Farenheight 41

     On the coolest morning yet in this early fall season, I found my trusty knit hat, and took the familiar route. 

     I had all intentions of hitting the Esopus this morning, but for the last few days Catskill Flies has been reporting it as "orange-unfishable".  I haven't been over there personally, so I was only left to believe that was the case.  To the Croton I went.

     Let me just fast-forward for a moment.  This was my foam fly patch on my chest pack, at the conclusion of the day.  Take a look.

     You'll notice it's bare.  Not a fly on it.  This is the sign that a good day was had.  On those afternoons where I come back to the car with this black patch filled with size 20 zebra midges, a dry-dropper tandem, a #4 streamer, an emerger, tippet hanging off of it... you know I was frustrated.  And, oh baby, can I get frustrated.  But today, empty.

     For anyone that frequents the Croton system, you should freely admit that you spend a lot of time getting your flies out of the canopy of trees that shelter the water.  Well, good news and bad news... The good news is that a lot of the leaves are falling around the banks, and so directly overhead, the branches are thinning out and actually, having lost the weight of the leaves, are now several feet higher.  Thus, more casting room.  Now the bad news.  They're all in the water, still alive, and ready to snag your flies!  I hooked a nice sized oak leaf today on a downstream swing that gave me quite a thrill! 

     41 degrees at first cast; the water was noticeably warmer than the air.  But the fishing was so much hotter than that.  Here are just a couple of the highlights; under the honor system, I did not duplicate any fish in consecutive photos.  The thickness of these fish in this system is so impressive. 

     Today's ticket was very simple - it was my generic brown rubberleg stonefly in the dropper position, followed by a #18 unweighted natural pheasant tail trailed off in the anchor position.  The stonefly in the front took the rig "down" and actually provided 75% of the fish today.  However, that little PT on anchor--much to my surprise-- provided for the bigger fish that you see above.

     The last picture above is pretty neat.  Earlier this week I tied up a few streamers; my own mix between a zonker and a slumpbuster. I guess you could call it a zonkbuster.. but I just call that pattern "the streamer that I tied." 

     Every once in a while, I just had to look around and keep asking if today was real.... The last six weeks have been such a dream.