Shrinking Waders

After working about ninety straight days at the greenhouse, I scheduled a full day off for myself in order to spend some quality time on a Driftless trout stream.  While packing up my gear, I suddenly realized that my waders may have shrunk over the past six months.......or my waistline may have grown.  As it turned out, the hand-me-down waders that barely fit prior to my pregnancy (because they were too big) still barely fit (because of my growing midsection).  As it turns out, I have a couple more inches to spare before I'll be forced to wet wade.

I met up with a friend for the day and was looking forward to some good dry fly fishing.  I hadn't been on the water since early April when olives and midges were hatching, so I was hoping to see some caddis.  It took a lot of driving to find a stretch of water that was both clear and free of other fly fishermen.  I knew the Driftless had been hit hard by flooding in June, but I didn't expect the streams to be in such bad shape.  Most of the water we drove along was overly muddy, and we saw many sections of washed out roads and eroded banks.  The stream we ended up fishing looked very different from what I had seen last season.  I've fished this stream many times---it was one of the first I ever fished---and it was a little sad to see it now.  A lot of work went into restoring this body of water and now there's only a handful of lunkers and other structural improvements left.  At one point during the day, I noticed high water marks in a tree well above my head.  There must have been massive amounts of water moving through this coulee at some point.  It's just another example of how powerful nature can be. 



 

I saw zero risers throughout the day and nothing hatching, but I did see my first hopper of the season.

 

 

It was no surprise that I couldn't get a fish to take a fly on top, but they did take a dropper.  Only a handful of fish were caught, but the ones I got were nice and healthy

 

I think I'll be letting the Driftless waters recover a bit before I make my next outing.  Once the sediment settles hopefully things will return to a new normal.  When that time comes, I hope my waders still fit.



A Change of Scenery

My last fly fishing outing occurred over two months ago.  I managed to spend one last day on the water before our greenhouse season (and the ensuing chaos) began.  It seems forever ago but it was a great day filled with tiny olives and rising fish.

Since late March, my daily scenery has been composed of plants, greenhouses, and sunshine.  It may not be Wisconsin trout streams but it's still pretty good.

The spring of 2013 has been busier than ever, which is great for our greenhouse business but it's left me with zero time for things other than working and sleeping over the last two months.  It's a tough work schedule---an average of eighty hours each week without days off--but it comes with the territory.  We have our down time in the fall and winter.  Now that summer is officially upon us and we're almost into July, my days should start to get a little less rigorous and I'm hoping to get some time to myself and some afternoons on the water.

It's hard to believe that I'm in the sixth month of my pregnancy.  Thinking back to January when it all started, the time has gone unbelievably fast.  The whole experience has also been unbelievably easy so far.  I think giving up caffeine during the first few weeks has been the toughest part.  I didn't experience any morning sickness, and besides needing to sleep about ten hours every day during the first couple months, this pregnancy hasn't prevented me from doing anything I normally would do--except enjoy a cold beer at the end of a long day.  I've still been putting in long, active days at the greenhouse without missing a beat, and I actually don't even think about being pregnant except when I realize another piece of clothing doesn't fit anymore or when I feel slight movements in my tummy.  So all in all, I count myself pretty lucky and this baby pretty cooperative.  Things will likely get harder over the next couple months, and I'm willing to bet that once the baby is actually here everything in our lives will be harder.  So I'm appreciating the time I have now even if it has to be devoted towards work 95% of the time.  There's no feeding times in the middle of the night and no diapers to change yet.  The little guy is along for the ride with whatever I choose to do each day without any objection or hindrance.  Hopefully I'll get on the water soon so he can hear the muffled sounds of a Wisconsin trout stream and get a pre-natal dose of the fly fishing experience.

Sunshine & Tiny Flies

The 2013 Wisconsin trout season has been open for almost a month now, but I've only been on the water a few times due to the unseasonably cool temperatures.  There's something about freezing guides that dampens my desire to fish these days.  The temps have recently begun to stay above freezing during the day, so I headed to the Driftless to meet up with some friends on the water.  There were plenty of tiny flies and sunshine.

