January is always an interesting month in Northeast Pennsylvania. It is always cold outside, but sometimes the sun is shining so brightly you can trick your mind into thinking it is warm, especially when you have three layers of jackets on. It was one of those weekends where the week’s snow was melting and turning into the brown-gray runoff that coats your vehicle every time you go for a drive. Skiing was getting old, and the lift ticket prices were not encouraging either.
As the weekend came on, one thing started to creep in: the urge to catch, or try to catch, a big brown trout. Fall fly fishing usually ends around the beginning of November in this part of the country with the redds, allowing the fish to repopulate. I believe in letting the trout rest at that point, as do many, so it is the natural end of the season for most. So at this point it had been roughly three months since I last cast my 5wt.
I had never fished for trout in winter, but I knew the basics. Streamers, and midges in size 20 or smaller. In my eyes that meant throwing streamers, since nymph and midge fishing is usually not my style — as you’ll learn over time. I did some quick reading online and gathered the recommended materials: gloves with the fingertips cut off, hand warmers, and thick socks. I even gathered two pairs of thick socks to wear at once.
Though I had the trout fever in January, I had little desire to fish alone. I knew of one other person crazy enough to fish for trout in 20°F when everything was covered in ice: Andrew. When Andrew goes fishing, he is all about numbers — not how many trout he caught, but how big the single fish he caught that day was. Andrew is the person throwing an articulated streamer when a green drake hatch is in full swing. His go-to rod is a 6wt with an intermediate line, where most people are probably holding a 9ft 5wt. Andrew covers more ground on a stream in a day than Forrest Gump did on his run. So when I asked him to come throw streamers in sub-freezing temperatures in the hopes of landing a big brown, his only question was whether I wanted him to bring his espresso machine. The answer was yes.
Andrew drove the two hours to my house on Friday night. Where I live in Pennsylvania there is a relatively famous river, a designated Class A wild trout stream, known for being home to big brown trout. We both agreed it was our best option. Saturday we woke up and Andrew made the morning cappuccinos. I was very happy he brought that machine. We went to the local fly shop for the inside scoop. The scoop was that we were crazy for going out, but they wished us luck. Then we headed to the water.
I am no expert at catching trout, but I am an expert at setting the tone for a day with good music. There’s no set playlist or anything like that, just straight vibes. On this gray day in January the vibes were a mixture of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” some EDM, and a hint of Toby Keith. I was trying to get us hyped for what could be a long day, and I think I was successful.
We got out of the car, layered up, and set up our rods. I rigged up a purple Woolly Bugger I’d tied myself. I like to think of them as my specialty, though I’m probably the millionth person to tie one. Andrew, in his true form, tied on an articulated streamer brought into this world by Kelly Galloup, a Dungeon of sorts. As we did our final checks and hit the lock button on our keys, I said to Andrew, definitely inspired by the music we had just been listening to, “We are doing this today for the thrill of the catch.”
My self-claimed specialty, the purple Woolly Bugger.
As we walked down the river, one thing became increasingly evident: it was cold. Very cold. Apple Weather told us it was going to be 15°F all day. Great. But we never said anything to each other about the cold, probably because we were invigorated by the thrill of the catch.
When we arrived at the first hole the water was quite clear. The flows were a bit high from the snowmelt, but it was more than wadable. We fished it methodically at first. I went above Andrew and cast 10ft in front of me, working my way out to around 40ft. No words had to be said. Andrew and I have fished together for years, so we had our system worked out. The first hole yielded no fish, and there were no signs of fish anywhere, so on to the next it was.
The second hole was much of the same. So we headed off to the third. At this point we had been fishing for over two hours. The frigid water was starting to get to my legs through my waders, sweatpants, and fleece leggings. More concerning was the feeling in my feet. They were starting to go numb. Andrew was raring to ditch the methodical approach and throw a few casts into the places he thought big browns would be. I agreed, but my feet hurt to the point that walking seemed torturous. I had to pause.
As I sat down on a log, I figured I should probably check that my toes were still attached to my foot. I took my boot off and pulled my socks off. Andrew noticed I was wearing two pairs and told me to take one off. I did, and after a few minutes he was proven right, my feet were fine. Who knew that all those people online, across both the fly fishing and the skiing forums, were right: your toes need blood flow to stay warm.
With the relief in my feet I was ready to fish, and fish aggressively. We were casting behind every fallen tree, rock cutout, deep riffle, and piece of structure in the water we could find. At one point we convinced ourselves that a 20-inch brown might be holed up in a sunken tire in the middle of the stream. If a trout was living there, it did not want our offerings. Really, if a trout was anywhere in that river, it did not want our flies.
We had been on the water for nearly seven hours when we noticed the sun starting to set. We had caught exactly zero fish and had the same number of bites. Trout sightings were the same. But we had walked over three miles from the car, and we agreed it was best to head back. We announced our last casts in the hope of some last-cast magic. Sadly, we had run out that day.
On the walk back, the cold air froze the residual water on our waders. The street lights lit our way and we laughed about the day and how differently we had pictured it going. When Andrew brought up my comment about the day being about the thrill of the catch, I said, “It was never about the thrill of the catch. It was for the love of the game.” We both laughed, and he said something about calling me a philosopher.
Sunday morning came around and we agreed to forgo a few more hours on the river in favor of drinking cappuccinos in a warm house with a fireplace. Smart move on our part. No fish were caught that weekend, but I think about it a lot. At some point I know I surrendered the thought of catching a big brown trout, really any fish for that matter, and started to enjoy my time outside with a good friend. In my mind I mark that day as the day I perfected my double haul, and the day I decided to make the marabou tail on my purple woollies a tad smaller.
I chose this story for our first post because it embodies who we are. We are people who love fishing, but more importantly, we love spending time with the people who make the world a bit more interesting.