All through the winter that wasn’t, I stared at the fly box wondering which fly to use on opening day of trout season.
These aren’t store-bought flies, this isn’t just any fly box. This is the Rosetta Stone of Catskill fly fishing given to me by Nick Lyons, the legendary angler, author, editor, publisher, professor, and friend of arts and letters.
Beginning with summers spent in Byrdcliffe in the 1960s and continuing full-time until last year, Nick probably caught, released, or chronicled most of the trout living in the Sawkill Creek running through Woodstock.
As Nick prepared to return permanently to the city last summer, I stopped by his Mead’s Mountain home to bid him farewell. As we said our goodbyes, he held out a box of trout flies labeled “Early Season/East.” Did my children and I had any use for it? Nick’s eyes sparkled as my hands moved toward the box.
Like a wild brook trout rising to a fly, I took it and raced for the door. Like a seasoned angler releasing his catch back into the stream, Nick let me go.
Nick’s first published work, “Mecca” for Field & Stream in November 1968, recounts the true tale of Hawkes, based on Catskill angling genius Frank Mele, who nets several trophy trout with a dozen casts on the Beaverkill while Nick and his companion are skunked. Despite entreaties, Hawkes refuses to divulge his fly selection. Instead, he remarks on the beauty of the mountain sunset.
Over the next five decades, Nick’s essays frequently muse over the vexing question of which fly will attract a particular trout on a given day. His Early Season/East fly box built of lightweight plastic with stainless-steel hinges and filled with hand-tied flies often holds the key to unlocking this riddle.
Lyons stands out among the golden age of outdoor writers for his thoughtfulness, versatility, and skill. In addition to a regular column over two decades for Fly Fisherman Magazine, Nick’s angling accounts across six continents were published in Field & Stream, Sports Afield, and Trout, not to mention The New York Times, National Geographic, and Harper’s. His forewords, prefaces, and introductions grace the volumes of other fine outdoor writers and sporting essays. He also edited and published the broadest and best treasury of angling literature titles of all time, “A Catskill Angling Rosetta Stone.” If you own a book about fishing, good chances are he either wrote, edited, or published it.
Nick’s own books beginning with “The Seasonable Angler,” published in 1970, continue in reprints and circulate widely among well-read angling enthusiasts. Nick Lyons is a writer’s writer, but without a doubt, he is an angler’s angler.
Rather than contact Nick, who unlike the legendary Hawkes remains quite generous with his time and advice, I decide to consult his writings on selecting the proper fly for the early season. Under the guidance of Phoenicia librarians, I pour over the volumes at their Jerry Bartlett Angling Collection, beginning with the definitive field manual on trout flies, Art Flick’s “New Streamside Guide to Naturals and Their Imitations,” first published in 1947.
Flick, an ardent conservationist and angling companion of Nick’s, ran a tavern in West Kill near the Schoharie Creek and led the effort to establish the state’s first no-kill section on the stream. He observed a dozen flies on the Schoharie over a three-year period and noted the times of day when specific nymphs emerge from the streambeds. Anglers refer to this period, when trout feed voraciously on the insects, as a hatch.
Nick brought Art Flick’s invaluable resource back into print in 1970. In “Fishing Widows,” published in 1974, he writes that a house fire destroyed his original copy of “Streamside Guide” and prompted him to track down Flick and arrange to publish a new edition. This intersection of Lyons’ss piscatorial obsession and publishing acumen began a string of reprints of classic fishing literature that anglers rely on to this day.
Flick pinpointed the Quill Gordon as the harbinger of spring mayflies and logged April 22nd as its earliest hatch date on the Schoharie. This year, buds were already popping on trees at lower elevations by late February. Stream temperatures were rising. The warming climate was prompting insect life to begin their annual cycle of life sooner than usual. I wince at the thought of waiting for a spring hatch that one day may never come.
I find two handsome Quill Gordons in Nick’s fly box. Both share the alternating light and dark body stripes, the telltale sign of a peacock’s-eye quill. Thin brown bars on the delicate tan wings clearly denote feathers from a wood-duck flank. The soft bristly hackle surrounding the fly’s upper body is slightly trimmed at the bottom. These are exquisite flies tied by a master based on the pattern Theodore Gordon originated in the 1800s when dressing the first Quill Gordon. Perhaps this Catskill classic is my fly for opening day.