 

 

Does Simms make Maternity Waders?

I've discovered something that is totally ubiquitous yet completely foreign to me.  Pretty much every mother on the planet has gone through this, yet I know next to nothing about it.  I'm speaking of pregnancy.

I am currently beginning my tenth week of growing an embryo, and the whole process is still very abstract to me.  This was a planned event, though my husband and I were taken a little off guard by the speed of conception.  We had spent the last thirteen years making sure that conception never occurred, so it was very strange to reverse our mindsets and actually start trying to make the sperm and egg meet.  I just assumed that it would take a long time for me to get pregnant after being on birth control pills for over a decade.  I guess a woman never knows whether her ovaries are working right until she actually gets pregnant.  For some reason I thought I'd be one of those women with weak ovaries.  Obviously I was wrong.

I have spent zero time around pregnant women, so I'll be learning as I go for the next seven months. Of my close girlfriends, none of them have started a family, and the news of my pregnancy actually makes most of them a bit uncomfortable.  They're not sure how to deal with me, and I'm not sure how to deal with my new pregnant self or them.  I guess we'll be figuring that out as we go.  I've never really had a particular affinity towards womanly things, and I have more male friends than female.  I previously had little need for womanly advice or company--I didn't feel I shared much in common with other females--but now things have changed.  Since I have few friends to discuss my pregnancy with, I've been drawn more to my mom, my mother-in-law, and random women I overhear discussing baby stuff at the grocery store.  I've never felt the need for "girl time," but lately I've been craving more matronly company.  I want more women in my life that can talk about pregnancy and help me wrap my brain around what's happening to me.

So far, the first two months of my pregnancy have gone quite smoothly.  I assumed all pregnant women suffered from nausea during the first trimester, so my total lack of morning sickness and nausea worried me.  Was mine a weak pregnancy because I wasn't getting sick?  Was the embryo not implanted correctly?  The internet is an amazing source of information about pregnancy, but it can get me into trouble at the same time.  When I searched for information regarding a lack of nausea among pregnant women, I found some sources saying that a quarter of pregnant women never experience nausea and that I should count myself lucky.  Another site said that a lack of morning sickness is very rare and can mean a higher risk of miscarriage.  The internet is a double edged sword.  For every pregnancy question I research, I can find sites supporting opposite opinions on the matter.  As it turns out, my mom never was sick with my brother and me.  So I guess I'm just one of those lucky women.

The most difficult part of my pregnancy so far, besides giving up coffee, has been the realization that I am not in control of my body any more.  I've always been an active and healthy individual with a healthy body type, but I'm already beginning to grow out of my jeans.  I know I should be mostly concerned with the health of the baby growing inside me, but it's hard to accept the fact that I can no longer control what my body will look like.  I basically use to "eat to survive."  I didn't get that excited about food; I ate what was good for me and didn't care too much about flavor.  I definitely had my weaknesses for ice cream, but overall I maintained a very bland but healthy diet.  Since being pregnant, I've been experiencing hunger pains like I've never felt before.  They occur every couple hours, and I'm now craving completely different types of foods.  I've gone from a vegetarian to a meat-eater (I had forgotten how delicious a hamburger can taste!) and from a sporadic eater to someone who needs to eat every three hours.  Women aren't supposed to gain much weight during their first trimester, but my waistline is already growing.  Is it selfish and vain to worry about weight gain during pregnancy?  I've seen plenty of women who've given birth and gotten back into shape in no time, but what if it's a struggle for me?  Is my self image tied that much to my physical appearance?  I guess I should appreciate these early months regardless of any slight weight gain because it's only the beginning.  My body is being hijacked by another being, and my belly is only going to get bigger from here on out.  In five months I may be wishing to return to these early months of pregnancy when I could still fit into most of my normal clothes.

