This is a proper winter story about fly fishing and friendship from Chadd Vanzanten
Mild desperation drove me to winter fishing. I used to quit in the fall. Then one year November lumbered up and I wasn’t ready to put my gear away, so I didn’t. I kept going out, almost every week.
That first winter I fished alone and I didn’t have a lot of experience. I may have caught two fish and at least that many colds. But I found something else out there that kept me going back—the twisted sense of accomplishment of doing something other people consider crazy. It’s what made Evel Knieval jump the Snake River. It’s why Bear Grylls drinks his own pee on TV from time to time.
Fishing through western winters sharpens the angler, too. It advances his rank. I’m not talking about fishing an Indian summer or a bright afternoon in late February. I mean fishing in hard mountain cold, grinding through icy weeks of January in search of one decent snowfly hatch. It’s a way to earn stripes.
That’s why I invited Russ along for the first time. Not for the companionship, but so that he could come and see how much of a badass I was, then spread my legend among the townsfolk. What good are stripes when there’s no one around to salute you?
I knew he wouldn’t show because I set an irrationally early start time. The conventional wisdom of winter fishing says hold off until the sun comes out. Something about letting the fish warm up. Like they’re senior citizens in a water-aerobics class. I knew better. Waiting around for the sun to shine on the Logan River is a good way to get skunked, so I typically start around 9:30. I told Russ we’d meet at 8:30. I guess that’s what happens when you start acting tough—you give your friends these silly tests.
In my defence, I never had many fishing buddies before that. I had been fly fishing for less than ten years and almost always fished alone. I’d asked a few guys to come winter fishing with me, but most of them did the right thing—laughed nervously, held out their hands.
Until Russ came along, only two other guys had ever said yes to my winter fishing overtures—Tom and Robert, a couple guys from the office where I work. Robert’s from South Carolina, Tom’s from Florida. I don’t know what they were thinking, I really do not. Perhaps they thought they harboured some special, inner heat source from their native climes. Maybe they were just calling my bluff. We fished in the afternoon, against my better judgement, but the day was cold anyway, with harsh winds, much ice, and no fish. In other words, just another day in my badass winter fishing journal. I still see Tom and Robert around the office, but they don’t talk to me much anymore.
Russ and I had gotten to be friends, so I felt it a shame that the matter of winter fishing would soon come between us, too. But the invitation was out there and Russ had already accepted.
Even though it was supposed to snow that day, he said, “Okay. I’ll go. Unless I look out the window in the morning and it’s like, oh hell no.”
When I pulled up to the meeting place and saw Russ’s car already there, I justifiably assumed someone who looked just like Russ had stolen the car and was on the lam in the canyon. I didn’t want to blow his cover, so I parked and unpacked my waders without saying anything.
Russ strolled over, ready to go, as I suited up.
“Cold?” I asked.
He looked around as if the temperature had just occurred to him. Then he shrugged. “I’m okay.”
“Well, wait till we get out there,” I said, jerking my chin at the water. I may have made my voice extra gravelly, like Quint from “Jaws,” or George C. Scott in “Patton.” I’m not sure what kept me from saying, “Y’ever hook a big German brown with ice in all yer guides, son?”
We fished. Russ didn’t catch much, which is to say he didn’t catch anything. Then it sleeted on us a little.
After an hour, I asked, “How you doing now?”
“I should probably get some good gloves,” said Russ, flexing his stiff, bare fingers. “Like yours.”
I still have the gloves he was referring to—fingerless fleece with neoprene palms and mitten tops that fold back. They’re fuzzy and bulky and make me look I’ve got Mickey Mouse hands. They weren’t very warm when they were new, and they were starting to come apart. Some really nice ones had been showing up at the shops lately, but they were kind of expensive, and I thought buying a pair might be construed as an admission that the cold bothered me. After Russ pointed out that I had gloves and he didn’t, I considered taking mine off to eliminate his handicap, but thought better of it.
After awhile, I couldn’t go winter fishing without Russ. The colder it got, the harder that guy fished, and watching him brave the conditions became a sort of heat source for me. He fished without gloves for at least the first month. He’d just sniff and shake his hands every so often. I didn’t tell him that I normally fished only for an hour or two when it was really cold, like it was that year. That was my secret—I’m no badass. Any fool can dress up warm and stand in the water for an hour, especially if his hands aren’t wet from catching lots of fish.
Maybe that was Russ’s secret—his casting ensured that his hands were dry a lot of the time. This made it tricky to know if he was having any fun, and I strongly suspected he wasn’t. I got the feeling he kept showing up to call the bluff over and over, to prove he wasn’t a wimp. We had some good days, and some really good days, but then the browns quit spawning and February arrived and we couldn’t find a trout in the whole river.
I thought finally Russ would start staying home, so I told him this: “Sometimes it’s just good enough to get out.”
Yeah, that old chestnut. We all say it, especially after getting skunked. I’ve always had a hard time believing it. The Logan River is home to one of the largest populations of wild, native cutthroat trout in the world. Anyone who has held a fine, heavy fish from that population knows it’s slightly blasphemous to say, “It’s not about the fish,” but at the moment, it was the only thing I could think of.
Crazy thing is, Russ bought it. Or he already knew it. He was never all that broken up when he caught no fish. He’d just shrug and flex his hands. Sometimes, when he should have been casting, I’d catch him standing still, just scanning the river and the willow brakes with their naked, waxy branches crowding along the cold water. He’d stand there watching, as though the fish (caught or otherwise) were just one part of some greater observance. This could just as well have been an early symptom of hypothermia, I suppose.
Either way, Russ got me thinking maybe I was right. Maybe there is enough out there to take in apart from fish. Mule deer barely glimpsed before blending against a field of last summer’s cattails. Big glassy bells of ice dangling from branches that droop into the current. I’ll admit there are days when such sights are as pleasing as the fish I catch.
Always impressive to me is the lone ouzel hunting in 38-degree water. He titters up alongside me, does a few quick knee-bends, and regards me with one eye. Then he moves on. If I am an odd or unwelcome sight in the winter landscape, the ouzel does not make it known, yet I feel I am there because he has decided to allow it.
In spring, summer, and fall, it’s difficult to have any western waterway to yourself, even for an hour. Rivers exert an irresistible gravitational force on those who live nearby. All through the sensible seasons, everyone’s got an excuse to visit a river—got a new dog, holiday weekend, friends in town. The mere appearance of the sun after a day of rain in May can be ruinous to an angler’s chance at solitude. In spring and fall there are places along the Logan River where you are more likely to see a young lady in a bridal gown and her photographer than a moose or beaver.
In January, that all changes. The river is viewed as desolate in winter, hazardous even, and for nine weeks or ten it becomes possible to own vast stretches of water as if you hold an actual deed.
A solitary angler on the river in February is an odd and unwelcome sight to me. But I pretend to allow it. His wife and friends think he’s a fool, and maybe he is, but I know he just wants the water to himself. So, I wave to him but keep my distance. He waves back—probably thinking all the same things about me. I wonder if he had to fish alone in the freezing river for a couple winters to earn his first fishing buddy, and if that buddy helped him understand that getting out there is almost always enough.
This winter Russ got some new gloves—really nice ones. Windproof but lightweight, and not nearly so bulky as mine. He says they’re warm. They look expensive.
Please visit Chadds blog to read more of his fly fishing adventures