Cabin Fever

It's nearing the end of January and the weather is not letting up any time soon from what I can tell. That means it's time to go through my fishing gear, clean and oil my reels and tie some flies (or at least try to). Here is a picture of my fly tying bench from last year:

My father's old watchmaker's bench makes a great fly tying bench.

That's what the bench looked like last year, neat and organized. One year later, and things are starting to pile up on it, so it's time to clean it off and start preparing for upcoming fishing trips.

Organizing fly boxes took them from this...

To this...

I don't claim to know how to tie many flies, or even to know how to tie flies well, but I can state quite truthfully that many of the fish I caught last year were on flies I tied myself, including my first trout ever on a fly as well as my first steelhead on a fly. In my first attempts at tying flies, I ended up with several "trash" flies that now occupy little plastic containers on my bench that were collected while making purchases of professionally tied flies in my local fly shops. They make handy references of how to NOT tie flies, but thankfully, the number of flies I tied that were successful outnumbered the ones that were not. On that note, I have to tell you that it makes no difference how "pretty" a fly is if it doesn't catch fish. It can be as ugly as a troll under a bridge for all I care. If it catches fish, it's a great fly!

 So, the snow continues to fall and the rivers are freezing over. I guess that means that the trout are napping now and just biding their time until things warm up and our flies start landing in their feeding lanes so we can introduce them to our nets and cameras. Some fish are showoffs and like to jump, while others tend to be shy and throw our hooks and go back to their hiding spots. That's fine though as it gives us incentive to wade out a bit further so we can cast to those spots behind those logs and rocks.

As I said, January is coming to a close and snow is falling harder than it has all winter. My fly boxes are sorted and organized. My fly lines have been cleaned and treated twice. My reels are cleaned and lubricated. My camping gear is all organized and stacked. I'm ready for Spring to arrive so I can get back outside and hunt some fish.

What does all this mean? It means that it's time for Cabin Fever to set in and start rearing its ugly head. The kids are going stir crazy because it is too cold for them outside. Jake, our very big dog is starting to go nuts, chasing dust bunnies around the living room at 90 miles per hour and beg everyone to play tug-of-war with him for hours on end.

Common Dad... Play Tug-of-War with me. Again!

I think we'll all be glad when the sun comes out, warms our bones and melts that snow... wait a second, I guess that means that the grass will start growing again and it'll be time to mow grass and trim hedges. On second thought, I might look into ice fishing, or better yet, indoors fishing with shots: