The Off Season

I know that many of my acquaintances are still out there fishing, despite the foot of snow we got last Wednesday into Thursday.  I saw lots of photos of people fishing the Salmon River out near Pulaski over the weekend.  I saw some photos of nice rainbows and chromes from Lake Champlain tributaries.  I spent the long holiday weekend cooking and stacking firewood and skiing.  I'm pretty sure I'm done with the fly rods for the season with ski season now firmly underway.

I have returned to the last couple spots I fished this season, and my box of woolly buggers appears to be permanently gone.  Perhaps I'll stumble across that box upstream on Ayers Brook next season, and I'll ask a local friend who also fishes that brook to keep his eyes open next spring.

But, for now, I'm assuming those flies are gone.  And, they are hugely important flies to have with me at almost all times.

I mentioned in another post that Orvis had very kindly refunded my purchase price for some wading boots that fell apart earlier this season.  I had fished those boots for 2.5 seasons and they gave me a full refund.  I bought a different brand of boots, but I was determined to give that money back to Orvis.

So, over the weekend, I ordered some hooks, maribou, hackle for woolly buggers, chenille, and beads - enough material to tie at least 150 woolly buggers in white, olive and black/grizzly.  I paid Orvis back for the boots and then some.  But, these are easy flies to tie, they are important to carry in all but the lowest and clearest water conditions, and I now have better hackle material for them than I've been using.

So, I probably won't fish much for a while.  But, I'll be tying flies and dreaming of the next opening day.  I also intend to tie some big, bright streamers that will be useful on Opening Day, in the Otter Creek Classic tournament.  I have a nice selection of big heavy streamers from Montana Fly Company, but many of them are colors too dark for the early season "chocolate milk" water colors.  So, I'll work on some big, brightly colored flies for those conditions over the winter.

Plus, I need to tie some hare's ears, zug bugs, prince nymphs of various flavors, pheasant tails, RS2's, Ju Ju baetis, lots of stone fly variants, and a few other patterns that I use a lot.

So, my "off-season" should still be pretty busy.