Wade Rivers

A little slice of paradise...

Early spring in the Catskills can be a variable affair. One can hope on experiencing some of the earliest and best dry fly action of the year but mother nature can always throw a curveball in the form of low temperatures. Sometimes the best of intentions and the highest of expectations cannot be fulfilled, but the least you can do is try. More simply put, you won't know, if you don't go. 

The Tides of Spring

Getting spoiled...

My first extended carp outing on my Diablo Paddlesports Chupacabra came at the end of April on a nice sunny day. The tides aligned well out in the bay and I anticipated some good action in the first half of the morning. I awoke early and paddled out into the fray but it ended up being colder and much windier than I had anticipated. For five hours, I didn't see a single fish. Without a jacket, I paddled around and shivered in the wind straining to see any sign of the golden ghosts. I even contemplated spending the hour paddling back to my car against the tide but thankfully decided to stick it out. Things turned on in a matter of minutes and I ended up having a banner session with more than a dozen fish landed and plenty of monsters that got away. I usually only catch a few twenties each year, but I ended up catching more in three hours than I did all of last summer. It was epic...

#brownsylvania

          Vacation arrived at the end of March and my brother Matt and I planned on fishing together, in the Spring, for the first time in six years. It felt like and played out similar to those scenes in A River Runs Through It, where Norman leaves for Dartmouth for six years, while Paul stays in Helena, unable to leave the fish he had yet to catch. In our case, my brother moved abroad to teach internationally, while I stayed on the east coast, also teaching, but honing my craft on a variety of species in the Mid-Atlantic region. Of course, we were able to fish together in the summer, but not on some of the more fabled waters of Pennsylvania or the Catskills. Matt was really looking forward to these Spring trips, probably more than any summer trip we've taken on our summer's off. I was eager to show him some of the waters and the trout he can now look forward to each subsequent Spring...