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April is . . .

By Steven J. Meyers

Found in: | Outside | Fishing | Fly Fishing |

Winter is over!

A statement like that will bring forth from readers of this magazine a decidedly mixed response. For the average couch potato, this is a time for unalloyed celebration. For C. Potato, having to put down the bag of chips, turn off the tube and grab the damn snow shovel is an intrusion of all that he loathes into his comfortably artificial cocoon. With the shouting of these words, this magical incantation, he will not have to endure the insult of piles of fresh snow again for many months. In Couch's mental ear, the exclamation above is accompanied by the sound of a trumpet fanfare. No more snow to shovel! Once again the television can be set up on the patio next to the barbeque, and the burgers and brats will sizzle once more.

But Inside/Outside readers are not couch potatoes! They are skiers and riders, climbers, kayakers, bikers and hikers. And fishermen.

The diehard skier or rider, will hear these words accompanied by mental music more akin to a dirge. Faceshots and steep drops, edges pressed right to the edge of grab, will be gone until the next season of snowstorms. A few weeks of corn will keep them giddy for a while, but the gradual shrinking of the remaining snow patches in the chutes will eventually force a cessation of sliding sports and mimic for skiers and riders the mortality of all things. But river rats will be grinning from ear to ear, salivating at the thought of this past winter's deep and dense snowpack filling the canyons with froth. They will hear the fanfare. Fortunately, snowsport folks and river rats are often the same people. April, like life, is a mixed blessing.

The conventional wisdom is that outdoor gearheads accumulate "stuff" from a dozen outdoor sports in order to fulfill the materialist adage, "He or she who dies with the most toys wins." I believe it is more complex than that; perhaps, less blatantly materialistic than we have been led to believe - if not any less condemning. Maybe we accumulate this stuff in order to have, always, a weapon that will work - no matter the season or the conditions. A weapon to help us keep mortality at bay.

Or not.

For the fisherman, fortunately, it's finally April. Unfortunately, it's finally April. Even more than for others, for fishermen, April remains a mixed blessing. This is the time for optimists (all fishermen are optimists or they'd choose another pastime) to see the glass half full. This is not the time to lament swollen rivers when rivers are swollen. It's time to watch for cold nights, cool days, cloudy days when the snow stays put and the rivers remain clear. Sometimes these periods of clear water last weeks. Sometimes, merely hours. Between snowmelt spates, the fishing will often be wonderful.

Much of the time the water will be a little high, or off-color, or both-the perfect time to grab a box of streamers and do some short-lining around structure. It is, perhaps, the best time of year to dangle a sculpin (a yellow muddler or an Animas River Special) near a sharply edged bank or around a mid-river boulder. There will be plenty of time in the months ahead, once the snow has come down, to watch dry flies drift with gentle currents, to send carefully mended casts with a strike indicator and a nymph or two out into promising water, to use your eyes to watch for signs of a take. Not now. April is the time to feel the savage grab of a trout who has chased a baitfish imitation on your tight line, the time to feel your pulse rate rise into the stratosphere when a lunker unexpectedly tries to rip the rod out of your hands. April is not a time for subtlety.

Any number of poets and fishermen have taken their shots at April. T. S. Elliot's words are repeated so often they risk becoming clich�. "April," he famously wrote, "is the cruelest month." My old fishing buddy, Bud, said it more directly. "I'd rather fish in January. I swear, I'm colder in April."

Bud was sometimes something of a glass half empty guy.

Me, I love April. I like the gamble. I like the chance the river might go out, because that means it might not. I dangle my streamer with hope. I tease the water by the bank, the pillow in front of a mid-stream boulder with expectation. I want to prove both Elliot and April, wrong.

I want to cheat mortality.