

But there was more I never knew about the man who loved jack perch. He learned the building trades as a young man and then in 1942, answered the call to war and enlisted in the Army Air Force. He joined what I believe to be a version of the Navy Seabees – a combat engineering and construction unit that built the airbases from which the United States waged war – the 818th Engineer Battalion (Aviation), or EAB.

John shared a copy of his father’s discharge papers, and quite frankly, I was blown away by what I read. Under a section entitled ‘Battles and Campaigns’, was listed; Ardennes, Central Europe, Normandy, Northern France, and Rhineland. For those not schooled in military history, his unit participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy, the campaigns to take back Northern France, the Battle of the Bulge (Hitler’s last attempt to break through the Allied assault in what was considered the impenetrable Ardennes Forest), and the final assault of Germany. Indeed, according to what I read on one website on the 818th EAB…

This battalion landed on Utah beach on June 30th, and followed advancing armies through France to Luxembourg and to the Nancy area, engaging in the construction of 18 airfields. In the “Bulge” area, the unit was forced to mine and guard their installations. Y-46 at Aachen was one of the first fields in Germany, and the 818th built 12 S and E strips east of the Rhine.

During 3 precious years of his youth, Richard no doubt grew up quickly. He fought in the most historic battles of World War II, participating in the great struggle to defeat a tyrant who nearly enslaved the world. In doing so he witnessed the absolute best and worst of mankind.  Then he was honorably discharged and returned to Buffalo where he married and raised a family, worked, went to church, watched Buffalo sports teams, and, … fished for jack perch. Richard was 95 years old when his heart finally gave out and another member of ‘The Greatest Generation’ left us for the final call. I know he is bank-side once again, watching a bobber float down flowing waters, surrounded by those who left this good earth before him.

My grandfather had less hair, but the skin tone is right on…

He wasn’t known for bowling overhand, sky-diving in a kayak, or shooing a pet mountain lion from his kitchen counter, but he was most interesting in his mannerisms and the way obscure factoids on his life would pop up in conversation. There are pictures of him, for example, on his “ersten tag” (first day) in Kindergarten – in Germany that is. Mind you, he lived in Staten Island, NY, the only child in a rather wealthy family. There are pictures of him in full Ivy League raccoon coat regalia, and pictures of him standing most majestically atop some hill in Mexico, his side arm prominently displayed (he apparently had spent time with a rich Uncle in Mexico at a silver mine back in the Pancho Villa days)….

Pancho Villa – one most interesting man crosses another…

…and pictures of him in front of his freshman alma mater, RPI. He was apparently kicked out of school for being more partial to parties and other such collegiate fun than his studies.

He was a quiet man, but his mind was anything but quiet. He was both curious and fascinated by absolutely everything and when I would visit with him in his golden years, he’d frequently remark, “explain to me Robert, how do they do that?…”

One of his great quotes, in response to anything that required his time and attention, was; “I’m studying it…” Though he was definitely in the running for patron saint of procrastination, the old man was very smart and a relentless student of life which kept his mind as sharp as a razor until his dying day at the age of 95.

As covered in a post last year, I decided to re-write my fly fishing goals. My intentions were good, and sadly, I can’t even use my grandfather’s procrastination veil as an excuse. I never did publish them last year, no less re-write them, as a matter of fact. So, as promised most recently, I’ll give it another go, here:

1) Catch a lake trout on the fly – lake run or from the lake.

2) Catch one of the following saltwater game-fish on the fly: a bluefish, striped bass, or weakfish.

3) Begin fly tying – focus on perfecting three patterns, with a goal to catch fish with these patterns.

4) Float fish the Susquehanna; Campville to Owego. There’s some good water back there.

5) Practice and improve my casting distance and accuracy.  Learn to single haul and double haul.

6) Fish with friends – enjoy their company and learn new skills and places to fish.

7) Learn to tie one new fishing knot.

8) Fish for steelhead. Did it once in 2012 – do it more in 2013.

9) Fish Handsome Brook. Fish it a full day, good and hard with a lunch break at Gilligan’s Island (best burgers and ice cream around!).

10) Night fish for trout. Always wanted to do this!

Life is short. A day not fished is a day never to be fished. If I can accomplish 6 to 7 of these goals, it will be a good year, indeed. Here’s to 2013, tight lines, bent rods, and plenty of head shakes…

Thanks to a warm spell in late winter / early spring, fly fishers enjoyed great fly fishing for trout. Instead of a bone-chilling opener, anglers basked in relative warmth and fished near gin-clear water conditions. Even the pre-opening fishing on waters that were open, like parts of Cayuta Creek, shown below, was excellent.

Some anglers reported early season dry fly fishing – as early as March 7th – which is unheard of in these parts. Note the water level and clarity of the West Branch of the Tioughnioga (below) in late April! I didn’t have my fly rod when I took this picture but brown trout were actively rising to caddis, leaving me drooling…

While the trout angling got even better in April, another surprise opportunity was the smallmouth bass fishing in local rivers and streams. Rivers were at low levels thanks to the lack of snowpack. Normally, bass fishing on the larger rivers is not possible until late spring at the very best. I kept eying the “big four” in our area – the Tioughnioga, Chenango, Chemung, and Susquehanna – and watching the USGS water gauge. Even the main branch of the Susquehanna looked enticingly fishable as shown in this picture taken in late April. As a reference, the point to the left in this picture would normally be covered by 6 feet of water at this time of the year…

After reading a post by fellow fly fishing blogger, Dave Pelachik, I decided to give the Susky a try and boy was I glad I did, as detailed in a post I did soon after my trip. My only regret is not spending that entire day on the river…

Fly fishing in general was outstanding on the Catskill Rivers. The tailwaters were able to maintain flows throughout the season: the freestone Willowemoc and Beaverkill were not quite so lucky. In any case, the only ‘off’ part of the spring was the effect the weather had on the hatches. They were in some cases very strong and early and in others, such as the March Brown hatch, reported to be non-existent. But the trout were hungry. One observation I noted in my fishing is that I did not see the same proportion of rainbows to browns that I normally do, but the browns were certainly in very good health.

While the smallmouth season started out with a bang for me, late summer fishing was for some reason a bust, at least on the Susquehanna where I fish it. It got downright befuddling at times, to the point where I began to hunt the smaller Tioughnioga and upper Chenango. Interestingly, these rivers fished better than the main branch of the Susky. Noticeably absent during much of my fishing on the Susquehanna were the younger year class bass, which normally prove to be a nuisance.  These fish were present on the smaller rivers but their absence in the bigger water is a mystery to me.

The West Branch of the Delaware continued to fish well into June…

While summer fishing was slow in some ways, the largemouth bass on the pond out back of our house were ever willing to slam anything tossed their way. And the white fly hatch in early August on the Susquehanna was epic, but didn’t seem to bring out the bass for me, at least.

Saltwater fishing was also a mix. I fly fished Meyer’s Hole near Barnegat Light, NJ on the July 4th holiday, and was fortunate to run into schools of very willing shad that clobbered my clouser streamer to the point where it was nothing more than a jig with no tail feathers. These mini tarpon were a blast, leaping on every hook-up. These were 1 to 3 lb fish, but mingling among them were houndfish, a gar-like fish that on two occasions attacked my clouser streamer and ripped line as they streaked across the surface of the water like an airborne torpedo. My houndfish were not quite the size of the monster shown below (but they were a good 3 feet in length), but these are respectable game fish, and keep your hands away from the business end!

