With November almost on us, most fly fishermen are thinking about the end of the season. The fall mayflies are finishing up, the weather is turning colder, and water temps are dropping. This is the time of year when you first start noticing ice on the guides and start wondering if you’ve had enough days on the water to call it good for a few months.
It’s about that time of year when you start tying in earnest, trying to refill fly boxes that were emptied by months of hard fishing. If you’re like me, then you’ve also got an impressive list of new patterns to tie. During the year you always find a couple patterns in random shops, magazines, or stranger’s fly boxes that you just have to try and tie for yourself
Once the vise is set up and the majority of the fishing gear is put away for the season, thoughts of one last trip always seem to linger. You see a day in the forecast calling for 45 degrees with overcast and can’t get BWOs off your mind. Or you get off work early and carefully scope out the local creek on the way home, watching for insects or rises or anything that might mean fish
But unlike in the summer when you beat yourself up if you don’t fish every waking moment, this time of year you can shrug your shoulders, call it good, and not feel guilty about it. There is always next year. And after a busy fishing season, sometimes the winding down feels pretty good.
