Many of us who fly fish, especially those who are well along in years, still maintain a reverence for the traditional opening day of trout season, taking place on April 1 in New York State. That is in spite of the fact that a few years ago, the DEC’s Bureau of Fisheries extended the season for river trout fishing from October 1 until March 31 the following year, but with no-kill regulations. There are exceptions; for example, a number of waters, especially some tributaries of the Great Lakes, will remain open to harvest all year.

But for us traditionalists, our fly rods more often than not will be cased by mid-October. That’s when sadness and perhaps melancholy begin, with another Catskill winter a few weeks away. And that’s when the wait starts.

Those who fly fish, fish that way because of the flies, mainly mayflies. For us, it’s all about the hatches, the procession of aquatic insects that begins sometime in mid-to-late April. It starts with quill Gordon, Hendrickson/red quill, pale evening duns, March browns/gray foxes, sulphurs, Isonychias, green drakes and light Cahills. There is a smattering of other flies along with several species of caddis that make up this annual smorgasbord of trout food, and to which we look forward to fishing as well.

By the first week of April, anglers begin to check stream flow and water temperatures, hoping for normal conditions, which during the last several years, seldom occurred. Instead, it has been cold in the Catskills with too much rain, high flows and with some hatches, mostly Hendrickson/red quills, un-fishable because of water and weather.

If we’re lucky, flows will recede, rivers will warm, and we might catch the tail end of the Hendrickson/red quill hatch, which can continue into May. There will be some Hendrickson spinners around at that time, too.

As the end of May approaches, the first hatches of pale evening duns will appear in the late afternoon or at dusk, depending on the river. Through all of this insect activity, day length will increase daily, allowing us more time on the water.

The parade of fly hatches will continue well into June, before ending with the evening emergences of Isonychia bicolor at the end of the month. By then, summer will be in full swing, flows dropping and freestone rivers warming to the degree that some, like sections of the Beaverkill, will be closed to fishing because of high water temperatures.

Beginning in July, on some rivers, Trico hatches will begin, around nine in the morn
ing, and offer about two hours of fishing to the spinner fall, if there is no wind. The Trico hatch will provide the bulk of summer fishing for anglers, except on the tailwaters, where sulphurs may extend into August, which is an anomaly due to cold bottom releases.

Then sometime in July, the olives will begin and emerge well into October, for those anglers willing to fish through the cold. So what began with a great deal of hope for coming hatches and fishing opportunities in the spring will end with all the major insect activity over until the following year.

The anticipation toward this frenzy of aquatic insect activity that drew us to the river will begin to taper off in late April, as we head toward the summer solstice on June 21, which is the longest day of the year. A day when I stayed on the river until well after 9 p.m., hoping for one last rise. The next day will lose a minute of daylight and begin an ever so slow but steady journey toward fall. Sooner or later, dead poplar leaves will cover the two-track that leads into camp, announcing a change—definitely a sign that fall is not that far off.

As I look back to February and March and recall all the expectations I had for another opening of trout season, there is more than a little shock that the summer solstice is already upon us. It’s a subtle message that the days will slowly shorten as we go forward. By August, the angle of the afternoon sun will be lower over the home pool, as it continues its journey toward dusk. And the night air will offer a slight chill, a reminder of the season.

Some say that as we age, time appears to speed up. I don’t know if that is true. What I do know is that the time from the beginning of trout season on April 1 to the summer solstice on June 21 happens in the blink of an eye. And once the summer solstice appears on the calendar, we begin “going the other way,” on our way to fall. For me, as an aging angler, the summer solstice, while the longest, is one of the saddest days of the year.