Ice-off Escapade

A typical early-season stillwater rainbow trout

                                          
  I was cleaning out my room and found this old, short article I was meaning to use 7 or so years ago on our website. It's short and fairly abstract so either I was reading too much Bob Scammell at the time or I was in hippyville BC. Please forgive the puns.

With finesse and grace I released the winter demons through a rythmic back and forth motion. Unravelling a cast on an early season spring creek? Nope. Ploppin' indicator rigs on a local trout pond? You bet! Early season trips to places like the Bow and Stauffer are great, but nothing is more special to me than trying out the first few feet of open water on our trout ponds. There is no need to search for motivation, all it takes is an obsession and about 10 months of Alberta winter for you to know what I am talking about.

Winter may be a beautiful to some, but to a fly fishing nut winter gets old fairly quickly and causes many to dip into the liquor cabinet, medicine cabinet, or even the ice fishing section at the store

A condition prescribed by most doctors as the shack nasties is naturally being cured by some Muiracle....oops I mean miracle. After months of near insanity there comes a common symptom, which has some fool filling a box with #26 dry flies that will never grace the end of a line. But luckily there is light on the horizon to save this fishing fool from craziness. Too bad the light on the horizon is a 6 am sunrise shining straight into my eyes while I chug a mug/bucket of coffee trying to wake myself up for fishing and/or showing up to an iced up pond: good thing Kingsalmon is driving today. Once I have finally woken up, it will hit me: I am about to cast my fly rod on still, open water for the first time this year.

Goofing around with a little perch a few years ago at first ice-off

Tight lines,

-Andy aka Dr Shoal