Clearly biased by Montana / Northern Rockies-centric thinking, the first week of November has always marked a fairly hard turning point in the fly fishing season.
This is the last weekend for fly fishing in Yellowstone; park gates (all but the North Entrance) will be locked tight tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. For the second year in a long string I won’t be standing in the Firehole today for a ceremonious ‘last fish’ in the Park season. (Though we did manage a great day almost two weeks ago…) Dammit.
And at least for the past few years, this is the first week of return to standard time, making for almost discombobulated short days (just a hair under 10 hours of daylight today in Bozeman, with sunset at 5:o6.) coupled with that unmistakable gut feeling winter will soon be dancing on the doorstep.
Of course there’s yet fishing to be done just about everywhere south of the Canadian border. The fall and winter fly fishers (aka Northern Rockies nymphers) actually look forward to this time of year and it goes without saying that the steelheaders are already getting twitchy.
Like a cranky grizzly headed for my November den, almost reflexly I find myself seriously drawn to the tying bench about now.
That sense that it’s seriously time to start tying flies blossoms like the March Crocus pushing through spring snow. Gone are the frenzied late night / early morning tying sessions refilling a box to match some summer or fall fly of the week.
It’s time to get down to the serious business of tying flies.
My buddies and I started tying flies in the mid-80’s in part because we found paying $.79 for something we were going to hang in the bushes of Northern Utah creeks that afternoon highway robbery. (Sometimes there really is something almost noble about being a cheap bastard.)
We later learned that catching that 8 inch native on your own fly was bizarrely satisfying and truly a right of passage. Bet you still remember the first fish you caught on your own tie.
We also discovered that tying up a flotilla of Humpies, EHCs, Stimulators or even the nymph of day produced a deeper sense of contentment (maybe even smugness) than a cooler brimming with adult beverages, a full tank of gas or a stocked pantry after payday.
Some of us even saw a glimpse of the reality that flies often are a damned work of art, representing a chance to express a bit of right brain creative prowess so often atrophied in this digital age.
I like to tie one on.
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