The party boat fishing was also a mixed bag. I went with my cousin Mark over that same July 4th weekend and we caught ‘cocktail’ blues on jigs. We won the pool, believe it or not, with a blue just shy of 2 lbs. We split the winngins at $65 a piece. Go figure…

Later in the year in September I fly fished the bay again with nothing to show for it – then headed out on the Miss Barnegat Light for blues and did nicely, again using jigs. These were 6 to 14 lb fish – the kind that leave your arms sore and put a big smile on your face. Anglers drifting chunk bait in the slick did better than us jiggers. The fish seemed a tad picky – unusual for the ever-hungry bluefish.

Bass fishing in late summer seemed to pick up for me. On one morning I did very well fishing the tail of a pool in the Susquehanna. I had noticed the distinctive water disturbance left by bass chasing baitfish and positioned myself to swing a white Murray’s streamer across the tailout. These fish were very aggressive and were marauding the very shallow parts of the tailout. I landed 4 very nice bass and lost 2 more before the action slowed. One fought like a snag the first few seconds, then had his way in the strong current before I lost him.

The Finger Lakes trib runs never happened unfortunately. I was ready and willing, but the rain just never came strong enough to trigger staging fish to move up the creeks. Oddly, rain did hit the Catskills late one week in October and I knew it would be the perfect set-up for streamer fishing for pre-spawn browns with attitude. I hit the West Branch of the Delaware with the river settling but still nice and murky. The streamer fishing could not have been better. 8 browns, colored up, the males with kypes and besting 18″ came to hand, with as many or more electrifying short takes including one practically a rod’s length away from me.

Striper fishing in the fall was an absolute bust thanks to Hurricane Sandy. I took a trip Thanksgiving weekend with my son, Chris, and no one on the boat caught a fish. I also caught a skunk on the Salmon River in November. The salmon were done then, and steelhead were caught, but not by this angler. Sometimes a river demands its dues before it graces your net.

It was certainly an odd year for me, book-ended by absolutely bests (early smallmouth and fall browns) and filled with some days when an angler should have stayed home and got some things done. What’s most important though is the learning and the loving of the outdoors. One often forgets a day not fished is one less day fishing.

As we wade into 2013, I’ll devote this blog more to musings, observations, commentary, and stories – mostly true – though this author always reserves the right to some poetic license. So if you arrive here in search of fly fishing reports, gear reviews, factoids, or fishing and conservation news, please check out my Examiner sites. But by all means stop and stay a while first – I hope my words to be a little chicken soup for the fly fishing soul, and maybe some motivation…

Look for my next post to be a recap of 2012, a very strange year indeed in my fly fishing ventures, and a look forward to 2013. There I’ll commit to some goals, destined, no doubt to be broken in the coming year with perhaps at least a few ringing true at year’s end. I’ll close this brief post with the words of Rainer Maria Rilke, hoping in 2013, we can all fly fish ever deeply and widely:

“go to the limits of your longing…”

And so it was that an angling angel hovered above me as I fished a streamer down a river braid of the Tioughnioga River a few weeks ago. I was approaching the junction where the braid creek joined back with the river. The angel showed itself, not in some whisper above my shoulder, but in the form of a fish. As I approached the junction, my eyes were on a broad riffle that looked oh-so-fishy. What my gaze missed, was the seam, where the fast current of the main river pushed against the deeper slow water of the river braid. At the point of the junction was a downfall  – beyond the downfall, the river current had built up a long thin bar of sand, silt, and cobblestone. Looking downstream to the right of the seam, the water was pure riffle; to the left of the seam, the water deepened and slowed. Along the ridge of the seam, long aquatic grass swayed in the current. It was a perfect ambush site, an area of about 20 to 30 feet in length, 10 feet in width and 2 feet in depth. There’s no doubt baitfish would congregate in the aquatic grass. It’s also not a surprise that bass would find the broken water of the riffle as good cover from above and the adjacent still water as a great place to hunt when the time was right.

The current seam that I almost waded through, saved by my angling angel.

