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Looking Over My Shoulder

By Steven J. Meyers

Found in: | Outside | Fishing | Fly Fishing |

Nearly every time I sit down to write about fishing, two jerks show up in my office. They take a place behind me, peering over my shoulder. The one who leers over my right shoulder is a well-dressed, literate snob who's read every book ever written about fly fishing. That's a lot of books. In English, those books go back to the fifteenth century, at least that's where he usually begins the history-with a hip nun from England who knew all about Fysshynge with an Angle. The guy looking over my other shoulder leans on me kind of sloppily. He isn't dressed as well as the snob, and he kind of smells. He never reads; mostly, he just fishes. Sometimes it seems like the only time he's off the water is when he's breathing down my neck.

Wait, it gets worse. They don't just stand there. They talk to me.

"Steve, may I remind you, ex-trout bum - you have a regular job now and you're almost respectable," the literate one intones, "how can you even think to begin this piece about winter fly fishing without a lovely introductory passage about the joys of good books, the pleasures of cleaning tackle and tying flies during the off season in preparation for the fishing to come? It's what fly fishing writers have done for generations, centuries, actually." I can smell a very peaty, single-malt Scotch on his breath. That's the other thing he does in the winter.

"Spare me," the sloppy leaner (who, I now notice, appears not to have shaved in weeks) bellows, a burp escaping mid-phrase, stinking of cheap beer. Please, I think, tell me it's not Lone Star. He taps me not-so-gently on the noggin with a long-neck bottle, then takes a slug. It's Budweiser. "Ignore that moron, he's a pompous ass; anyway, that was when they had seasons, when they closed the rivers to fishing in the winter. Bad times. I remember 'em. I used to tie flies in the winter, myself. I used to oil my reels and wipe off my fly rods. Even sunk to reading a book, once, something about a British lady and her gamekeeper. But dammit man, they don't close the rivers anymore. At least not here. Fishing is legal all winter. The tourists are gone. Blue-winged olives are hatching on the Animas. Shut down the damn computer, get your fat ass out of that chair, screw the deadline! Trout are rising!"

I have to admit, bad hair, ugly stubble, foul breath and all, the beer drinker makes the better case. There are places where bitter weather, sleeping trout, frozen water and a closed season drive fly fishermen to other pastimes. And there are times, in those places, when a good fishing book or a fly tying vise is as close as a fishing junkie can get to a fix. But this isn't one of those places. Here, maybe not every day but - often enough to make it worth your while to throw on some fleece and go take a look - trout will rise to mayflies or midges in the darkest depths of winter. If you get there, and the trout aren't rising, a deep-drifted nymph or streamer will almost always produce a tug. And even if it doesn't, at least you're fishing.

It's quieter in winter. Flows are low. Rivers don't bounce and burble so much as they murmur. When it snows, it's so nearly silent you'd swear you can hear the flakes hitting the water. Sometimes, it is gray and wet; oddly, those are my favorite days. Often, those are the days when the mayflies hatch. Frequently, those are the days when winter trout appear to be a different species, entirely, from their timid summer brethren. Eager to eat (during those brief periods when they feed), winter trout rising to hatching mayflies readily take a compara dun or sparkle dun. Maybe a parachute Adams. If it is snowing, they often throw caution to the wind. I don't know why. I have proposed a theory or two over the years. One guess is that heavy snow makes visibility poor (for them and us) and trout feel protected in the same way they feel protected by wind chop on the water during summer. But I don't know. I don't know a lot of things, and like a million other blessings rivers bestow without my understanding I have found it better to gratefully accept those gifts, and admit my ignorance.

Sometimes, when I'm fishing, I feel as if somebody is looking over my shoulder. Sometimes it's my long-dead father. Sometimes it's my son. More often, it's that beer swilling, stubble encrusted jerk who bothers me when I'm trying to write. Sometimes I turn to look. Funny, he's always smiling on the river. His buddy, the literary snob, never shows up at times like this. He's cooling his heals in my office, reading a book.