The Chaos of Spring

AT left, a little chaos of my own.

I spent Easter doing mostly grounds maintenance here on bear hill.

I live where I can just burn stuff if I need to - providing no fire control is needed. SO, the winter detritus and a particularly unappealing trellis went away in the afternoon.

I also spent a little time with a new 7' 4/5 from Chris Lantzy which arrived on Friday.

Wow. It's a nice piece of cane. He had it on his web site as a pre-made that needed an owner. Never been fished. Great price so I bought it.

I'm having Chris make a Driggs for me so I can do a little Fox River Hemingway journey next year.

All reports are that the Fox is a real bitch to fish and the trail that runs a portion of the river is overgrown and neglected at best. Nevertheless, I have to make the homage to the Nick Adams stories and I'll write a little essay about the trip. E.H. wrote about the Two-Hearted but he fished the Fox. We drink Two-Hearted here at Amber Anglers but we'll fish the Fox.

My thoughts tonight concerns the spring preparation we all do.

I've been tying all winter and I'm crafting a little at-the-river guide to help my buddies. I've got a couple stories backed-up behind this little fly fishing missive - one about learning to like the taste of killing, so there's that  - and need to be getting the thing done. You see however the fly tying materials spread about.

I couldn't help myself last night. I had an idea for a a fur-bodied flymph and had to work on it.  Turns out, SLF dubbing works better in this than actual fur for the movement I wanted and so the fly has a life of its own. I'll tie a couple up that are picture-worthy and post them here. It's a bronze/black pheasant-tail affair just right for the shoulder season when we still have a few stoneflies moving around but then, so is everything else.

My shirt-pocket fly boxes are a complete mess filled with maybe 100 flies each from last year. Yes, they're tiny shirt pocket boxes. Too many flies and they represent the whole season. That's got to be cleaned-up.

Why are we so anxious for spring in November but do so little of the actual work to be ready for it until April?

Trout fishing: it's a kind of mental illness.

I've got it. So do you.

Take your medicine. You'll feel better.

Mine's in a small silver flask. I better refill that prescription, first.

Prost.