January 9, 2012 fishing in the winter is not for the meek and mild, most fishermen stay inside, perhaps tie a few flies, of watch their favorite fishing video—I don’t know. For one, being out in the cold can be tough, especially standing waist high in the river; it sucks the heat out of your core. When you do get out of the water, your boots freeze, sometimes welding your laces to your boots and putting your socks to the test to see if they can keep your little piggy’s warm.
If it’s really cold, your eyelets on your rod freeze over, and your line can’t slide through when you cast; the line itself becomes like a frozen rope. Oddly enough I have actually caught fish with my line like this, with frozen flies too—don’t ask me to explain that. When it’s really cold, and it gets to your hands, the last thing you want to do is change flies, it’s hard to tie any knot. I don’t wear gloves because it’s just too hard for me to fish with them on. I like to open a pack of hand warmers and keep then in a pocket, it helps gripping one tucked inside the front of your waders.
I don’t want to talk about wind—a fly fisherman’s nemesis. I have actually hated wind my whole life; oh I get its purpose, it’s a needed element, especially in the Salt Lake valley in the dead of January with a thick heavy blanket of inversion. But when you’re in it, especially when it’s mixed with snow, and your trying to cast into it, or read your line on the water, it turns you into a complete illiterate. When the wind blows snow sideways, and your feet are solid, your line is frozen in place, and you slip on the ice and land flat on you back, you do wonder if you should be home watching someone else fish on TV.
But there are also those days, when you don’t see other fishermen on the river, and the world is a blanket of white tranquility. The sound of the running water is calming, and comforting. There are days when the clouds part, and the day heats up to the mid 40’s and the midge and caddis start moving, and we all know what that means.
I had one of those days a few weeks ago on the South Fork. I had a size 24 black midge on the top, casting into this beautiful bend. On the first cast, I saw a rainbow come up to look. I make about four or five more casts, and each time he looked with more interest. I was ready for this; I would like to say I was due, but I have learned from fishing that there is no due. The next cast I must admit was good, no it was great; I placed it perfectly into the current, so that it would bring it by him in just the right spot. He rose to it, and I thought he would take it, but then I could see his pectoral fins move, and he started backing up. Slowly he moved closer, bringing his nose to the fly, opened his mouth and slowly slurped my midge in. I waited for him to go down, and set the hook—fish on. I landed him, but I didn’t really even care about that; the game was all about the take and set.
I went on to catch more fish that day; but that fish was spectacular. It’s not always about catching fish. Even in the dead of winter, it’s about being in the wild, being on the river. Some winter days when the sun parts and the snow shimmers with the light, and the fish feed on the hatch you would swear to God that fishing could not get any better, and that every other season are not even worth going.
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