Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Happy New Year ......Resolutions?



Well, the New Year is now here and thinking about January makes me think about some of my favorite fishing. Customers who know me well know it as "Icebox fishing". Hard to imagine that the past few days, particularly when the thermometer is pushing 60F and we sweat a little as we take the Christmas decorations down and stow them for another year. And maybe that new rod will come next year.....

In any case, the time of year makes me reflect on what makes winter fishing so unique. Maybe one thing about it is just that it seems that all the odds are stacked against you and to still catch fish puts some sort of imaginary and unspoken medal on your flyfishing vest. Maybe its the often total solitude that winter fishing can bring as the worse the weather conditions are the better your guarantee of some peace and quiet. Or maybe if there's snow, the kind of silence and serenity that a little of the white stuff brings. Or maybe that its just that itch to get out fishing, a passion that burns inside that maybe is willing to endure a little pain and suffering, if that's what it is, just to make one more cast and catch one more fish. I think its all of those things......if we're honest.

I reflect on some of the unusual trips I have had in the winter. I have fished along with friends before only to have one of us fall and submerge up to our necks in cold, mountain water. Yikes!!! Not one of those floundering stumbles where you catch your toe on the edge of a rock while trying to cast and still make an upstream step ( a surefire way to go down, if you haven't tried it or can't like me wait long enough to get into a good position and then cast), those types of stumbles happen often enough. You know, the kind that causes a tremendous splash and gets the attention of anyone within an earshot of your position. Those are embarassing.......but lack the grace and the completeness of a good ol' face first or complete fall that soaks one head to toe in ice cold water. These falls are not for the weak or faint of heart.....no, they have an ability like nothing else to awaken one, and quite quickly. No, these are falls that would score a 9 or 10 if someone were in a tree stand on the bank and playing judge. I am not sure what hurts worse, the pain of ice cold water soaking you from head to toe on a day where its barely above freezing, or the embarrassment of having to crawl out of an stream with everyone watching only to go back to the car, strip to your underwear and blast the heat wide open for a solid hour. And as bad as that sounds, underneath all of it is an intense desire to get back out there and catch one more fish.......

When winter comes I also think of the trip when my wife Kathy and I had hiked into the Slaty Fork of the Elk River in West Virginia. When we hiked in it was around 35F or so, and drizzly, but with the feeling of impending snow. She had grabbed the wrong jacket and found herself after an hour or so pretty damp and feeling quite cold. Were we not catching fish it would have been easy to turn around and head out. But it started to snow heavily, and it was getting colder, and we had to find some way to make a fire. Looking in my vest I perused through all of the wonderful gadgetry, great as it is at doing flyfishing things..., and realized all this great stuff was of no use for what we needed. But I had one old tube of a favorite paste type floatant, it was called "Dave's Bug Flote". It is a product distributed by Umpqua, and marketed as Dave Whitlock's floatant formula. I now wonder if Dave must have found himself in our shoes at some time in the past. All I know is that I gathered some sticks and leaves and applied some Bug Flote to the rubble and with a few strikes of the lighter was able to start a fire. The flyfishing retail spirit inside wondered if I had just discovered a new , marketable use for Dave's Bug Flote.....whether I did or didn't my wife and I certainly appreciated the nice, blazing little fire that now flourished before us. So remember that, if you need to start a fire, always count on Dave's Bug Flote.

One last tidbit I remember about that West Virginia trip was that my wife's brand new SAGE LL 586 fell from a tree it was leaning against and landed right across the fire while we had walked about 20 yds down to the river. When we walked up, I shrieked as I saw it lying there, across the fire, blank burned into and a brand new ORVIS wonderline scorched in two. It was one of those moments where I felt tremendous loss and comfort almost at the same time, once I realized the rod thankfully had a warranty. To our good I sent the rod back to SAGE and they faithfully repaired and returned the rod to me in new condition. I also wondered if they asked themselves how someone managed to burn a new fly rod in half. Like everything though, the embarrassment passed with time, at least enough to be telling you now.

So there you have it, winter has had many interesting moments for me. I forgot to mention that we caught fish.......rainbows.......lots of them......with no one else fishing......in a fresh fallen snow......how much better than that can it get? Til next time..........enjoy your cold weather fishing...

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