The Angler in Winter  

What are we to do, as we watch the fishing season draw to a close, knowing well that we have not had nearly enough use of our fly rod to see us through the coming winter?  As if that would ever be possible.  I don’t know about you, but even after a week-long fishing trip I remain sated only for a few days.  Then my fly fishing addiction reasserts itself and I want more.

If you have the means and opportunity to do it, go South this winter.  Maybe to Florida or the Caribbean.  Or even to the Southern Hemisphere, to places like New Zealand or Argentina, where the trout fishing is at its peak in the very dead of our winter.  Thanks to the kind invitation of a dear friend, I have a rare opportunity to go South for some exotic fishing late this coming winter.  The anticipation of that trip is already a sweet thing, and will be ever more so as the cold days advance.   

Or, if you can stand it, fish through the winter here.  Many of our trout streams in the Mid-Atlantic region can be fished the year around, so long as they don’t freeze up.  And what if our waters do go hard?  Well, again, if you can stand it, there is always ice fishing.  And although the most popular ice fishing method is fishing bait of various kinds on “tip-ups,” there is such a thing as an “ice fly,” which is surely a lot more sporting.  Personally, regardless of the method, I find ice fishing mind-numbing as well as finger-and-toe numbing.  I could see myself becoming an ice fisherman only if I lived in the upper Mid-West where the winters are very long and very cold and the inhabitants of those parts know how to do it right.  They drill a hole in the ice with a power auger and plop over it a heated shanty that has nearly all the comforts of home.  I would surely try to become interested and involved in this ritual if I lived there, but it would still seem more like hibernation than fishing to me. 

The strategy I’ve arrived at after many years is to spend the winter tying flies for the coming season, tinkering with and doing maintenance work on my tackle and equipment, inventorying and replenishing supplies, and catching up on my angling reading.  There are always new books and magazines, and now Internet websites and bulletin boards.  And I find that I’ve been at this long enough now to need to go back and re-read favorite books, discovering in the process that I’ve forgotten so much of what I learned the first time through.  Or that, when first read a particular book, I lacked the perspective to really grasp what I was reading.  Or, at least, that it reads differently as my perspective has changed with time. 

When I do fish in the winter, I have become fairly patient in waiting for a day that will allow me to fish in relative comfort.  There was a time when I would break ice out of my guides and fish until my fingers would no longer function.  Then I’d go back to the car, thaw my frozen digits over the windshield defroster, and go at it again!  But now I find that my tolerance for physical discomfort while fishing is much less than it was in my youth.  The quality of the total fishing experience trumps quantity, and a pre-requisite for a quality experience is not being miserable.  So I wait for a day with an air temperature of at least 50 degrees, and little or no wind.  And I only fish for a couple of hours, in early to mid-afternoon, the warmest part of the day.  An outing of this sort provides some relief from raging cabin fever, and a bit of mild exercise and fresh air.  And any fish you find feeding at this time of year are usually relatively easy to fool.  It’s been a while since they were bombed by a horde of fishermen and their guard is down.  Of course, you may find them selective to a hatch of tiny midges.  Then it becomes a matter of matching the insect of the day, tying tiny flies to gossamer tippets.  You hope and pray that an errant gust of wind does not blow your cast off-course, when a trout will often not move six inches left or right but will only take a fly that comes right over its nose, and in synch with its feeding rhythm.  You can find this process pleasurable if you can view it as a fascinating game.  If you are desperate to catch trout, however, it will seem maddeningly frustrating and you are probably best advised to leave it alone.

But most of all we fly fishers spend our winters wishing and hoping for spring.  The memories of springs past are what do the best job of getting us through a long winter.  Snuggled in my blankets on a cold winter night, I often replay the memory of a favorite fishing place and time as I drift off to sleep.  If I’m lucky, those reveries will seamlessly merge into a lovely dream.  Likewise, may your fondest fishing memories fill your dreams this winter.

 --Mary S. Kuss--
Winter 2006 Issue