Dormant Streams and Dreams of Spring.

Because not every blog post has a happy story line, a few doughnuts remind us that we have to find what makes us happy sometimes.

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Colorado weather seems to continually surprise me.  It is February and while you might expect it to be cold it has been unseasonably warm for about a few weeks.  Well, that is to say until today.  We went from 60's and 70's to snowing in a matter of just 24 hours. I'm not here to bore you with a forecast of the weather though. I just make this comment here to explain and set the scene for my last week here. 

Two days ago I saw a break in my busy schedule. I realized that I could take my kiddo to school and then have all morning and into the afternoon if I wanted to for a day of fishing.  I could squeeze a day or so more out of my fishing license and maybe even explore a new place or two that had been tipped to me.

Friday -"The tip and good weather"

On a tip from an acquaintance, in a passing conversation, I decided to head to some water that he suggested I check out. Now I won't name the waterway out of respect to him for sharing it with me but I will tell you make sure you get exact directions when you get information like this. You see I ended up at the wrong place. That in itself isn't horrible. In that foible I actually did find myself on a stretch of that water that I hadn't covered yet.

My adventures in "the wrong place" was a pretty futile effort in the long run for actually catching fish. The water was clear and seasonably skinny.  There were clearly pockets of fish-able water to be found. As I walked the mile or so downstream from the parking lot I tried to imagine what this place could provide in the spring. I tried to take mental notes of holes that would be good to visit another time. An optimist at heart, I was hopeful still for a little luck in finding a lazy brown hiding along a bank undercut. (BIG SIGH) Nope. Nothing. On now what amounts to a walk, I did see one other fisherman who felt compelled to tell me stories about 18" rainbows that he was pulling out of that stream in the early spring.

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Sidebar: This is why I have mixed feelings about stream talk.
1. You don't know how much of the information (if any of it) to trust.
2. It sucks to hear that you are there at the wrong time but you make a mental note of it anyhow.
And 3. ...Dude, I came out here to fish. Thanks, and I am moving on.

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I worked my way back to my car and then headed north a bit from that parking area and found a pull off that I was new to me as well. There were other cars there but I presume they were all hikers in the area as I didn't see anyone on the water. I walked upstream and found places that I had driven by many times but never stopped at because they were, well... just too far down the hill and likely to have been fished out by the "harvesters". What I found was again thin skinny water without any signs of life. There was plenty of fishy looking water with aeration and deeper pools along with a clearly visible rocky bottom; my hopes were raised slightly. I had one fish rise to a cast. It was a small... let's say "half-strike"...and didn't take. Just a nibble, spit and dive. Well that was encouraging but the excitement of that wore off quickly.

Tuesday -
"Frustrated but a doughnut will make you hopeful."

The following Tuesday I was able to head back out. I dropped my son off at school, grabbed a doughnut and a cup of coffee and bolted for the waterway.  The weather again pretending to be spring.  I headed back up the hill on the same stretch of water but to a more familiar stop. I found a pull of or two and edged my way up stream repeatedly being disappointed at the lack of life in the water. There were pools that I fished that I can usually count on 80% of the time to find a fish hiding in. When I made my way to my chosen end stop I worked downstream again into waters that I seldom fished in the past just to learn the terrain and the turns of the stream. I will spare you the details. It was a bust. At this point I didn't know if I was frustrated or just disappointed to a whole new level. 

Wednesday -
"Right place same results." (should have gotten a doughnut)

Don't you hate it when the title of a section kind of tells it all? Well this does that but I promise that I will come to my main point when it is all over. I checked in with the friend who gave me the original tip that inspired me to dust of my license and get out while the getting was good. Explained my non-adventure and was promptly told I was in the wrong place.

This time I got a very specific location thanks to our friends at Google maps.  I dropped my son off at school, skipped the doughnut and had a coffee with me from home. I parked and checked my Google location and was definitely at the right place. I will be honest. This is not the usual place I would have thought to look for fishing. On the map it seems a little suburban but it is a nice little stretch of water and I could see potential going into it. It was one of those places where you see everyone unloading bikes and walking their dogs. It was a little closer to the city than I like...a place that probably only a few fisherman would fish without at least a touch of spite stuck in their craw.

It was as I said before, a suburban area. You could see apartment complexes in the distance. It was wintered over and ugly. Not a leaf in a skeleton of trees and not a sign of green anywhere. But the sun was shining and I decided to go into this with an open mind yet realistic expectation that there would be little if any life.

What I found was exactly the kind of stream features that the friend had described. I could imagine the water with more cover of leafed our trees, growing grasses and raised waters. The pools were obvious and you got a sense of where the water levels had been at one time. The canopy was actually not bad for tenkara at all and even as I hopelessly went through the motions of casting to the pools and cascades of white bubbles I knew I could see myself back here again in just a few months.

Thoughts on dormant waters

I am a person of imagination and hope. While these three late-winter/pre-spring outings provided little in the way of fishing action. I did slow down long enough to think about the waters. From new found accidents along the way to new sections of old haunts and actual locations that a man swears are some of his best "go to waters". As the song goes..."there is a season". 

Dormant waters should be expected. Fish are subject to seasonal changes, water levels and predators. They do what they must to survive the winter season. This makes me wonder where they actually do go of course but at the same time, that is a secret that is perhaps best unknown. Well, I still want to understand it better. 

As I reflect on this and project the idea onto my own relationship with the season, I see that I need to perhaps have my own places that I escape away to during the winter. Places that I will be in solitude and remain unmolested by others. This gives the world I live in during the spring a little time to flow without me directly in it or struggling to survive in a less than optimal environment. Winter is a time for slumber and reflection. Certainly it is a time for planning and thinking about the future seasons ahead as well. Eat doughnuts, look at maps, tie flies etc.

Perhaps this whole blog post is really about me reminding myself that we need these slow, unproductive times for introspection. They can act as a comparison for us in the more productive and busy times. Maybe make us appreciate the more bountiful seasons. I wish that the rest of our society was perhaps more seasonally affected.
Arguably it probably is but is ignorant to its effects. It seems every January that we are supposed to be "out of the gates" rushing towards some goal. Well this guy is going to take a cue from the groundhog and slip back into my hole only coming out occasionally if the sun is shining. I won't be fooled by the false promise of early spring. When I do emerge though I will be ready and focused. See you in the spring. I'll bring the doughnuts.