As I closed on the seam, my angling angel appeared in the form of a solitary bass blitzing baitfish, sending them leaping for their lives. The blitz ended as quickly as it started, but awakened me to the fact that I was about to violate one of Harry’s cardinal rules had I continued wading right through the seam. I stopped and cast upstream towards the downfall, then stripped my “Murray’s Wounded Minnow” streamer through the seam. On my second such retrieve, my line pulled tight and got nice and heavy. In the current I could see the golden-brown broad-side flash of a large smallmouth as it tried to head to the safety of the riffle water. The fight ended in a long-distance release, but I was pleased to start the morning off with a good fish on the hook.

Thinking this was an isolated case, I violated a second rule – to never leave fish – and waded carefully upriver and then worked a streamer down and across the riffle. As good as that water looked, I picked up plump and feisty bass, several fallfish, and in the deeper pool beyond, a small walleye, but no more quality fish like the one I had encountered at the current seam.

Eventually I crossed the river and slowly worked back upstream to the seam. I was ready to head back to my car when I saw another blitz in the same spot. I quickly moved into position and cast my streamer. I was soon tight to another quality bass, but lost this one too after a brief brawl. Could there be more? I answered that question after a few casts and this time, tied into an even larger bass, dark in color, that shook its head in the current and then proceeded to skip across the water like a flying fish on takeoff. We tussled back and forth, but soon this bass was mine. I lipped the bass and felt the solid bite-down that only truly large bass give when first brought to hand. This fish had weight and wildness in it…

On the way back to the car I stopped at a deep hole in the river braid. As I waded the shallow side of this elbow pool, I spooked what I thought might be two bass. I let the spot rest a bit and carefully walked the bank back to where I had seen the fish. Sure enough, two very nice bass swam in small circles in the shallows, but I quickly recognized these fish were on the nest. I let them alone and headed back to the car. I’d be back in time, hopefully with my angling angel in tow.

And then there were times in the Persian Gulf when I was standing watch as Officer of the Deck, as our Captain, an avid angler, trolled off the fantail and passed steering orders up to the bridge via the aft lookout. Patrolling the calm waters of the Gulf, we tried our best to swing his lure over breaking schools of tuna.

On warm humid evenings in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, huge tarpon would school under the waterline security lights of our ship at dock, and Chief Peebles and I took turns hooking the beasts just to feel their raw speed and brute power before they broke us off on the hull. These great gamefish would take cheese on a large treble hook, probably because the scullery discharge set up a chum slick of sorts.

The ship’s crest…

No, this post, like one before it, is about men I knew who died in the tragic attack on the ship 25 years ago: May 17, 1987. It’s about the feeling so eloquently expressed in one episode of the film, Band of Brothers, when a German general speaks to his men:

Men, it’s been a long war, it’s been a tough war. You’ve fought bravely, proudly for your country. You’re a special group. You’ve found in one another a bond that exists only in combat, among brothers. You’ve shared foxholes, held each other in dire moments. You’ve seen death and suffered together. I’m proud to have served with each and every one of you. You all deserve long and happy lives in peace.

I have known men, fished with them, witnessed the beauty of nature with them on great rivers, but never have I known them as deeply as I have when I served aboard the USS Stark.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

It will be a tough day tomorrow…

The epic flood of 2011: the Susquehanna River ravages bank-side trees.

…plenty of cold water all year for trout, and way too much water for smallmouth bass fishing, causing an almost non-existent fall bass blitz. Anglers, especially the troutey types, have long suspected that without our typical snow-pack, the early season would be sweet-then-bitter; that is, relatively low flows and clear water, abnormally great early season fishing with phenomenal bug activity, followed by VERY low water, high temps, and trout-threatening conditions – and not bittersweet as it normally should be with mostly unfishable high water, followed by great late spring and summer flows, cool water, and normal hatches.

So it’s no surprise that, until most recently, I’ve been witnessing the East Branch of Owego Creek dwindle to what appears now to be early summer flows. Likewise, until recently, I’d cross the Main Street bridge from Endicott into Vestal and look for the telltale riffles that are my indicator that the river is ready for fly fishing. Normally I don’t wet a line in the Susky until July, at the earliest.

