PROMISE OF THE SEASON

by Robert Romano – Photo by Trish Romano

This morning a pair of wood ducks replaced the mallards, first to appear earlier this month on the pond behind our house. The wood ducks flew in sometime after dawn. They were there when we woke, nervous birds, flying off as soon as we opened a window. For weeks we’ve heard gobbles and clucks of turkeys coming from the deep woods. A few days back a small flock of hens and another of immature jakes ventured into the yard to peck at the seed under our bird feeders. Lately, toms have appeared strutting onto the pond’s earthen dam, the ducks unimpressed with their elaborate display.

Not long after first light, the sound of Canada geese fills the sky. Chipmunks, popping their heads out from between rock walls, scurry afield, returning to their tunnels with cheeks full of seed found under the bird feeders or if lucky, an acorn or pig nut left over from the fall. Deer mice, always randy, snuggle in a twig-and-cedar-bark nest built between the cordwood stacked against the back wall of the woodshed.

After breakfast, Trish begins putting away the winter decorations, opening the windows to air out the rooms stale with ash and smoke from the woodstove. Ladybugs, awakening earlier in the month, boldly roll over the bedroom walls, along bathroom cabinets and onto kitchen counters. The dogs spend extended
periods of time patrolling the twelve acres surrounding our home, Winslow Homer eager to introduce Finnegan to the old woodchuck whose burrow lies in the field adjacent to my vegetable garden.

The skies are as changeable as the temperature. One moment the sun is shining, the next rain is spitting down from constantly shifting clouds. Earlier this month, winter clung to the evenings, but warmer weather gradually claimed the afternoons and by now temperatures swing from the high forties to the mid- sixties and everywhere in between.

Birdsong sweeps up from the lower fields and through the winter-weary gardens, filling the trees. Goldfinches, having discarded their drab feathers for those of bright yellow, squabble with chickadees, nuthatches, and titmice.

Each morning, an extended family of crows sweeps down from the branches of hardwoods, flying off when they see us spying on them. A series of raucous cries announces a flock of blue jays flying in from parts unknown. During the first week of the month, robins joined the jays, stutter stepping across the lawn, their heads sideways, eyes staring toward the damp grass for earthworms.

Daffodils have sprung up along the edges of Trish’s gardens and with the first warm days of the month, their golden flowers spread across the otherwise ashen landscape. The yellow florets of Forsythia bushes are ready to burst forth. In the vegetable garden, chives spring back to life and ruffled tips of rhubarb struggle to break through the soft earth.

Although I’ve been streamside a half-dozen times during March, the fish were unwilling to rise to my flies no matter how careful the cast or delicate the presentation. Once, while drifting a tiny nymph along the very bottom of a slow-moving run I felt a tug, but it could have been a leaf, twig or rock rather than a trout’s attempt to shake off its winter doldrums.

Like the trout, I too must adjust to the new season. There is a rhythm to my fishing, in the way I gather my gear, slip on my waders, the manner in which I wade the stream, carry my rod, present my flies. This time of year, my fingers fumble over knots, my casts miss their target, muscles resisting the hike up the side of the stream, memory tugging at lessons learned, until once more remembered.

This afternoon, with the temperature rising into the sixties and the sun warm on the back of my neck, I tramp down the deer trail leading to Bonnie Brook, hoping the fish will once again be looking toward the surface.

In my fly box are a number of patterns meant to imitate Blue Quills, hearty, dun-colored mayflies hatching on this wild trout stream about the same time the Forsythia bloom. This time of year, the nymphs rise from the bottom of this mountain brook where I’ve spent so many springs, emerging through the surface
film with gossamer wings. They look like tiny yachts tacking with the wind as they dry their upright wings. Those bugs surviving the trout’s inevitable onslaught will flutter upward where phoebes, swallows, and cedar waxwings take their share, a silent opera played out under late-April’s dark, rain-threatening skies.

This afternoon it becomes evident that there will be no Blue Quills hatching on Bonnie Brook, at least not on this afternoon. Staring into my fly box, I decide upon a pheasant-tail dry fly, a pattern with a parachute wing that has worked well on days when there is little insect activity. Flipping my little cane rod over my right shoulder, I flick my forearm forward, propelling the fly over a tiny plunge pool.

It is in that moment, while the little fly flutters over the rush of water that winter’s daydreams may become a reality, hope fulfilled, faith restored.