Knocking the Rust Off
Photos by Jim Mize
Winters in the South Carolina mountains tend to give us just a taste of the weather our northern neighbors get, followed by balmy days predicting an early spring. This past year was different.
The cold air settled on us in January and stayed. The local small pond I fish froze over enough I could have walked on it had I been adventurous. The trout stream edges turned to crusted ice, and the trickle of incoming springs froze in long icicles.
A person can tie only so many flies before turning antsy. When all my go-to flies had been restocked and my gear checked over—and then checked over again—I began to feel like the walls of my cabin were slowly inching closer.
So, just as February rolled in and the weather became better described as intermittent winter, I got a text from my daughter suggesting a fishing trip.
My daughter and I often fish poor weather together and neither of us feel like a weatherman’s permission was required for us to go. But we did want some help from the fish, so after we picked a date, I began to watch the forecast like a pet-shop snake eyes the hamster cage.
The week before we planned to go looked less than promising. Snow and ice fell in the mountains, and the following days didn’t encourage it to melt. The trip was shaping up to be an exercise in endurance.
Then, a funny thing happened. The daily high temperatures crept above freezing. The ice melted. The sun came out. Punxsutawney Phil was somewhere eating his words that predicted six more weeks of winter.
On the day of our trip, the water temperatures had crept back into the mid-forties. We hit a North Carolina stream we’ve come to call Humility Creek, for obvious reasons. If you don’t go with humility, you come home with it.
Since we were coming from different directions, we agreed to meet at the hole we planned to fish. February rarely attracts crowds; simply the name of the month tends to keep some people at home. Plus, we were fishing on a weekday, so fewer people would be on the water.
I got there first and started at the riffle flowing into the hole, hoping as the day warmed something might be hatching in the pool. By the time my daughter weaved through traffic and arrived, I had landed two decent rainbows on a size 18 Pheasant Tail. The fishing wasn’t fast, but it beat working on my gear for a third time.
My daughter fished nymphs down in the pool below me, and the fish we caught seemed to be spaced out as if they were being rationed. Finally, I looked downstream to see her rod bent and pulsing with something bigger.
The fight was lasting longer than normal, so I surmised correctly that this fish might be different. The few we had caught so far had been rainbows; this one turned out to be a brown trout.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised over the years to find some good browns in this stream, though usually I caught them in the summer on terrestrials. But I did have the good fortune to get a good one on a cold day in December some years ago, when it was my only bite of the day. So I waded down to admire her fish.
I got there just in time to see the fish in the net. It was a nice brown for this creek, long and lanky, with that signature curled lower lip. With a buttery belly and multitude of spots, the fish made for nice pictures, so we took the time to shoot a few, keeping the trout underwater so it could simultaneously revive itself.
Somehow, the day seemed warmer after that. We fished upstream, picking up an occasional rainbow in riffles and small pools. They jumped and entertained us with their aerial theatrics. At one point, I glanced up in the woods and noticed buttercups in bloom, planted there years ago and coming up annually as if predicting an end to winter.
Having given the downstream pool a good rest, we felt the need to go back and make a few more casts before calling it a day. We each added a fish to our daily tallies, and by the time we quit, we were tied.
I’ll add that we don’t really compete on the water, though I have noticed a bit of a smile on my daughter’s face as we walk out when her numbers are higher. At my age, I’ve come to expect the whippersnappers to beat me at most things.
This trip felt much like an early declaration of spring. The rods had been dusted off, the leaders straightened after being too long coiled, and my waders confirmed they had survived the winter without gaining any new leaks.
For a February trip, it had been a good day. As an end to winter, it was a huge success. Above all, we managed to knock the rust off. When that happens, it’s a good trip.
Jim Mize enjoys all the seasons, but some more than others. Click here to purchase Jim’s award-winning book, The Jon Boat Years, or buy autographed copies at www.acreektricklesthroughit.com.