I decide to consult Nick’s essays. I recall that he read a story from his re-issued “Bright Rivers” at The Golden Notebook in 2014 about his youngest son Anthony’s first opening day years ago.
Sure enough, in “The Pilgrimage” Nick writes that he, his angling buddy Mike, and Anthony came up from the city for opening day on a cold April 1 morning. Once on the water, they spied three Quill Gordons emerging. Countless casts in the cold, heavy spring runoff produced no trout. The day ended abruptly when a strong current swept Anthony off his feet and plunged him into the chilly creek. This brought their troutless opening day to an end, and they retreated to warmer environs.
Nick’s words sound all too familiar. I recall I once tumbled down an embankment on the North Platte River in Wyoming while watching my own father hip-deep in the current casting for trout. I examine the translucent fly box again, and remove a Hendrickson and its counterpart, the Red Quill, from the middle compartments. I hold them in the sunlight shining on my desk and listen closely to hear any clues they might reveal. These are the only two mayflies that require distinct female and male imitations. Both the female Hendrickson and male Red Quill are similarly dressed with wood duck feathers for wings, but the Hendrickson body is wrapped with the light-colored underbelly fur of a juvenile female fox or the hair of a fawn, while the Red Quill body uses a ruddy quill from a Rhode Island Red rooster. The stiff tails of both flies use spade or barb hackles from the feathers of a hen’s neck.
The “Streamside Guide” notes that the emergence of the Hendrickson and Red Quill overlaps with the Quill Gordon, and trout will ignore most Quill Gordons once the Hendrickson and Red Quills appear. Flick cites the earliest hatch of Red Quills as April 29th. I eye the intricately manipulated ruddy quill strapped to steel hook. Again, I notice that the underhackle has been cropped.
To learn about this mysterious trimming, I contact Ed Ostapczuk, a year-round angler, skilled fly-tier, and a director of the Ashokan Pepacton Watershed Chapter of Trout Unlimited. Ed suggests I bring the flies to the February Trout Unlimited meeting – the annual gathering of the fly-tiers at the Boiceville Inn.
A few days later, I arrive to find half a dozen others preparing their vices and selecting their feather dressings. Ed marvels at the flawless artistry of the dry flies in the Early Season/East box – the Cream Variants, March Browns, Blue-winged Olives. He explains that a trimmed underbelly keeps the flies lower on the water’s surface.
When I ask him which fly is best for opening day, Ed shakes his head. He concedes that it may be too early for any of these dry flies, but I know what he’s thinking: These are Nick Lyons’s flies.
Use any of them.
The next day, I retreat to the Bartlett collection at the Phoenicia Library and listen to a recording of a presentation Nick gave in December 2017. I remember how anglers packed the room and flowed down the hallway. The library’s recording of Nick’s gentle voice discussing Art Flick and the Schoharie fills my ears. I wonder what Nick is up to in the city. Perhaps, I should just call him and ask which fly he recommends I use. Unlike the mythical Hawkes whom he wrote about in “Mecca” over 50 years ago, I’m sure Nick will gladly tell me.
Twenty or more volumes written or edited by Nick Lyons tower beside me. I open the book on top of the pile, “My Secret Fishing Life,” a collection of his later essays published in 1999. I begin reading “A Fly Fisher’s Spring,” and the passage leaps from the page: “There was a spark of light on the surface, the bird sounds, the circles on the surface, the swooping birds. I tucked my rod under my arm, fetched out a box of early-season flies, found a Red Quill, and soon had my first fish of the new year. It was a bright brown, icy in my hands, not quite ten inches.”
I have found it, the answer to my riddle. In Nick’s own words. I lean back in the refurbished camp chair salvaged from the fire that gutted much of the old Phoenicia Library. I am surrounded by written memories of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of anglers many of whom, like Nick, have called the mystical Catskill waters their home.
I think I will invite my daughter to join me on a hike to the upper Sawkill, where the stream is bright and laughs as it flows out from Echo Lake before it tumbles through Bearsville and makes its run through Woodstock. With patience, we will find a trout or two feeding in the riffles who have already met Nick Lyons and his Red Quill.
Join the family! 
