Time to take a flying...

This is not a good day for outside work. Temperatures exceed 90℉. I confirmed that when I emptied the compost bucket into the tumbler. This is a good day to get something done inside. The house is air conditioned. My fly-fishing gear needs organization. I will make some progress organizing some of the pockets in my fly-fishing vest.

I keep trying to find the book with the ideal arrangement of flies so I can imitate it. There’s dry flies and nymphs and terrestrials and streamers and... There’s also attractors and imitators. There’s also spring and summer and autumn and winter. Then there’s the cross combination of dry flies and nymphs for winter organized by attractors or imitations. You have just read an explanation of why my flies and fly boxes aren’t better organized. But, there’s an even more significant reason. I’m not fishing enough these days.

I’ve noticed over the years that one of the better ways for me to decide how to organize something is to do a fair amount of that something on a regular basis. I think that may be the basis for the old saying “Use it or lose it.” It’s been too many months since I’ve wet a line (“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”). The weather has been too cold, too wet, too windy....(“Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”)

caddis (top) and tricos

Photo by J. Harrington

So, all the abstract organizational schemes needed to be tested against reality. Since it’s my fly vest with my flies and other gear, it needs to be tested against my reality. How do I want to fish? Since most of my fishing skills were developed on or near the Atlantic Ocean, I’m pretty much a chuck and chance it angler. That probably means I’m most at home fishing an attractor and matching the hatch comes second. I’ve also noticed, through a lot of reading and rereading over the past year or so, that many flies are hybrids, between an imitation and an attractor. That makes it even easier for me to get more confused in the abstract over something that may have no real importance on the stream. Last winter I picked up some size 18 or 20 tricos that have florescent pink wings. There is, to my knowledge, no such critter in the real world, but the pink makes it easier to see where the fly is on the water. So, rather than spend time sitting in my chair thinking about whether that flly is an imitator or an attractor (of fly anglers), I’m going to get me to the stream and see if it spooks any fish or attracts one.

The next time you end up reading a post like this, it will probably be because I started overthinking my artisan bread baking, or my poetry, or something. One of my long-standing skills is taking something intended to be fun and turn it into work. I hope I live long enough to break that habit.

Trout

By Kathryn Starbuck

I do my best 

to keep pointlessness 

at bay. But here, 

wet above my 

knees, I let it fly. 

Here, hot and cold, 

fingers thick with 

thinking, I try to 

tie the fly and look 

for the net, loosening 

the philosophical   

knot of why I came 

here today, not yet 

knowing whether 

I’ll free or fry 

the rainbows 

and browns once 

they’re mine.

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