Wooly buggers. Egg patterns. Griffith’s gnat. I suppose I could switch it up a little bit and tie something crazy like a wooly worm or a green weenie, but why spread myself thin?
I’ve had the materials and a little bit of the knowledge to tie flies for about fifteen years now, but I’ve only been seriously tying for three days. That’s because I received a legitimate vise for Christmas. Now, I’m a serious tyer. Or is it “tier?” Maybe I should figure that out, since I’m serious now.
Blessings of faith, family, and fish to you and yours!
You’re a mean one, Mr. Nymph.
You really are a heel.
Even though you catch all the fish,
You make me fish by feel,
Mr. Nymph.
You’re a bad little hare’s ear with some tungsten steel.
You’re a monster, Mr. Nymph.
You disappear in holes.
Why can’t you be a spider?
Or some other terrestrial, Mr. Nymph?
I wouldn’t fish you with a
10-and-a-half-foot pole.
Being seasonably relevant, Hatch Magazine recently sent links out via social media to the 2014 article Winter Fly Fishing: Leave the Cotton at Home. It is a brief, but sufficient public service announcement that makes a great case for eschewing jeans and sweatshirts in favor of much more efficient materials. As the piece mentions, efficiency is second in importance to safety: certain fabrics, like cotton, can be downright dangerous in winter conditions.
Anyone who has been wet in denim can attest to this. This excludes those who see jorts (the delightful portmanteau of “jeans” and “shorts,” for the cultured or otherwise uninitiated) as appropriate water park wear. I’ve heard that telltale clicking of blue jean rivets against water slide seams from Wisconsin Dells to Myrtle Beach. I have to assume that Gold Bond sees an uptick in sales from those who make the choice to don denim as a swimsuit alternative. Unfortunate fashion and inevitable rashes in the summer aside, jeans are not the article of clothing for winter fishing.
I don’t think it has ever really happened to me. One time, I came close. I’ll get to that in a minute. Perhaps coming close doesn’t get you in Field & Stream, or it won’t even justify somebody telling others to “come over and hear this!” I’m talking about catching a fish on the last cast. Not just a fish on the last cast, but a fish caught on the last cast after a day of being skunked.
As I mentioned earlier in the week, this fish-tale is taken with the same sort of seriousness as a sasquatch sighting or a chupacabra encounter. Like the “big one that got away” or the “sorry I overslept, man – my alarm must be broken,” all fly fishers that spend time with other fly fishers have heard this preposterous story.
Was it really the last cast? Or, after catching said fish did they keep at it with a new sense of confidence?
Had they really been fishless up until that point? Or was their 8-inch stocker a perfectly legitimate catch before the “real fish” was conquered?
Maybe I’m alone in living through this phenomenon. Or perhaps like anything else in human experience, it is one of those constants that every angler comes to know numerous times in their life. I’m talking about catching a fish right off the bat, and then getting skunked for the rest of the day.
This all might seem like minutiae that only over-analytical fly fishers bent on discerning deeper meaning would consider. I’ll give you that. But I do think that there is something to say for the whole emotional roller coaster that such a dilemma puts you on.
Of all the reasons that a summer camp counselor would come into a room full of teenagers to tell them to be quiet, it might have been one of the most unique. It wasn’t the camp movie comedy tropes of cigarettes or coed mischief. That night, after lights out, four or five of us were up listening to the stories of another counselor – a septuagenarian fisherman and conservationist. In the end we didn’t get scolded for being awake. It was probably because he wasn’t the average counselor, and it wasn’t a normal summer camp.
Founded in 1995, the Pennsylvania Rivers Conservation and Fly Fishing Youth Camp was the very first of its kind. Today, over 25 camps across the country emulate the model started by a few Trout Unlimited members that sought to fill a niche for young people attracted to the outdoors. At that time, sports camps and other special interest summer programs were becoming more popular, but there wasn’t anything for young men and women interested in conservation. Put together by Dr. John “Jack” Beck, Enoch “Inky” Moore, and a number of other dedicated volunteers, the Rivers Camp was an immediate success.
Last week, the second Fly Fishing & Outdoor Company Holiday Meetup took place in Boston. In the basement of West End Johnnies, a handful of New England enterprises and around fifty attendees spent the evening talking fishing and fishing products.
This was by no means the Somerset Fly Fishing Show. It was something completely different, and something very good. Primarily presented by the Fly Pack and Cheeky, a dozen established and up and coming outdoorsmen and women took a few hours to chat in an intimate setting. It was small, but quaint. There wasn’t the need to hurry around a huge conference hall, and the atmosphere facilitated casual conversation.
I didn’t get a chance to talk with everyone, but here are some quick impressions on those companies I spent some time with:
Scrolling Instagram and Twitter, there are a lot of “wishing it was summer” posts. Pictures of short-sleeved anglers against ardent backdrops do make you wish that the weather – and the hatches – was a little different. But it can’t be, at least not for much of the world. So suck it up and deal with it.
Okay, maybe that is some sub-40-degree bitterness coming out. But let’s look at this with a level head. So most of us don’t reside in a perpetual high-70’s climate. For a lot of fly fishers there is a time when ice literally makes a proper presentation, not to mention a drift-free drag, impossible. Is that such a bad thing? Is the promise of spring and a few month’s distractions all that bad? Probably. But is it as bad as we make it out to be?
I wholeheartedly believe that the late fall and winter give most of us a chance to catch up on other things, and that it is a “net good.” Deer and turkey hunting, tying flies, watching the football playoffs, spending time with family… Yeah, imagine if Thanksgiving and Christmas lined up with the green drake or trico hatches. Your behavior would most definitely not help you get that new fly rod for Christmas.
After thinking and writing about the progress on Big Spring Creek in Pennsylvania last week, it got me thinking about other famous streams that have fallen on hard times. Largely due to the impacts of poor fisheries management and/or environmental neglect, some of the rivers that our grandfathers lauded as destination waters have declined in one way or another. The quantity or quality of the fish just isn’t there anymore. There are still fish present, and there is still good fishing to be had, but things have changed. And people don’t like change.
We could argue the various and sundry issues that face our rivers all day long. Everyone has an opinion as to what the real culprit or culprits are. I’ve heard that the real problem comes from corrupt state agencies, climate change, invasive species, fast action fly rods, twenty-somethings in flat-brimmed hats, strike indicators, the picture of the fish strung up on the Eagle Claw snelled hook package, the media, the internet, or, of course, bait fishermen. Some of those are worthy of consideration, others are simply the curmudgeonly rants of disenfranchised fly fishers. But should any of it keep us off those creeks?
