Planning to Fly Fish the Backcountry? Start Hiking Now…

For a big chunk of winter I was shuffling around like a wheezing old car fully expecting to break down on the next flight of stairs, and while that whole episode is behind me, the lack of activity left its mark on my general fitness level – a fact underscored every time I try to speedwalk the Wonderdog.

This doesn’t portend well for the backcountry fly fishing season – which will likely come very, very early this year.

I make no pretense of extreme fitness, but I am used to tossing a pack in the truck and hiking wherever I need to hike, but I’m pretty sure a long uphill slog right now would end in Wally the Wonderdog sniffing forlornly at my cooling, disgustingly unfit body.

It’s not a pretty picture up here, so Saturday and Sunday I embarked on the Trout Underground’s First Annual Hiking Fitness Program (and Whinefest), whereby I took the Wonderdog for three hours of nonstop hiking around some unexplored local trails (I hate walking by trails when I don’t know where they go).

Sunday, I followed it up with “speedwork” – a more intense 1.5 hours up and down the hills (if it’s one thing we’ve got, it’s hills).

The goal here isn’t a guest appearance on some exercise equipment infomercial. The goal is to jump start a little “normal” fitness for those fishing trips where your choice of footwear is more important than your choice of fly rod. (That’s today’s helpful hint: buy this season’s hiking boots now so you’ve test flown/broken them in before you take that first [and potentially blister-filled] hike.)

The last couple years have seen me choosing the high country surprisingly often; bypassing the Upper Sacramento in favor of smaller, higher waters.

I don’t wholly understand the impulse; for all the extra work, the fish are generally smaller and the bugs less available, but the high country exerts a pull all its own. It’s gorgeous, the fish are naive and jewel-like, and there’s that nagging – if wholly delusional – sense that I might be the first person to cast a line in some of the less desirable places. (That’s utter rubbish, but it’s not as if the rest of human behavior is entirely rational either.)

And yes, having been raised by parents who grew up during the Great Depression, a part of me believes the stuff that’s too easily accomplished (drive to river, exit car, fish) inevitably leads to sloth (like watching too much TV) and rapid growth in your character flaws (like kicking dogs, cheating elderly widows, political aspirations, etc).

Don’t worry; you’ll be spared daily fitness reports, though with any luck, you’ll be around to read some of the fishing reports. Given the lack of snow so far this winter, you could be reading those reports months earlier than in prior years.

See you on the trail, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: backcountry fly fishing, dead bodies on trails, Fly Fishing, fly fishing fitness, hiking

Tagged as: backcountry fly fishing, dead bodies on trails, Fly Fishing, fly fishing fitness, hiking