What’s next best to going fishing?

Today we’re starting with a short quiz:

Which are the three longest weeks of the  year?

• The three weeks before Christmas, for first graders
• The last three weeks before summer vacation, for those in junior high
• The last three weeks of February, for those who have had enough of winter

You can take a wild guess about which category we fall into [hint: it’s been decades since we graduated high school]. This morning we walked the dogs while the temperatures were near negative 15℉. At mid-day we took the dogs for their after dinner constitutional. The temperature had climbed all the  way up to a negative 3 ℉. Today’s high temperature will be in the low single digits above zero. Normal highs for this time of year are usually in the mid twenty’s above zero. If our North Country weather were consistently closer to our averages or normals, the quality of life here  would be vastly improved.

trout flies being organized

Photo by J. Harrington

In response to today’s frigid weather conditions, I spent the morning rerigging my tankara fly lines and leaders by tying tippet rings to the end of the leaders. In the process, I learned that my eyesight and fine motor skills are functional but require more practice to regain proficiency with fine monofilament and teeny-tiny metal donuts. I look forward to warmer days, open water flowing in trout streams and getting lots of practice changing flies and/or tippets. In case it’s not yet obvious, the next best thing to going fishing is getting ready to go fishing. After all, fly fishing has been described as the most fun you can have standing up.

A problem brought  on during most winters is I spend too much time in my head and not enough time actually doing things instead of reading about or thinking about doing things. Organizing fly fishing stuff gets me back into a material world while feeding fantasies of one not locked in ice and snow. Speaking of fantasies, the Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo is scheduled for March 18 - 20, COVID permitting. Proceeds benefit the non-profit Minnesota Trout Unlimited but the Expo is about fly fishing for many species in addition to trout.

February

By Bill Christophersen

The cold grows colder, even as the days 

grow longer, February's mercury vapor light 

buffing but not defrosting the bone-white 

ground, crusty and treacherous underfoot. 

This is the time of year that's apt to put 

a hammerlock on a healthy appetite, 

old anxieties back into the night, 

insomnia and nightmares into play; 

when things in need of doing go undone 

and things that can't be undone come to call, 

muttering recriminations at the door, 

and buried ambitions rise up through the floor 

and pin your wriggling shoulders to the wall; 

and hope's a reptile waiting for the sun.

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