Week of December 15th 2024: Frozen Guides
Week of December 15th
Are we in for a spell of Arctic ping-pong? The rain last week brought levels up to around average cubic feet per second before it began to fall again. The cold air moved in after the rain and pushed the fish down and reduced productive bug activity in the water.
Each little community and micro-environment down there is still doing its thing, but now is certainly a tough time to fish.
Think skinny midges behind small nymphs when it is cold. Include streamers and larger offerings when the sun warms things above the freezing mark.
When it is well below freezing, like these past mornings, get ready for some new issues! What a sport! What a life! Well worth the extra effort!
To compound our problems are frozen guides, fly lines, leaders, split shot and flies. If it suddenly feels like you are casting a small car, it is likely all the ice that has formed on, well, everything. We cannot contend with this problem by casting the ice away. Like Dante’s thirty-third level of Inferno, waving things around in the air makes it worse and soon the fly itself may become ensconced in ice. The immediate solution is to manually scrape the ice off.
Remove your glove, start at the fly, and with your nail (you won’t feel anything, trust me) scrape the offending ice off by pulling leader and the fly-line toward your shivering fingers. Once you get to the fly line, you may be okay.
If the ice has encased the fly line, you may repeat the process being careful that a newly cracked thumb nail doesn’t slice into the outer coating of the fly line.
If the first guide freezes closed, line cannot run through and you’ll be a Tenkara angler before you know it. When this happens, it is best to again use your hand and gently rub the ice ball that has formed. Be careful to gently place the reel on a safe surface and be extra careful not to put usual stress on the rod - in other words, don’t bend a rod to clear ice out of guides. With the rod safe and the reel resting, rub the ice until it melts enough to be free of the guide and remove the ring from your line before it slides to the end and begins the next set of issues.
We carry a great product that reduces icing up, from Loon. Before heading out, take some Stanley’s Ice Off Paste and with finger tips liberally apply the paste to each guide. It even works when applied to the fly line as well. It is eco-friendly and really works!
I will wax poetic about why it’s great fishing in these conditions in the coming months. Rain and warmer temperatures return mid-week before the cold air bounces back for the second-to-last weekend of 2024. To ensure you can fish and dress accordingly, stop by and check out our inventory in the shop or browse our gear and tackle at the online shop.
Fly Tying 101 will resume in 2025! Beginning the first weekend in January and meeting each Saturday through March each class is limited to four people and led by several local tyers. Sign up through the website or reserve your spot in person with a $20.00 deposit. The class will cover basic tools and how to use them. Everything you’ll need is provided, but you may bring your own vice and tools as well.
See you out there, Roy B.