At a recent social event, I overheard a fisherman state that for him, there was no such thing as a rain check when it came to fishing and the weather. A prominent gear manufacturer proudly proclaims that there is no such thing as bad weather, just substandard clothing. Another rod manufacturer shows a couple of guys floating down a river in the middle of a blizzard, faces frozen in grim determination.  The underlying message: Real men are prepared to freeze their ****s off in pursuit of fish.

 

Me, I prefer to keep mine nice and snug in my wife’s handbag where they belong.  Don’t get me wrong, I love to fish, but I also like to think I have a life. As a guide, I lost count of the number of times I would take guys fishing who seemed to have ants in their pants. They couldn’t sit still for 5 seconds, let alone stop casting. The whole day they had to be casting, casting , casting. They would jump out of the boat at any opportunity, often ignoring private land postings, not to mention threats to life and limb wading treacherous runs, to get in that extra cast. Concepts such as re-hydration, enjoying the scenery, or deep, relaxed breathing were foreign to them.

 

The worst was in the winter or spring time, when a blizzard was in full swing. I would show up to the shop in the morning, and grimly start shoveling the snow out of the boat, knowing that there was no way that a couple of guys who spend their life in a cubicle and have just driven 500 miles to fish were going to let a couple of irritating details like horizontally driven snow and sub freezing temperatures put them off. All was usually fun and games until about half an hour into the trip, when the realities of frozen line guides, frostbitten fingers and plummeting body core temperatures would begin to hit home. Dry land bravado became muffled whimpering pretty quickly.

 

Which is not to cast aspersions on good keen fishermen. It’s just that at certain times common sense needs to take the wheel. For example, fishing in the dark. On multi day river trips, I usually start out with some kind of romantic notion of fishing after dusk or before dawn. But the reality is that once my butt hits a camp chair in the evening, the only thing I am getting up for is another cold beer. A bear in camp is about the only thing that will get me out of my sleeping bag before breakfast.

 

And so it is with winter fishing. If there is ice along the river bank, or floating down the river, or forming on the line guides, then show me the couch next to the fireplace. New Zealand, it must be noted, breeds wimpy fishermen. Most of our rivers are closed to fishing over the winter to allow the fish to procreate in peace. The only wild animals we have to contend with is the odd hung over Australian tourist, while the weather in winter, while cold, seldom throws the kinds of bone chilling blizzards at you that the Rocky Mountains can.

 

So while I take my hat off to that ‘never say die’, ‘I can fish with more shrinkage factor than you’ mentality, for me, it’s hot cocoa, marshmallows, and keep my wife’s handbag close.