I’ll credit local fly angler Dave Pelachik for giving me the nudge to do something about what turned out to be the smallmouth bass fly fishing perfect storm. After reading of Dave’s success with early season smallmouth, I couldn’t help but think that the same thing could be happening on my beloved Susquehanna. The trib that Dave fished and the Susquehanna River are two completely differently acting bodies of water, but I started wondering if Dave’s trib success could be a leading indicator for my own on the Susquehanna.

A drive by my favorite spot on the Susquehanna on Saturday, April 14th, was the impetus to action. Driving north with my wife for a bit of wine tasting in the Finger Lakes, I did an “eyes right” on the spot as we sped by on Route 17 and boy, did it look good. As a result, I was up very early the following morning. I questioned whether I might be better off fishing the smaller rivers like the Tioughnioga or Chenango, but in the end, the pull of the big river and the possibility of big fish was too great. I succumbed to it and arrived at the DEC access at 7 a.m., and by 7:30, had the great pool in sight.

I focused my efforts on a long riffle that sweeps down into a deep chute of water. This riffle water borders a large pool that is fed by two river braids. I fished a conehead olive wooly bugger on a sink tip line, casting across and upstream in the riffle and letting my streamer swing. On my second cast I was rewarded with a heavy surge on the line followed by very solid thumps as a smallmouth turned broadside to the current. The bass fought like every bass does – dogged, determined, and never-giving in, all the way to hand…

Early season bronze...

That first bass, as with all first-of-the-year bronze, reminded me why I come back and fish our great rivers. Not long after releasing this heavy-bellied bass, I was into another quality bass with a totally different camo scheme…

Another fine bass with very different underwater camo...

Over the next few hours, the fishing just got better. I was in the zone, in tune with the fish it seemed, or just lottery-lucky to have found the right day, the right hour, and the right place.

Some of the bass were jumpers; others slugged it out beneath and on the surface. Colors varied just as much, but all were obviously on the feed. At one point, I hooked a nice bass and long distance released it, resulting in my fly rocketing back behind me. I promptly picked up the fly with a forward cast, only to feel resistance as if I’d snagged something. Spinning around, I found myself fast to another bass, but only briefly because of an obviously flawed hook-set!

After thoroughly fishing the riffle, I moved on to fish the adjacent pool. I worked the still water and the deep run from the bigger of the river braids and picked up a few more bass on an olive and gold zonker. I crossed the entry of the braid, worked it from the other side of the river, and the fishing really turned on. One of the bass I caught had a large minnow in its gut – another had the tips of two crayfish claws protruding from its  gullet. Every fish was beer-bellied, some almost grotesquely so. I could only assume the bigger ones were female bass ripe with eggs.

An olive conehead wooly bugger rang the dinner bell for this smallmouth...

In the midst of it all, I picked up two small walleyes and two nice-sized fallfish. Fallfish are feisty and readily take a streamer or nymph and what they lose in terms of jumping ability they make up for in flashy fighting. One of them came to hand with two others following it – something I’ve seen smallies do, but never fallfish. In several parts of this fishery I had found their huge “pebble pile” nests.

Of all the days I’ve spent on the river, this one was the best. I lost count of the bass, but had to have landed at least 20 – all quality fish – and lost half as many again. The hours I fished seemed to scream by, and soon the bewitching hour of 11 a.m was close at hand. I packed up, steeped in regret, and walked upriver to the DEC access. All the while, an imaginary angler taunted me with sage words of wisdom: “never leave fish”…

Serendipity means a “happy accident” or “pleasant surprise”; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking for it. The word has been voted one of the ten English words hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company.

Just so happens I found it along Cayuta Creek, a favorite trout fishery of mine and one that has been profiled here before. I had stopped by on a recent Friday evening for a bit of after-work fly fishing and as usual, the “little gem” did not disappoint…

One of many Cayuta browns that couldn't resist a picket pin streamer...

