Coldness

Cold day today, good for doing some shop work. The rivers are full of slush and anchor ice right now. I was surprised at how bad it looked on the lower yesterday and even more surprised when folks come in the hope to say they're going to go fish for a few hours on the Gallatin or Madison. I wonder what they think to themselves once they get rigged up, make it down to the water and start to cast only to realize that they're so much floating ice that there is no way to even get the flies wet. I've spent plenty of days on the water when the weather is well below freezing, maybe I'm just smarter than that now?

I fished for Lake Erie steelhead around Christmas one year on a day when the temps hovered around 20. I'd fished in much colder weather out west but never in that type of humidity and cold! The river was full of anchor ice and we'd have to break the ice not only off the guides, but off the leader and flies as well. I remember actually having a solid chunk of ice between the two flies several times and thinking that my chances were going to be limited that day as the flies were even frozen underwater to the point that I was drifting little ice-balls instead of bugs. We did catch 3 fish that day though. We're heading back that way for Christmas and I might go back to that little river for a day just so long as it's over 30 out.