I woke up this morning to that white stuff on the ground and the ther-mo-meter said it was cold cold. That’s a level past cold. Cold cold makes taking the dogs out in the morning a chore you want to skip. As I laid in bed, I heard my wife open the back door. She took the dogs out this morning. I was snug as a bug in a rug. I know how lucky I am. You don’t have to tell me.
I got moving and decided that I’d spend the morning cleaning my vise. I don’t remember the last time I actually cleaned and lubricated this old Regal Vise. Probably never. It’s a workhorse but the base was looking pretty sad. It was covered in glue and other UV cured slop. I got to scrubbing and years of schmutz came off, albeit slowly. The brass is a lot darker these days. Some would call it patina. I see those many years in my rear view and wonder where the hell they went so fast.
I think I’ve been tying on this Regal for 14 years now. I’ve tied thousands of streamers and poppers on it. Can’t say I’ve ever tied a fly on it that some trout nerd would use latin to describe its imitation. Never really been my bag of tricks and these days I can’t see that small. I’ve thought about picking up a different vise but this thing will outlive me and why spend money on things that work when I can spend it on dumb things. Like tying materials.
I went out to the garage and grabbed my boat bag off the shelf. I unzipped it, thankful to not find any mouse damage. I’m not a smart man and left protein bars in the bag. A few years ago I did the same and they got in and ate all the protein and then were so jacked that they chewed the hell out of half a dozen fly lines in the bag. It was war after that. So many dead mice and I’m still fighting my own private ‘Nam. Inside that old Orvis boat bag (they really need to start making it again), were two boxes that needed some love. I organized them and then realized I am low on everything worth fishing.
Everyone who ties has those flies that stay in their boxes for years. They become the “some day fly”. Some day it might work. Some day I might fish it. Just not today. They’re usually experiments or the outcome of a few drinks and a late night bout of creativity. The next morning they never look as good as they did in the dim light of a midnight bench session. Maybe I should call them the one-night-stand-streamers.
After cleaning up the old vise and a quick spray of Remington gun oil on the metal, it was time to tie some flies. I sat down and whipped up a quick and dirty streamer with some materials laying on my desk. I’ve been knocking out some streamers here and figure I’ll get over to the poppers soon. I’ve got a couple months until the smallies are feasting on topwater. My plan is to be ready and not panicking the night before trips, tying well into the night, sleeping three hours, and rowing all day. We shall see how well that plan pans out. Knowing my history I wouldn’t bet on me.
