Posts tagged: winter solstice

The Winter Solstice Festival At The Underground (or, A Post, A Beer And Some Thinking)

December 21, 2010, by 12 comments

At 3:38 PM today (PST), the earth’s axis reaches its maximum tilt, and everyone in the Northern Hemisphere experiences what is supposed to be the shortest day (and longest night) of the year.

Sure, the days are supposed to be getting longer, but it always feels as if winter has just begun, and in fact, somewhere around late February I’m pretty sure the real solstice has yet to take place, and this December 21 thing is just some giant practical joke played on us by a bunch of astronomy geeks still pissed because they couldn’t get dates to the prom.

Still, it’s a day worth a little reflection (and maybe a beer), if only because the river’s high, the snow’s falling, and the little streams are closed for the season.

Normally, it’s time to sit down and tie flies, and given the state of my fly boxes (dismal; I’ve been living off old for the last two seasons), it’s probably time to whip out a few Beetle Bugs. (One fly that handles a lot of jobs is a manifestly good thing given the ratio of time spent writing for TU vs time spent tying flies.)

So tying flies = good.

If only it were that simple.

I suspect not one of the Undergrounders would be surprised to hear 2010 was the most tumultuous of my life; Little M’s arrival at the end of 2009 coincided with a wholesale change in my business model, and change has become the only real constant.

Oddly, my tastes in fly fishing changed too (or grew more pronounced); when given a choice, I opted for small waters every time, and it would take more than a few words to explain why.

I even changed how I work, abandoning word processors for online-friendly text editors (like Emacs and Komodo Edit.

In life, simpler is usually better, and based on the narrow path from my office door to my desk (the one bounded by boxes from a new computer, router, shotgun ammo, fly fishing gear and other stuff), simpler isn’t much in evidence right now.

With Christmas almost here and a trip to Sacramento (Little M’s citizenship hearing) coming a couple days after, downtime isn’t on the calendar until at least the 29th – at which time I’ll be reorganizing my stuff, and (hopefully) sneaking off for a little fishing.

Right after the new year, three big work projects kick into gear, and because I’m mean and self-centered, I’ll be fine with the Upper Sac being too high to fish.

I mean, if I can’t fish it, no one else should either.

Posts could be a little sparse, though remember, when you’re an Undergrounder, you never walk alone (unless you’re hiking through the nasty part of some city, which is when we’re definitely not coming along).

See you simplifying, Tom Chandler.

The Post-Solstice Fly Fishermen (or, A Short Essay Designed to Prevent Madness)

December 22, 2009, by 9 comments

Yesterday was the Winter Solstice – that day when winter officially begins, and the sun shines the least it will all year long.

It’s a day you notice not because it promises any immediate relief from the cold and dark, but because it offers the faintest hope; from now on, each day grows a tiny bit longer instead of a tiny bit shorter.

With winter’s worst yet to come, progress of any kind makes a real impression on those of us who think light and warm and Green Drakes are better than dark and freezing and nothing.

Fly fishing a small stream in mid-summer

Me on a small stream last summer. A repeat is many months away... (photo courtesy Jim Troyer)

And while surviving a mountain winter from the heavily insulated, nicely heated Trout Underground/Man Cave World Headquarters doesn’t exactly qualify me to write a Jack London-esque short story, sunsets at 4:30 in the afternoon do eventually take their toll.

If you’re a short-horizon type like I am – someone who tends to focus on the near-term situation instead of the long-term picture – milestones are the tools that keep you going when the light at the end of the tunnel is dim indeed.

Some fish even when the river’s too high (and going higher), and others decide that writing about something interesting is almost as much fun as doing something interesting, and hole up in their office and type.

Chris Raine – being neither – is (typically) scattered across a half-dozen different bamboo fly rod building projects, while the local guides either work hard on their businesses, or essentially take a few months off.

Others tie flies like obsessed shamans – wielding fly tying tools like talismans meant to ward off madness – and some fools even clean their fly lines and oil their reels for next year.

That we look to January as the start of the year is nothing more than a convenience borne of rigid thinking.

The real fly fishing year begins (and ends) yesterday, and what are you doing to get ready – or simply make it to – next season?

See you in the (growing) light of day, Tom Chandler.