It’s wet and the nighttime temperatures are falling below freezing, and today is not only the first day of the year we switched on the heat pump, it’s also the first truly gray, drizzly day.

In other words, it’s the first ideal Blue Winged Olive day of the year.

"The BWOs are on"

Some of us wait for the BWO hatch like children wait for Christmas.

Whether the olives actually come off or not is immaterial; we wait for these “first” days like children wait for Christmas, the tension building, our heads spinning.

Every sport has its variants: if it’s not the BWOs it’s the drakes, or the opening of deer season, the playoffs, the World Cup, etc.

The Silk Lines and Paper Hulls blog (a gem I’ve overlooked) writes powerfully about upland bird hunting, and you can almost feel the tension draining:

Mornings were crisp, followed by hot afternoons. A few birds here and there, each a reward for considerable effort. My best memory: a mistake I made after climbing a little too high above a bowl that held a covey of birds. While I sat resting, gasping for O’s and chewing on jerky, I watched the show unfold on my own personal IMAX theater. From a few hundreds yards beneath my feet I saw a point, a single flush, a fallen bird, a relocation, occasional laughter, then another flush, and finally a long poke from way downtown resulting a collected bird brought to hand. After the smoke cleared, the reports silenced and the birds collected, I watched a few strays escape out the back door, those with enough nerve to hold their ground and flip us a furry footed bird. It’s here. It’s finally here.

“It’s finally here” is the kind of statement an old writing friend would have labeled an archetypal phrase — words so heaped with meaning they’re more symbol than sentence.

“The steelhead are in.”

“The drakes are hatching.”

“The BWOs are coming off.”

“Runoff’s done.”

“The trail’s clear.”

“The [insert your archetypal phrase].”

Some build their lives around these phrases, the phone ringing, words coming down the line, life interrupted.

Lately, I’ve missed a lot more of these than I’ve hit, the product of work, a small daughter, and a lot of daycare hiccups.

For those with families and jobs and adult responsibilities, the words don’t lose their impact; you simply lose the ability to drop the phone and run for the door.

Which is why I sat with Little M today while Chris Raine went exploring, and while he’s typically not above sending the occasional taunt, this time he said he caught a few, didn’t see any BWOs, and may have been there too early.

It’s either the unvarnished truth or a friendly gesture from someone who knows the score up here at TU/Man Cave World Headquarters, but either way, it means there’s still hope.

After all, I may have missed the first day of BWO weather (and because I’m teaching, I’m going to miss it Wednesday and Thursday too), but I haven’t missed the BWO hatch, which can run into January.

With a new 5wt to test (and the BWOs represent one leg of the perfect 5wt test), I expect I’ll get a few trout at some point in the hatch.

After all, the BWOs are almost here.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

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