Is it spring yet? Tangled Lines has jangled nerves

The transition between winter and spring is a tough time for this pescador.

Every time it looks like the planets will align, there’s some weather, like the recent foot or so of snow.

I did take a whack at Housatonic in the no man’s land between the power station in Falls Village and the falls the day after the snowstorm.

In previous years, under similar circumstances, I was able to coax some decent smallies into action on big Wooly Buggers, fished deep and slow. One year I was testing out a new 4 weight switch rod and lo! I caught a pike.

A somewhat languorous and unenthusiastic pike, to be sure. I could see its point of view.

There it was, minding its own business and thinking about maybe eating something to shake off the winter blahs.

Next thing it knows, it’s being hauled out, placed in an entirely inadequate net and goggled at by some idiot.

The only time it showed any spunk was when I gingerly approached it with my fingers, to remove the fly.

It snarled, revealing its extremely impressive teeth. Also the slowly working jaw muscles.

I decided to sacrifice the fly, which, being debarbed, would be easy for the pike to work out of its mouth at some point.

I also took a recent flyer on one of the little blue lines to see if the brookies were awake.

This was an exercise in futility.

Waders and boots are always cumbersome.

But wearing waders and boots, in the woods, with a foot or more of snow concealing the terrain and generally making life difficult, isn’t fishing.

It’s floundering.

And no, the brookies were not awake.

This is also a bad time of year for the wallet.

It’s tax time, of course.

It’s also fishing gear clearance time.

At last count I own 80-something fly rods and 30 or so reels.

I have also acquired numerous packs and vests, in the quest for the perfect system.

Every year I resolve to do something about this. Every year I wind up adding to the collection.

It makes a trip to the Fish Closet just that much more complicated.

Not that’s it confined to the closet. There are rod tubes behind the so-called dining table, and obscuring the book shelf, which is largely devoted to fishing books.

I could try to sell surplus rods on eBay, but experience tells me I will be inundated with low-ball offers and impossible questions, such as:

“Hi! I’m 5’10” and speak five languages if you include gibberish. When was this rod made, and how does it compare to the Acme Rod Company’s similar offering from the Oct. 1928 catalog? Also may I have it for one dollar and will you pick up the shipping?”

I am only exaggerating a little.

So as I wait for fishing to start in earnest, making do with fishing books, fishing videos, fishing conversations and lucid fishing dreams, I must resist the urge to pick up last season’s Greatest Rod Ever at a bargain price.

Although there’s one rod...

No. Get a grip. Look at the Fish Closet. You really think you can cram something else in there?

The rods that don’t fit in the Fish Closet make it difficult to access the fishing books. Photo by Patrick L. Sullivan