Closing it Down for the Season

My most memorable last day of fishing for the season was the last day of my first year of trout fishing. It was a foggy, drizzly day in late September. Minnesota's trout season shuts down on Sept. 30. I'm not sure if I made it out on closing day or the nearest weekend, but I do remember a feeling of satisfaction, closure and the beginning of anticipation for what the next season might hold. I probably didn't hurt that it was the best day of fishing I'd had that year, even though that's not saying much.

The conditions, remarkably, left the stream wide open that day. I was still new to hatches and what fueled them, but it retrospect, it seemed to be perfect conditions for a blue-winged olive hatch. I somehow ended up fishing a tiny black fly. I don't recall whether it was a black gnat or a tiny trico -- of some poorly tied version of something else -- but it worked better than I expected any dry fly to work. I landed seven trout that day. It felt like an amazing victory to someone who'd started the year with little fishing history and no fishing sense, relying on what a couple good books could teach me, along with trial and error.

This year's season-ending trip was hastily arranged, and it took a couple buddies and me to a different spot on that same river with a similar hope for great success to carry us through the dark months of Minnesota's off-season. We were pretty sure it would be epic. The weather was perfect for enjoying a day on the water and the early fall colors, at the very least. We may have found better fishing on a gray and drizzly day, but the river was in great shape after a good dry stretch, so it was hard to complain about sunshine and warmth. 

As it turned out, rising trout were few and far between. But I managed to scare up a few here and there with a reasonably well-placed size 18 blue-winged olive. After stopping briefly at the first good runs to see how the river was fishing, we moved upstream. I took to a favorite stretch of moody dry-fly water while the fellas moved upstream to a slightly less moody stretch of river that fishes well with a nymph but can really light up when the hatch is on. It wasn't, but that didn't stop me imagining they were making a killing when fishing was slow on my stretch. 

The slow, methodical fishing we did find suited the mood of the day perfectly. I worked my way up my stretch of river hitting every likely lie, and a fair share of unlikely ones. Each fish was something of a victory and a reason to pause and admire it, rather than hastily, greedily moving onto the next victim.

It's easy to lose yourself in this kind of fishing, although on this day, the absurd number of bikers crossing the bridge downstream was a bit distracting. It seemed like the whole population of Southeast Minnesota was pedaling their Schwinns on the Root River Bike Trail that day, many of them stopping to snap photos of the fly fisherman just upstream. (Maybe my casting looks more picturesque at a distance.) It was a relief to reach the first bend and get out of sight of the bridge.

I fished that day what has become my go-to trout rod — an old 7-foot, 5-weight Fenwick fiberglass rod that's perfect for small-stream fishing. In the shade, it's flat brown. But it lights up when the sun hits it just right, as it was wont to do that day. My cousin Jeff calls it a "glow-stick," which kills any possible pretension. It casts beautifully but is nothing fancy. Jeff had a couple of classier rods along on the trip that I could have fished if I had the inclination, but the simple, plain-spoken Fenwick seemed like the right choice to close out the season.

There's something about shutting things down for the year that I like. I wouldn't mind the chance to get out another time or two, but hanging it up for the year and starting to look ahead is not without its virtues. I could go on about anticipation, taking stock (and restocking), and seasons of life, but mostly I just like what a certain note of finality does to that last day on the river. It feels important, somehow.

However the fishing had turned out, it was good just to get out with old friends, enjoying one last shot at our favorite river and the hope that a fish will rise.