Ready for July...and August
I’m ready.This sort of thing happens this time of year. The novelty of the cold is getting stale and old. I want the sun to have some warmth behind it, or maybe just to see it again. I don’t mind fishing in layers of clothing, but I’d prefer not to. Yeah, El Niño is making things warmer (by the way, the Saturday Night Live Chris Farley El Niño skit is still funny) but it’s winter-warm. I’m ready for real warm.This is totally unAlaskan and mentally weak of me, but it’s not my fault. I’m wracked with thoughts of hot July days boulder hopping in the Sierra Nevada. It is exactly what it sounds like. You’re in shorts, a t-shirt and wading boots that you wear with neoprene wading socks — your feet get wet, but it’s a warm wet — and you stand, kneel, or spoon large granite boulders, reach your arm over the water and gently place your fly on the surface. Fish bolt out from edges, nooks and deep water to take your fly. It’s awesome. When the sun becomes too much, you just lower yourself into the cold water, and cast upriver to the top of the run. Your toes wrinkle and maybe get chilled, but your forehead still sweats, leaving salt rings on your fishing hat which makes it look more worn, so you look like a veteran fisherman, not some newbie who bought the look-like-a-fisherman-kit.See full column at:http://www.capitalcityweekly.com/stories/012816/out_1266158988.shtml