For now, I take my prenatal vitamins on a daily basis, eat about five meals a day, and feel my pants get a little tighter each morning.  I know there's no such thing as maternity waders, so thankfully I have a pair with ample room to grow into.

You Say Spey Rod; I Say Switch Rod

I wrapped up the 2012 Wisconsin fly fishing season with several days on steelhead water.  After much persistence that mingled with self doubt, frustration, and resignation, I finally managed to conquer the steelhead swing.  I came to the conclusion that I would prefer all my future steelhead to be caught by swinging a two-handed rod, which meant I would eventually need to procure my own rig. 

Being the frugal gal that I am, I hadn't minded borrowing friends' switch rods during my handful of steelhead trips the last few years, but after a certain point the guilt of being a moocher set in.  So when one of those friends (whose switch rod I had been borrowing) randomly sent an email suggesting he use his "good guy" discount to help me get a two-handed setup of my very own, I immediately took him up on his offer.  Either he believed I had become a "real" steelheader and deserved my own rig, or he was sick of loaning out his own steelhead rod to a sorry amateur.  Either way, the universe had spoken. 

 

I have very generous fly fishing friends.  If I were to list everything in my fly fishing arsenal that's been given to me by others, I'd appear to be a first-class mooch.  In most cases, people have had extra fishing gear or fly tying materials lying around and saw that I could put them to use.   My husband claims it's because I'm a girl, which I hope isn't entirely true; I honestly believe the people I fish with are just really considerate individuals. Fly fishermen end up accumulating a lot of fly fishing stuff over the years, and it probably feels good to spread the wealth--especially to an appreciative newbie. Hopefully I'll be in the position someday to do the same for another poor soul.

 

Back to the new steelhead rod........

The "good guy" suggested a new Redington rod and reel combo that he could get at a fairly affordable price, but as an alternative, I contacted another friend who keeps an eye out for used gear thinking he might know of some used switch rods that were available. He immediately sent me several links on some quality used switch/spey rods.  I like the idea of used gear; I feel I'm giving a second life to a rod that might be collecting dust in someone's closet or biding its time in the garage rafters.  After some research and contemplation, I settled on a real beauty of a used Beulah.  Beulah categorizes this rod as a "spey rod," though by most definitions it's a switch rod since it's under 12 feet in length.  Regardless, it's a two-handed 6/7 weight rod that should be great for swinging flies on Wisconsin steelheading waters. 

After deciding on the rod, the "good guy" ordered a new 9/10 reel that balances the rod pretty well, and I ordered some Miracle Braid shooting line and backing.  Once I had the rod, reel, backing, shooting line, and shooting head in my possession, I was then ready to start setting up my new steelhead reel.

I've set up reels before for my regular trout rods, but getting this particular reel set up presented new challenges.  All of my other reels start with an arbor knot to attach backing to the reel, then a nail knot to attach the line to the backing.  The line usually has a pre-made loop on the tag end, which makes the connection of looped leaders very simple.  With this new steelhead reel, I needed to create loop-to-loop connections between the backing and shooting line, as well as between the shooting line and shooting head.  I relied on my "Guide to Fly Fishing Knots" along with the handy-dandy internet.

 

I began by wrapping the Miracle Braid shooting line and the shooting head around the reel in order to estimate how much backing I would need.  I then cut the required amount of backing and used an arbor knot to attach the backing to the reel. If only all of the knots had been this easy.

I then had to create double nail knots on the tag end of the backing as well as on the end of the shooting line in order to make a loop-to-loop connection, which I had read was the best way to connect these two lines.  I haven't had to tie many nail knots--let alone double nail knots--so I ended up spending several frustrating hours attempting to get them just right.  I must have redone the knots over half a dozen times before I finally gave up.  The knots I settled with felt pretty secure, but I wasn't completely satisfied with them.  Luckily, the "good guy" had plans to stop by with his girlfriend for a weekend over the holidays, so I knew he'd fix the knots for me. 

