The Long Wait

There exists in the calendar of the dedicated fly fisher a period of profound longing, a stretch of weeks or months when the rivers run cold and silent, when the rods hang dormant in their cases, and when the angler must content themselves with memories of rises past and dreams of rises yet to come. This long pause between seasons—whether enforced by ice, closed waters, or simply the biological rhythms that make fishing unproductive—becomes a test of patience, a crucible of desire, and ultimately, a necessary passage that makes the return to the water all the sweeter.

The wait begins subtly. It doesn't announce itself with fanfare but creeps in gradually as autumn's light fades and the water temperatures drop below that threshold where trout become lethargic and uninterested in surface activity. The mayfly hatches dwindle, then disappear entirely. The evening rise, once as reliable, ceases to materialize. The angler makes one final trip, hoping against meteorological reality for one last good day, and comes home skunked, fingers numb, acknowledging at last that the season has truly ended. Reality has set in. Rods are (reluctantly) disassembled, wiped clean, and stored. Waders are hung to dry one final time. The vest, heavy with flies and tippet spools and forceps and all the accumulated tackle of a season's pursuit, is emptied and put aside.

In those first weeks, the absence feels acute. The angler wakes on Saturday mornings with the old anticipation, only to remember that there's nowhere to go, no hatch to chase, no water calling them forth. The weekend stretches out differently now, filled with obligations and projects long deferred during fishing season - home repairs, social commitments, the mundane architecture of ordinary life. There's a restlessness to these days, a sense of something essential being missing. The fly fisher becomes an exile from a kingdom that truly matters. To some, it’s the only kingdom that truly matters.

But as the wait lengthens, something curious begins to happen. The acute pain of separation softens into a gentler ache, and within that ache, a different kind of relationship with the sport emerges. Unable to fish, we begin to think about fishing in new ways. The off-season becomes a time of study and contemplation, of deepening one's understanding of the craft. Books are pulled from shelves - Marinaro on the perfect hatch, Schwiebert's encyclopedia of insects, Maclean's meditations on rivers and time. The angler pores over these texts with the intensity of a scholar, learning entomology, studying stream dynamics, absorbing the accumulated wisdom of generations. Each page turned is an act of devotion, a way of staying connected to the water even when the water itself is unreachable.

For the luckier ones*, the fly-tying vise comes out, and with it, the opportunity to practice the art form that is at the heart of the sport. Winter evenings that might otherwise be spent in passive entertainment are instead devoted to meticulous construction of tiny imitations—size 18 blue-winged olives, parachute adams, pheasant tail nymphs. There's a meditative quality to this work, the careful wrapping of thread around hook, the precise placement of hackle fibers, the dubbing of bodies that must somehow capture the translucent quality of a living insect. Each fly tied is a small act of hope, a preparation for future encounters with trout that exist, for now, only in imagination. The fly box slowly fills, and with each new addition, the coming season feels slightly more real, slightly closer.

The angler also turns to their equipment during these fallow months, maintaining and upgrading the tools of the trade. Reels are cleaned and oiled. Lines are inspected for cracks and wear. Leaders are tied according to arcane formulas - sixty percent heavy section, twenty percent transition, twenty percent tippet - each one crafted to turn over perfectly, to present the fly with delicacy and precision. There's satisfaction in this work, in knowing that when opening day finally arrives, everything will be ready and tuned to perfection.

Memory, too, becomes a kind of companion during the wait. You find yourself returning again and again to particular moments from the previous season - that brown trout on the [insert name of your favourite river, here] that took a caddis at dusk, the way the water exploded in a violent refusal before the fish turned and sipped it in; the challenging drag-free drift achieved at last on a particular run after dozens of attempts; the camaraderie of a day spent with a friend, trading turns on good water, offering advice and encouragement, sharing lunch on a streamside boulder. These memories are turned over and examined from every angle, refined and polished until they take on an almost mythic quality. They sustain the angler through the dark months, proof that the wait is worth enduring.

I feel that it’s a little forced to point this out, but there's also something valuable in the wanting itself. As anglers, we learn that enforced absence creates a hunger that can't exist when satisfaction is always available. We learn that desire deferred becomes desire intensified. By the time spring finally arrives, or the season officially reopens, or whatever barrier that kept the angler from the water is finally removed, the yearning has grown so strong that every moment on the stream feels heightened. The first cast of the new season is charged with all those months of anticipation. The first fish brought to hand - even if it's just a modest ten-inch rainbow - feels like a reunion with an old love.

This cycle of loss and return, of waiting and fulfillment, is perhaps essential to the fly fishing experience in a way that's easy to overlook when the season is in full swing. If the rivers were always open, always productive, the sport might lose some of its preciousness. The forced separation reminds us that this pursuit is a privilege, not a right, dependent on seasons and conditions beyond our control. It teaches patience in an impatient world, acceptance of natural rhythms that care nothing for human convenience.

When opening day finally arrives, or when spring warmth returns the rivers to fishable temperatures, we approach the water differently than we might have months before. There's a reverence in that first wade into the current, a gratitude for being allowed back into this wild place. The wait has stripped away any casual relationship with the sport and replaced it with something deeper, more intentional. We’re present in a way they might not have been before, attentive to every ripple, every rise, every subtle change in the water's surface that might betray the presence of feeding fish.

If there is any lesson to be learned, here, it’s that the long wait between fly fishing seasons is not merely something to be endured but something essential to the experience itself. It creates the hunger that makes satisfaction possible. It provides time for growth and learning. It reminds us that the best things in life are not always available on demand, that some joys must be anticipated, and (cliché alert!) that absence truly does make the heart grow fonder. When the wait finally ends and we step back into the river's cold current, rod in hand, with the whole season stretching out ahead like a promise, we know that that long wait has been worthwhile.

R.M.

* I’m not one of the “luckier ones”, on account of the fact that I refuse to tie flies. A topic that my (many) fly fishing therapists have encouraged me to explore in a future essay.