Remembrance of Winters Past.........

It happens every winter with the first shot of real cold weather. As I sit at my tying table, which happens a great deal this time of the year, I reflect on winters past as I tie flies and fill boxes that will quite soon be seeing some fishing action.

Lows in the low teens and single digits in the high country bring to mind the days of fishing the epic black fly hatches below Gathright Dam on Virginia's Jackson River tailwater. It was a sight to behold. As soon as 10:00 would come around, one fish rose, then two, then three, then a whole river would come alive with rising fish. I think the coldest I have ever fished was on that river it was 10F, and we were catching fish on #24 dry flies on 8x......... I also remember one of the funniest things I have ever done as well. My good friend Malcolm Robertson and I came up with some extended body cream midge pattern that was kind of off the wall, only to find out that the fish loved it. We were at the Super 8 in Covington trying to figure out where we might find some more material or what might work as a substitute. I can remember thinking to myself, ".....if we could just find some rubbery, skinny, stretchy material....." then it came to us. Underwear!!!! White briefs have a rubber leg material type wasteband inside and guess what......it worked! We ruined a new pair of briefs but filled the box with a handful of flies the fish were crazy over. I will never forget that trip.

And then there's the desperate trip to Stone Mtn. It was the winter of 1997, and my friend Jim Sellers, a customer, and I all headed up to Stone Mtn in hopes of finding at least some fishable water. We had had weeks of cold weather and most places were frozen. All the water at the park was frozen sans a little strip about 3 feet wide right down the middle. We found a large pool, and could see some brookies cruising in it. We walked out onto the ice, and we crunched our way out toward the middle of the pool. There Jim and I like beached whales flipped, flopped, and bounced up and down, fracturing the ice and opening up an area where we could fish. As ice would break loose, we'd push it into the 3ft wide stream of water and send it on its way. In no time we had opened up an area large enough to fish. The fish were spooked of course, but we let the water rest for an hour or so and then came back to fish. We all ended up catching fish, Jim even caught one on a dry fly. Sometimes you just have to make the most of what is in front of you, and we did!