My attempts at double nail knots.

Instead of folding over the end of the backing and using its own tail end to tie the double nail knots, he used a length of 1x tippet as the overlapping line. The knots ended up being much cleaner and tighter this way.  He repeated this knot on each end of the shooting line, which was then connected to the pre-made loop on the shooting head.  I still need to attach a sink tip and tippet to the shooting head, but the hardest part is over.


The improved double nail knots.

 

On a frigidly cold and sunny day in December, I rigged up the rod and trudged through the snow into the backyard. I spey casted on top of the 20 inches of snow that recently fell and visualized a cold, deep steelhead run.

 

An Escape to Supai, Arizona

My husband and I have been together thirteen years (yikes!) and married for seven. We've only had one real vacation together in all those years where it was just the two of us. All the other vacations we've taken have been separate of each other or together with friends. Until recently, our work schedules just never meshed well. When I had vacation time from teaching, my husband was in the throes of the peak greenhouse season. When he had downtime in the winter, I was in the midst of teaching biology to a bunch of pubescent teenagers. Once I left my teaching career to assist him with our small business fulltime, we finally were able to schedule in a real vacation....just the two of us.

I must admit I was a little nervous. We spend a lot of time together at work and at home, but we'd always had buffers when it came to extended trips together. What if we got bored with each other's company? It wasn't a serious concern, but it was something to ponder during lulls in conversation.  How would we get along together for a week without any traveling buffers around?

When it came to deciding where to go, I really wanted to take my husband to Supai, AZ, which I had visited in 2007 with a friend. It's an amazing place, as you can see from the photos below. My husband wanted to see the Grand Canyon, so I booked plane tickets to Las Vegas, which would be our jumping off point for the rest of the vacation.

We arrived in Vegas and spent the first several nights absorbing the overt stimuli of the Strip. I much prefer nature to nightlife, so it wasn't the best part of the trip for me, but the hubby got to gorge himself at a couple major buffets and check out a couple shows, and our visit to Hoover Dam was impressive. We left for the South Rim of the Grand Canyon on our third day and spent the afternoon walking the overlook trails.  I had been to the Grand Canyon before, but it was just as magnificent the second time around.  We tried to take in as many views as we could, but it really is too vast to comprehend.  It's difficult to grasp how deep and wide the canyon is unless you actually hike to the bottom.  Luckily, we had plans to head west of the Grand Canyon National Park to the Hualapai Indian Reservation to take on that challenge

After staying a night in Tusayan, we loaded up our gear and set out for the Hualapai Highway, also called Indian 18. This is a dead-end road that brings you to a stark trailhead, which leads to the village of Supai. Supai is located in the bottom of a canyon, surrounded by red rocks and blue skies. It's populated by only a few hundred year-round residents, and it's only accessible by hiking, mule train, or helicopter. All of the village's supplies are brought down via helicopter or mule, and all the waste generated there is brought out in the same way. Havasu Creek runs through the canyon and results in beautiful, turquoise waterfalls a few miles downstream from Supai. The water gets its color from the loads of mineral deposits it accumulates from the surrounding rocks. Against the red rocks of the canyon, the water takes on an unreal color. I had taken the journey to these falls before, and I don't normally choose to visit the same place twice when there's so much to see around this country, but I thought the falls were spectacular enough to visit again. There's something about flowing water that pulls me near.  Maybe it’s a result of growing up just a stone’s throw from two great rivers—the St. Croix and the Mississippi.  Regardless, it was the moving water that was calling me back to Supai.

These waterfalls aren't nearly the biggest in the world nor the most beautiful, but there's something about the color of the water against the surrounding landscape, as well as their unique setting, that makes them so brilliant. Some experiences can lose their luster when repeated; the novelty wares off.  I was really hoping my return trip to the waterfalls of Supai would be equally as gratifying as my initial visit.

