Old Man Winter

Ok, so it was cold this morning. How cold, you ask? Really cold. Single-digit-freeze-your-guides-and-line cold. The put-your-hands-in-the-river-and-it-feels-warm kind of cold.

As if all the holiday decorations at the store weren't a big enough clue, the frigid temps and snowstorms we had this past week were a pretty good indication that Old Man winter had silently crept through the backdoor while I wasn't looking. Stoopid non-attentive eyeballs...

Not that cold weather would stop me from fishing - oh no, being about as thick as cement, it doesn't occur to me to stay home - the allure of popping some chubbies trumps what little common sense I do have, regardless of the temps.

Besides, winter has a way of culling the herds, eliminating the fair-weather anglers, which equates to fewer bodies on the water - and this greatly pleases the little anti-social gremlin that lives in my psyche.

For every 2 anglers packing up their gear for the season, there's always a nut-case like me still chugging along with indifference. And I'd venture to guess that some of you are the same way. Freaks.

Lacking common sense, I was at the river's edge at first light - and I was surprised at the water level. This time of year, flows should be down to a Larry-King-at-the-Urinal trickle, minus all of the grunting. However, the water levels were up again, and it was stained to the point that I really couldn't spot much of anything in the low-light conditions.

Not being able to spot targets, I spent the morning blind fishing runs, and managed to pull out a few smaller fish. And by smaller, I mean in the 6-10 inch range. On two of them, I didn't even realize that I had hooked them, so at the end of my drift, I pulled my line to recast and...OOOOPS.....airborne fish.

Yeah, not a good thing. Fortunately, they both survived the G's and their brief role as test pilots.

Actually, it was a smallish kinda day - by the time I left at 1 pm, I had pulled 11 of the little fellas out of the river.

Now, when the sun finally did manage to get up high enough....the clouds moved in. But not before I managed to zero in on several larger tubs in the Ice Box. With the higher flows, however, they were down deep, but they were all active.

So, lobbing some depth charges, I managed to bite into 3 nice subs - all in the 20 inch range. Two of them got lucky and managed to shake the hook after a nice fight, but one of them made it to the net. Oh yeah!

The only downside to an otherwise epic day? Burying a hook into my left index finger, and slicing my right index finger with the 7x. Seriously...that stuff was like a razor - cut clean and deep, and you KNOW it's bad when there's very little blood. Still hurts like hell as I'm typing this.

Not a good day to be an index finger, obviously.

Ah well - it was a great last day in the Canyon for 2010 - the parking lot will be closed for about 8 weeks, so it will be a while before I get to fish it again.

Frying Pan, anyone?