The Winter That Wasn't

I appreciate our seasons in Michigan. Growing up in the northern Lower Peninsula, I experienced, expected, and anticipated the rhythms, variations, and activities unique to each. A part of me still does, but increasingly I know I can’t rely on them.

Prepping all my cross-country ski, snowshoe, winter camping, and ice fishing gear before the winter turned into a mostly wasted effort with just a few days of decent skiable snow here in Ann Arbor and no chances to ice fish; I ran a “Bad Santa 5K” trail run in December with no snow, and as of this writing I’m signed up for a snowshoe race that I have no confidence will occur. The Central Lake Ice Fishing Tournament I planned to fish in my hometown in February was cancelled for lack of ice.

Also cancelled were the Black Lake sturgeon season, the North American Vasa nordic ski and bike race, and the UP 200 dog sled race. The twin effects of climate change and El Nino wrecked Michigan’s winter outdoor recreation season and the tourism small towns across northern Michigan rely upon to supplement the summer.

I had big plans for this winter that never seemed to pan out. Adventurous excursions. I even bought a heavy-duty pulk sled to tow my gear by cross-country skiing, combining skiing, backpacking, and ice fishing. Getting back to solo winter backpacking after a few years when it just didn’t happen (I went for about ten winters in a row until my son was born) and here’s another winter when it won’t, unless we get an unexpected late snowstorm on a free weekend.

​Those free weekends are increasingly rare. I planned out a couple of weekends when I would try to go, but there was no snow or safe ice. I could have just backpacked on muddy trails, but that’s not the experience that I was after so I stayed home and worked on house projects, banking those free
weekends for the spring and summer.

That’s what most of the winter became: preparing for the next season. In the traditional fly-fishing
calendar, that’s what winter is for: tying flies in between the closing of one trout season and the opening of the next. But I’ve long tried to be a more well-rounded outdoorsman to take advantage of all the seasons, so it’s frustrating not to, other than a January Saturday volunteering to collect stoneflies for the Huron River Watershed Council’s annual stream survey and another where I found a few hours to cast streamers for northern pike out of my canoe, without a bite.

What I have been able to do this winter is prep fishing gear for the spring and summer, taking on a new hobby in building and restoring fly rods, in addition to tying flies and building leaders. This I can do late at night and has alleviated some of my angst over a lack of winter outdoor recreation and has me anticipating spring and summer fishing as much as ever.

After picking up some rod winding thread and some vintage bamboo and fiberglass fly rods at my local Trout Unlimited chapter’s holiday gear swap, I built light 2wt and 3wt fiberglass fly rods for my 5-year-old son and I for bluegill and fully restored two vintage bamboo fly rods.
I learned the process through YouTube videos (mostly by Proof Fly Fishing) and reading threads in the Classic Fly Rod Forum online, a strangely modern way to restore rods originally built in the typewriter era. To go with those vintage rods, I ordered some vintage used fly reels, some of which took some repair to reel and sound just right. And then, of course, I needed new fly lines to go with rods and reels, and then I needed to spend some time in the backyard on snowless winter weekends casting flies I’d tied on the rods I’d built and restored and the reels I’d fixed.

The spring beckons from winter’s preparation.

The trout flies I tied for my own supply over the winter mostly include classic patterns and their
variations for brook trout; Muddler Minnows, Marabou Muddlers, Royal Wulffs, Parachute Adams, Purple Haze, Elk Hair Caddis, Stimulator, Borcher’s Drake, Hare’s Ear and Pheasant Tail Nymphs, and simple wet flies like the Partridge and Orange, and Partridge and Peacock. The pike fly patterns I tied for my fly box, friends, and fly shops include Deer Hair Popper, Dahlberg Diver, Buford, Pike Bunny, and Swim Bait Deceiver.

The bamboo rods I restored include a 5-6wt South Bend 359 from the late 1940s that casts a dry fly
beautifully and a 6-7wt Abercrombie & Fitch “Yellowstone Special” from the 1910s that should serve to drift wet flies and nymphs well. I built new pike leaders with titanium wire to replace broken, frayed, and kinked leaders from last year.

The anticipation of fishing rods as you’re restoring them, flies as you’re tying them, and leaders as
you’re building them is part of the allure of the process; it simply keeps your head in the game when you can’t be on the stream or on the lake. My favorite trout waters are the little streams that usually don’t open until the traditional trout opener on the last Saturday in April, when the Lower Peninsula pike season opens, and the Upper Peninsula pike season on May 15.

There’s time yet to tie more flies, restore and build more fly rods, and build more leaders, the
anticipation growing with each thread wrap. When the fishing seasons open, I just hope that we don’t have a spring that wasn’t, too.

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