Pack It Up

I hate to say it but I think today might have been my last day of the season fishing open water. I was fly fishing the Otter Tail River this afternoon for walleyes and pike, and only managed to hook up on two small hammer handles. I admit that it was pretty slow out there. While a cold front was rolling in, I watched ice starting to reform around the edges of the pool after the warm week we had melted down most of it. The cold breeze didn’t bother me much this afternoon, and neither did the ice freezing up on my line and guides. I had come prepared and brought my insulated pants, fleece cap, and windproof fingerless gloves. No, it was the sense of the changing seasons and the urgency that I should be fishing through the ice, not in open water. Even though I was all alone in on that river, in perfect solitude, my mind was preoccupied and the day was not enjoyable as it should have been. Sometimes, with my busy work schedule, these days on the water are few and far between. As I was standing by my truck cutting the fly from my leader, packing up, reflecting, I should be grateful for every chance I get to spend on the water, standing in a river, waving a stick.