Another Winter Casualty: Tamanawis "Cry for Help" Post Clearly Sign of Off-Season Fly Fishing Disorder
By Tom Chandler on Jan 16, 2007 in Underground Entertainment
It’s never pretty to see what a few months of fly fishing deprivation does to a mind - especially those minds prone to fly fishing obsession in the first place.
It’s only January, yet the recent spate of odd, cabin-feverish posts on fly fishing blogs has the Underground very, very concerned.
Can you spot the early warning signs of Off-Season Fly Fishing Disorder (OSFFD)?
Phase One is when you tidy up your gear, performing obsessive tasks like cleaning your fly line and oiling reels.
Phase Three finds you making obsessive lists of next year’s potential fishing adventures and the gear you’ll need - right down to the number of split shot, ounces of Irish whiskey, and rolls of toilet paper.
Phase Five finds you sidling up to the cashier at the tackle shop, 14-weight rod in your hands - even though the mere thought of fishing from a boat makes you queasy.
Phase Nine is when vocalization skills suffer, leaving you to utter the word “trout” over and over and over until it’s lost all meaning and you forget what a trout even looks like, moving you to speak the word even more in an effort to recapture the image of the fish.
Friends will think you enjoyed a few tabs of LSD with your breakfast oatmeal.
Based on his post (clearly a cry for help), we figure Tamanawis is somewhere around Phase Twelve:
It’s amazing how creative the angler’s mind can get during the close season. It’s been over three months since I wet a line, and I’m beginning to feel it. Recent posts have probably hinted at my burgeoning desperation…
Yes, they have. But not like this paragraph:
The latest phase has been developing over these last few dark, windy winter days. I say ‘developing’, because the Ultimate System is still in a beta-testing stage, but it’s looking promising. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… The Lanyard of Power!
He not only dubs his new fishing vest replacement the “Lanyard of Power” but casually mentions that the lanyard holds the ”Retractor of All Knowledge.”
It gets even less pretty.
Fortunately, the Trout Underground’s Off-Season Fast Strike Rescue Team is already in a helicopter somewhere over Tamanawis land.
Once on the scene, our heroic, trained crew will winch down a volunteer who will slap Tamanawis silly in an attempt to restore his sanity, leaving behind a Trout Bum Diaries DVD.
Fly fishing isn’t always pretty. It can force us to make hard choices and take extreme measures.
But of course, we can’t do anything to save ourselves without knowing the early signs of Obsessive Off-Season Fly Fishing Disorder.
Add your early warning signs to the list. And know you’ve made the world a better place…
Technorati Tags: fly fishing, off season, lanyard of power
rriver | Jan 16, 2007 | Reply
I fished yesterday on the Rogue and it was very cold. A bit surreal to fish among icicles. A few midges were around, and a few large grey mayflies. My feet could only take 30 minutes at a time. Late, around dark, 3 or 4 steelhead rolled. Nothing worked. A back eddy that usually will produce in this weather did not. Skunked again. A san juan worm on a sink tip would have worked, but I wasn’t that bored yet.
- rriver
C4CRaine | Jan 16, 2007 | Reply
Well, I figured there was no better place for this, so I stuck it here. I think you should try and get an ‘ad agreement’ or whatever the technical term for such an agreement (like the one the Underground has with Sierra Trading Post), with REI. Just a thought…oh, and if anyone would like to be put in my Last Will and Testament, you can leave your name here too - no I’m not in Phase 40.32*10^36 of OSFFD, I’ve just got about the gnarliest cold anyone could dream up…in essence, I’ve been plutoed.
Tom Chandler | Jan 16, 2007 | Reply
rriver: Yes - resorting to a San Juan Worm on a sink top would be an early sign of OOSFD. Good catch.
C4C: I’ll look at REI, though they carry little fishing related equipment. An affiliate link has to be useful to a site’s readers, or it generates few orders (and no money to support the Underground’s costs) and ultimately amounts to free advertising for the company.
I’m definitely NOT looking to do that for anyone…
Sully | Jan 16, 2007 | Reply
No lanyard development here (somewhere other than aound the neck?), but in roughly descending order of depravity here are five things I’ve actually stooped to this winter:
1)TiVoing every episode of “Flyfishing America”. Anyone else see the severed gill hanging out of that sad pike this week?
2)Mixing and re-mixing dubbing blends. My wife bought a special 25-cent blender at a garage sale; no more being appalled by “fuzz” touching our food.
3)Using the “Common Cents” method to evaluate lots of rods.
4)Worse- actually building the little scale from the “Common Cents” system and weighing fly lines.
5)Tying a Box-o-Baetis for the Trout Underground in the hope that they’ll see rising trout before we do in Missoula.
Capt Gordon | Jan 16, 2007 | Reply
Yo I was poling my flats boat in bare feet yesterday. Saw a couple schools of reds too. Just thought you would like to know….bwahaha!
Bill Anderson | Jan 16, 2007 | Reply
Where does fly fishing in -6 degrees C weather wondering why the last eyelet on my rod is icing up fit in? Somewhere around phase 10?
Tom Chandler | Jan 17, 2007 | Reply
Two confessions and a taunt then. And Captain Gordon, we will not forget this….
And Sully, how bad has it gotten that you’re watching fly fishing on television??
Perhaps the Fast Strike Rescue Team should be sent your way…