Snow on the water

Here we are approaching the end of February, and I have developed the usual fishing fever.  This usually happens around this time of year, as a "false Spring" comes to the mountains and the January snows melt away.  Yesterday, however, Winter came around again, just to remind me that I'm a long way from any real chance at fishing.  10 inches of powder in as many hours.

And to think I was seriously considering trying for the bass in the ponds next to my place.

Still, the character of a February snow is more springlike than anything.  It may come down hard and fast, but the temperatures don't stay in the teens and low twenties like they do in January.  Today got into the high thirties, and the paths I've shoveled are down to the blacktop instead of an inch of ice.

All this warmth made me fool myself into thinking I could take a little trip into the local drainage and flick a fly around.  As I cleaned my line and loaded the truck I pretended that I wasn't really going fishing so much as I was going casting.  No matter how good I feel, its still too cold for trout.  Right.  Got it.  Now where are my dries?

The snow was quite a bit further down than I imagined - I drove through three inches even at 2000 feet elevation, and on soft ground too.  Scratch bushwacking for today.  Its miserable enough in summer, but with snow getting dumped down your coat and treacherous footing...not worth it, thanks.

The first stop was the old pools I used to swim in as a kid.  Its really a great spot for that, and even approaching it now as a curmudgeonly fly fisherman with all the attendant concerns about spooking fish and such, I can't bring myself to swear that I won't be down here in a pair of shorts this summer.

Its also a perfect trout pool

The creek is fed exclusively by runoff as far as I know, and at this time of the year the water is high without being swollen.  Still clear, and still with a bit of a bank to cast from.  

I've only recently become interested in actually learning how to cast correctly the more technical aspects of flyfishing, and so today was really about practice.  This particular pool is perfect for that: room for an overhand, with a nice clearly defined current running through the middle and some eddies and countercurrents at the peripheries to practice your mends on.  No need for a blow by blow there; suffice to say that I surprised myself with how much improved my casting is getting.  Roll casts, mends, bow and arrow casts, and reach casts....I've got them nailed.  I can't wait to get into the high country and hit all the places my old casting skills (overhead, poorly executed; accidental roll cast) kept me out of before. 

I moved on to another pool down the road, this one a bit more overgrown to force myself to use the roll cast from the get go.  At the end, when I was getting hungry (and finally admitting the obvious: that there were no fish here) I rounding things out by making a 40 foot cast between two willows to the head of a long, long pool I found.  Not a wind knot, nor a tangle, nor a lost fly.  Just smooth, accurate casts right to the target.  Glorious.

This whole creek - fish or no - is a wonderful place to practice the sort of casting and maneuvers a high country angler needs.  It looks and acts just like any of the creeks I fish above 7000' in the summer, and I've never seen another person fishing it.  Its a bit like having a private 1000 yard rifle range.  I'm very blessed to have it.

Now if only Spring would hurry up a bit...