Lean year

Its been a lean year for fishing this year. 2021 brought a lot of changes and busy times with not a lot of opportunities to fish. Summer went by in the blink of an eye, fall brought historically low numbers of steelhead to the Skeena area and opportunities to stillwater fish were few and far between. 

The cold winter is not far off, maybe the ice will cooperate and provide more opportunites to wet a line.

I don't recall a year that I had so few fishing trips.

Waiting for the ice to melt

The snow is slowly melting, the temperature is spending more time in the positive and most importantly the ice is on its way out. Living in a Northern climate has its ups and downs. Spring takes a little longer to get here and when it does you never know if it is just teasing or if it is here to stay. Along with the warmer weather comes the mud season. Dirt and sand that was dumped on the roads all winter is mixed with the melt, the wind blows it around and everything gets sloppy. This in between time is the time for tying flies and planning trips. 

This morning I opened my fly boxes and took inventory and began the process of refilling the empty spaces left behind after the fall season last year. Two thing I noticed, I need more dry flies and one particular leech pattern. A ruby eyed leech.

If I could only use only one fly to fish for trout on the local lakes, the ruby eyed leech would be it. In my box I was down to my last half dozen, which is not going to last me. I go through a lot if these each season!

And so it begins. I sat with my vise and began tying. When I've tied enough of these I will move on to some boatman patterns and dry flies. A good way to keep busy, avoid the mud and patiently wait for the day the ice dissappears.