Fly fishing in the winter isn’t the Big Secret it once was, and frankly – given the quality of today’s winter gear – it’s also not the sufferfest it was as little as a decade ago.
Fly fishing when ice is as common as the water offers its own challenges...
(Whether that’s good or bad depends entirely on your feelings about impressing other fly fishermen with Jack London fishing stories)
In the “old” days (like upwards of four years ago), cold weather meant a couple base layers, at least one fleece layer (perhaps two), and a wading jacket.
It kept you warm, but was bulky, and god forbid the sun came out or you decided to hike thirty minutes to another spot.
Fleece is wonderful stuff, but it doesn’t compress at all, and most wading jackets don’t exactly crush down to fist-sized wads.
In other words, those layers are hell to stuff into the back of a vest.
Fly fishing in the winter: You're dealing with a lot of variables.
“Warm” when you’re standing stock still in a river waving a stick at a BWO hatch is different from “warm” when you’re briskly skiing or hiking to the river.
And while layering is a useful concept, it doesn’t always adapt well to circumstances where you can peel away a layer, but lack a place to put it once you do.
Like when you’re fly fishing.
First, The Soft Shell Arrives
A truism about being outdoors in the winter is that “way too warm” is almost always worse than “a teensy bit cold.”
That’s because overheating leads to sweat, which leads to hypothermia, which is why – two winters ago – I expressed my love for Patagonia’s Insulator soft shell jacket.
It was a brilliant piece of engineering – one I found desirable for its adaptability and serviceability across a very wide range of temperatures.
To refresh, Patagonia’s Insulator soft shell isn’t bulky, insulates nicely, repels water and wind, yet moves moisture like the California Aqueduct – so hiking/skiing fly fishermen don’t become sweat-soaked hiking/skiing fly fishermen.
My Insulator soft shell sheds water, but stays warm even when it gets wet.
It’s become my all-around cold-weather fishing jacket – one I wear even when I’m not fly fishing (chicks dig me in it).
On this winter’s pair of ski/fish trips, I never really needed anything besides my Insulator soft shell – a startling confession given the difference between standing in 38 degree water and xc-skiing for 50 minutes up a steep hill.
Still, despite my love of the soft shell, they do run run second best when temperatures fall below freezing – especially if you’re not hiking, skiing or generating any heat of your own.
When it’s real cold and you’re simply standing in a river – or in the front of a drift boat – something warmer would make for a happier fly fisherman.
Soft shells don’t react well to a lot of base layers, so you can’t simply throw a few long-sleeve underlayers on when it gets cold.
In other words, when it’s truly cold, it’s not your best choice.
Welcome to Nano and Micro territory.
Cue The Happier Fly Fisherman
A while after I sprung for the Patagonia Insulator, I also bought Patagnoia’s Micro Puff jacket – a piece of clothing recommend by every mountain guide I spoke to (and mountain guides know from cold).
And yes, I discovered it’s everything they said it was – unbelievably light, windproof, water resistant, extremely compressible, warm when wet, and… very warm.
Really warm.
In fact, it’s often a little too warm for an active fly fisherman in this part of the country.
I wore it – and loved it when I needed it – but kept bumping against an unfortunate reality; the Micro Puff overheated me within minutes of starting a hike or if the sun came out.
Which is often how my fly fishing goes.
My army-drab Micro Puff jacket: Great when you need it, too warm when you don't.
I ended up wearing the Micro Puff when I knew I’d be standing in the front of a drift boat, or fishing a single, waist-deep run when it was very cold. And basically loved every second of it.
Lightweight and supple, I hardly knew it was there.
Yet the fly in the ointment is that the Micro Puff was often too warm for this area’s above-arctic temperatures, though on a pair of occasions I was damned glad I had it along. And yes, it almost always came “along” – it compresses into a sack about the size of a small lunch bag.
If I lived farther north – like one of those deluded souls who inhabit northern Montana or Idaho – my Micro Puff would probably never leave my body.
My mountain guide friends use the things endlessly; they ski or climb in their soft shells, but once they stop for any length of time, out comes the Micro Puff, which fits over their soft shell, keeping them warm while their disgustingly fit guide bodies stop burning calories.
As I discovered, that works better at 10,000′ than it does at 2500′.
This year, looking for a kinder, gentler version of the Micro Puff, I tumbled for Patagonia’s Nano Puff pullover (Disclosure: despite being handsome and thrifty and frankly deserving of a lot more free swag than I actually get, I bought my Nano Pullover, though got a “media” discount).
Nano Perfection
In essence, the Nano is an even lighter variation off the Micro Puff jacket; less insulation wrapped in an even smaller package (it stuffs into its own pocket, which is about the size of a small, thick paperback book).
The Nano Pullover (photo stolen from Patagonia)
Despite its “floats on air” mass, it’s still windproof, still water “resistant” and yes – quite warm.
Just not too warm.
I still wouldn’t wear it while skiing, but it’s so damned small and light that I can bring it along when I do.
Couple it with a baselayer and a rain jacket (for when it really rains), and I’ve got something that will work right down to the temperatures where it’s really too cold to fish.
The Nano I bought was so well received in the Underground’s household that it almost immediately disappeared into the L&T’s cavernous closet.
