The Fisherman
02-02-2009, 12:25 PM
Just a little piece I wrote for this month's SRAA newsletter:
The Un-Dead of Winter
By Steve Culton
© 2009. All rights reserved.
I was heading out of the office one cold January afternoon when the receptionist, noticing how I was dressed, asked me if I was going fishing. I told her yes, and she responded with, “In the dead of winter?!?”
I smiled in affirmation, but on the way to the stream, her words got me thinking about the bum rap winter takes when it comes to natural rhythms — and angling — especially if you plan on forsaking the comfort of the ice fishing hut in favor of wading. The reality is, fall is when things die. Winter is when life begins. And it truly is a wonderland, alive and well and full of vitality.
Step into your backyard or some nearby woods. The trees and bushes are already covered with buds, nature’s amazing automated leaf and flower systems, full of life (in the dead of winter!) and just waiting for the warmth of spring to pop. As I write this, the mercury is well below freezing, yet my forsythia is as green as a springtime lawn, stems so bud-laden I can only imagine the yellow riot that awaits me. Mountain laurel and rhododendrons proudly carry the evergreen banner, and from my window I can see a cardinal and his mate searching for seeds in the compacted snow.
Even on the small stream I was fishing that day, there was life in the air and beneath the water. Though only 30 degrees outside, size 14 charcoal grey midges flitted about. Wild trout were holding low on the river bottom, ready to gobble any food that came tumbling along. It started to snow, and as my cigar smoke drifted slowly into the windless air, creating a tapestry with the chunky flakes, I felt as alive and happy as I would sipping lemonade on a warm July afternoon.
A few weeks later, I was fishing a salt estuary in Rhode Island. The temperature had plummeted into the low twenties, and a bitter west wind blew in my face at 15 mph. Yet, there were snails and grass shrimp and, as this was the new moon, perhaps even clam worms doing what they always do: living. (The stripers, sadly, were living somewhere out of casting range.)
I used to view winter as a time to store the rods and gear and prepare for the ritual of spring. No longer. I’m out on our streams and rivers and the salt, almost always gloriously alone, left to my thoughts, the wonders both seen and unseen, and the bounty of life that reminds me spring is on the way.
The Un-Dead of Winter
By Steve Culton
© 2009. All rights reserved.
I was heading out of the office one cold January afternoon when the receptionist, noticing how I was dressed, asked me if I was going fishing. I told her yes, and she responded with, “In the dead of winter?!?”
I smiled in affirmation, but on the way to the stream, her words got me thinking about the bum rap winter takes when it comes to natural rhythms — and angling — especially if you plan on forsaking the comfort of the ice fishing hut in favor of wading. The reality is, fall is when things die. Winter is when life begins. And it truly is a wonderland, alive and well and full of vitality.
Step into your backyard or some nearby woods. The trees and bushes are already covered with buds, nature’s amazing automated leaf and flower systems, full of life (in the dead of winter!) and just waiting for the warmth of spring to pop. As I write this, the mercury is well below freezing, yet my forsythia is as green as a springtime lawn, stems so bud-laden I can only imagine the yellow riot that awaits me. Mountain laurel and rhododendrons proudly carry the evergreen banner, and from my window I can see a cardinal and his mate searching for seeds in the compacted snow.
Even on the small stream I was fishing that day, there was life in the air and beneath the water. Though only 30 degrees outside, size 14 charcoal grey midges flitted about. Wild trout were holding low on the river bottom, ready to gobble any food that came tumbling along. It started to snow, and as my cigar smoke drifted slowly into the windless air, creating a tapestry with the chunky flakes, I felt as alive and happy as I would sipping lemonade on a warm July afternoon.
A few weeks later, I was fishing a salt estuary in Rhode Island. The temperature had plummeted into the low twenties, and a bitter west wind blew in my face at 15 mph. Yet, there were snails and grass shrimp and, as this was the new moon, perhaps even clam worms doing what they always do: living. (The stripers, sadly, were living somewhere out of casting range.)
I used to view winter as a time to store the rods and gear and prepare for the ritual of spring. No longer. I’m out on our streams and rivers and the salt, almost always gloriously alone, left to my thoughts, the wonders both seen and unseen, and the bounty of life that reminds me spring is on the way.