Fishing one particular stretch that evening, I quickly got into quite a few brown trout – a mix of stocked fish and holdovers. My peaceful 2 hour interlude was interrupted only once by a spin fisherman whose pick-up came to an abrupt stop, with a roar of its exhaust, near where I was fishing. He climbed out of his burly red truck, rappelled down the creek bank, simply outfitted with spinning rod, sunglasses and cigarette, and briefly stopped to ask how I’d done. He then walked downstream, casting his spinner from the bank in rapid-fire fashion. After just a half-dozen casts, he dashed upstream and out of sight.

I found the trout willing to dance with a Picket Pin streamer that had been sent a few weeks earlier, gratis, courtesy of Dave Pelachik of JJ’s Jigs. All it took to produce that magical buttery brown flash of a trout from the greenish depths of the pool was a cast across and upstream followed by a mend to get the fly deep and a few short strips on the swing. There were more short takes than I could count, but for a good while, this tactic produced a number of stockies along with several nice fish. Later, clouds of midges or tiny olives – I’m not sure which -  started hatching, with a few caddis interspersed, and the game changed. On went a Picket Pin wet and Godfather (pheasant tail) emerger. One out of every three or four casts was followed by classic staccato grabs on the swing that every wet fly fisherman dreams of in the depths of winter.

The fishing that evening was so enjoyable, I couldn’t resist another shot the following day. With my wife up in Rochester tending to my collegiate daughter, I figure I’d enjoy another day of the relative solitude that pre-opener fishing brings. I drove west from my home that Saturday and then north in the mid-morning overcast, belly full with the contents of the oh-so-good / oh-so-unhealthy Sausage Egg McMuffin I’d picked up along the way. It was another cool and damp day with spritzes of rain thrown in for good measure.

Driving along the length of Cayuta Creek, I saw only a few cars parked bank-side. But once I reached the special regs section above Van Etten, I noticed a somewhat familiar car in the exact spot I had parked the evening before. The tall gangly figure walking upstream along the road quickly confirmed my suspicions; it was none other than my long-lost fishing pal and former coworker, Dan…

I caught up to him in my car, practically squeezed him off the road, and extended a hearty hello. After parking, Dan patiently waited while I strung up – something I pointed out to him with emphasis since most times he’d be thigh deep in the creek before I’d barely donned my waders.

We fished the same run I’d fished the night before, then walked upstream to a favorite riffle below the bridge pool and fished the creek back down to where we parked, all the while catching up on goings on, re-telling old war stories, and enjoying the willing participation of the creek’s enthusiastic browns. I asked Dan why he hadn’t sent more flies to me, good tyer that he is, and he countered back about not getting him a ticket to the Al Hazzard TU banquet. Through it all, we both seemed at a loss to pinpoint exactly how long it had been since we last shared a day on the water.

Looking downstream on the "Little Gem".

I came that day not looking for anything but some quiet time fly fishing a special little creek, but as happens every once in a while in life, I found something else. As we worked one particularly deep hole, Dan mentioned the sudden passing of some former coworkers, and I could tell it was really bothering him. Interestingly, I too had just gotten word of a colleague from my past who had died at a still relatively young age. We talked about it and continued to fish, but maybe in the silence of each cast, we pondered our own tentative place on this good earth. Our banter picked up after that, as did the sharing of more good memories and the promise of more time on the water in each others company.

We fished every part of the creek on our way to where we parked. After climbing out of the creek and breaking down my gear at the car, all I could think of was a passage from T.S. Elliot’s poem, Little Gidding:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

It’s one thing to call up a friend and arrange a day of fly fishing, but quite another to arrive at the same place and pick up as if it had been thoroughly planned in advance. Serendipity is a good friend, indeed, and one I will cherish as long as I can wade a beautiful piece of water and cast a fly…