She found it indispensable for downhill skiing, post-xc-skiing, and just generally wearing around town.
This meant that – when I needed it for fishing – it was usually gone, and while Patagonia still has to answer for almost causing a divorce, I finally broke down and ordered a women’s model for the L&T, reclaiming mine by force when hers arrived.
Who says money can’t buy happiness?
A portrait of the writer being happily warm...
The Lightweight Revolution: A Plea For Sanity
Fly fishing tends to lag other (higher-tech) outdoor sports on the clothing front, and why not?
Despite a lot of videos to the contrary, fly fishing is not an “extreme” sport in the climactic sense, and I think we’re only experiencing the lightweight/minimalist revolution that has shaped mountaineering and backpacking the past ten years.
In essence, it’s no longer considered smart (or fashionable) to carry 65 pound backpacks on weekend trips or lug huge technical daypacks on simple ski trips.
Older Bro Chandler – who once lugged backpacks in the 45 pound range – has embraced backpacking’s lightweight revolution, and now routinely finds himself shouldering three-day packs weighing less than 20 pounds.
Even though wide-angle distortion makes it bigger than it really is, you can tell the Nano Puff packs small.
Materials advances have accounted for some of the weight loss, as has a willingness to cut out the useless crap that was formerly used to conquer the wilderness instead of simply passing through it.
Accounting for most of weight loss is an embrace of minimalism, which means that an ultra lightweight tarp might be prove just as useful as a tent, and that the equipment itself didn’t exactly need to be built to resist nuclear attacks.
A case in point is the Older Bro’s old Dana backpack, which was state of the art a decade ago. Unloaded, it weighed in at a manly 8.5 pounds, and literally would last forever.
Today, his bare Osprey pack weighs just over three pounds.
One difference is the design philosophy – buying goodies made to last four lifetimes is great, except that hardly anybody backpacks more than a dozen times a year, or needs bombproof straps, or needs all those straps to being with.
And five pounds is five pounds.
Invoking the same design philosophy across every category of gear has resulted in people hiking the Pacific Crest Trail with (admittedly extreme) 10 pound packs.
We may be on the verge of seeing the beginnings of that thinking today in fly fishing – wading jackets are getting lighter (and thinner), minimalist chest packs are appearing, and even wading boots seem to be on a diet.
Every time I drag my fly fishing gear to an alpine lake, I couldn’t be happier.
My soft shell remains at the center of my winter fly fishing universe, but I can also stuff my Marmot Precip rain jacket (very light) and a Nano Puff in the back pocket of my chest pack (they both fit), and be ready for everything from a frozen downpour to a hard ski out of the river canyon in brilliant sunshine.
The Frozen River: What do you wear to fish this?
If the forecast was for really cold temps – and I was standing on the front of a drift boat or waist deep in a steelhead run all day long – I’d pop for the Micro Puff and my soft shell, and If I had to wear both together and still wasn’t warm, I’d know I needed to get the hell out of there.
One caveat to all this lightweight love is this: My Nano Puff pullover is nowhere near as durable as my Filson waxed cotton wading jacket.
If I repaired trucks or trimmed trees for a living, I wouldn’t wear a Nano to work.
The Micro and Nano’s whisper light fabric has held up so far, but a guide rowing a boat every day might opt for something more durable (and heavier), and that makes sense.
Still, I think the lightweight revolution is peeking out from around the edges of the fly fishing world.
All the major fly fishing manufacturers now offer soft shell jackets, and Orvis is touting its sonic welded seam wader and wading jacket technology for lightweight, packable waders and jackets.
(A report is coming on the Orvis packable waders as soon as they’ve been put through their paces, though I can say the sonic seam waders may well get a workout whenever I’m away from the Upper Sac’s wild blackberries).
Simms offers what appears to be a lightweight insulated jacket in the same vein as Patagonia’s Micro/Nano jackets (though Simms doesn’t offer weight data), and almost everyone is throwing their hat in the minimalist vest/chest pack/sling bag ring.
In other words, the days of carrying enough gear (and enough overbult gear) to invade Canada – and earning the stooped posture to go with it – may be ending for fly fishermen.
In a day (summer or winter), we can literally cover miles of river and spend hours on our feet – a lot of it spent wading in fast-moving water – and if we bothered to check, I think we’d learn that even a five-pound weight difference would make a big difference at the end of a day (or a couple of them).
Frankly, the less I hurt, the happier I am. (I may not be alone in this.)
(Interesting lightweight side note: My four-day backpack trip up Tennessee’s Hazel Creek saw my pack, tent, gear & food come in at 23 pounds, yet my clunky fly fishing gear – waders, boots, two rods, one reel and flies – sadly added almost 15 pounds to the equation. Anyone still wonder why I’m grateful for lighter weight fly fishing gear?)
I’ll find out for sure during next year’s alpine fishing adventures, but I bet I can shave a good ten pounds off my “let’s hike into an alpine lake and fish it today” pack simply by using lighter, more appropriate gear.
And as Older Bro has pointed out (often), when you’re hiking, ounces equal pounds, and pounds equal pain.
See you on the river (warm but lightweight), Tom Chandler.
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