We set off from the trailhead around lunchtime and completed the eight mile hike down to Supai in three hours. The weather was perfect and the scenery was expansive. Once we arrived in Supai, we checked into the lodge and relaxed a bit in our spartan room before heading to the cafe for a filling dinner of burritos.

Hualapai Hilltop

 

The next morning we loaded up water, lunches, and cameras for our six mile roundtrip hike to three different sets of waterfalls.  We came into view of Navajo Falls just a mile outside of Supai. They had changed drastically since 2007 due to extreme flooding that hit the canyon in 2008 and 2009.  The Navajo Falls I saw five years ago no longer existed, and the Navajo Falls of 2012 were completely new to me. I think the floods actually made them more beautiful, and these falls definitely spoke to the power of water.  I tried to imagine a wall of water rolling through the canyon with enough force to literally move mountains and change the landscape in such a drastic way.  Evidence of the severe flooding was apparent not only in the changed water routes but also in the large amounts of debris strewn throughout the canyon.

Navajo Falls

We continued our hike and made it to Havasu Falls a mile downstream. These falls had also changed since my last visit. The rerouted water upstream has resulted in water flowing over just a third of the rock face it had covered before the flooding events. Even though Havasu Falls in now much narrower, it is still a beautiful waterfall with inviting side channels and pools.

 

Havasu Falls

 

After a lunch break and some gin rummy at the base of Havasu Falls, we hiked one more mile to reach Mooney Falls. These are the tallest of the falls we visited, and it was a precarious climb to reach them--one that required crawling through tunnels chiseled through the rock face and climbing down steps etched into the sheer cliff.

Mooney Falls

Later that night after hiking back to Supai, we fell asleep to the muffled sounds of three dozing yet alert village dogs lying outside our lodge door.  (Impressively, these same dogs were dozing in the shade at the top of the trailhead the next morning.)

We began the eight mile hike back to Hualapai Hilltop early the next day.  We fell into a good pace and were at the 6.5 mile marker before we knew it. The last 1.5 miles were the most daunting since they’re composed almost entirely of steep switch backs cut into the canyon wall. We took it step-by-step, rested when we needed to and reached the top without too much trouble. Surprisingly, we made the eight mile hike out of the canyon in the same amount of time it took us to go down. Our speedy exit was likely a result of my competitive nature coming out. When I have a destination to reach, whether it's by walking, hiking, biking, or skiing, I fall into a racing mentality. I end up in either an imaginary race with myself, or if there are people in front of me, in a race to beat them. Regardless of the pace I set, my husband was right on my heels the entire way and took the lead for the last, most difficult mile.

The final ascent to Hualapai Hilltop.  Notice the mule train, which provides a good scale for the size of the climb.

After celebrating our successful ascent, we hopped in the rental car and headed down the Hualapai Highway towards Las Vegas for our flight home the following day.

All in all, it was a great trip. My husband and I spend a lot of time together at work and at home, but it was nice to spend time together outside of our daily grind. It was nice to be on a solo adventure-- just the two of us--and my halfhearted fear of having no buffers along was totally unwarranted. Even after being together for thirteen years, I think our little vacation actually made our relationship stronger. We're sometimes a bit too competitive with one another; we frequently argue over which of us has worked harder on a given day even though we both regularly put in over seventy hours of work each week. During this vacation, however, I felt like we were a well-oiled team, especially while heading in and out of Supai. We accomplished the adventure together, and I think we both needed to temporarily escape from our day-to-day lives to gain an improved perspective on things.

I'm very glad I made it back to Supai. Not many people can say they've been there, let alone been there twice in their lives. In a way, I can't help thinking that it was a last hurrah for my husband and me. We've come to the consensus that we'd like children in our near future, so this might have been the last chance for the two of us to take a trip like this as a couple--at least for the next decade or two.  I realize that having children means postponing some adventures, and I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m okay with that.  I may never get back to Supai again, but I'm glad my husband and I made it there together.
 

A Steelhead Strike!

I'm not accustomed to failure.  I'm accustomed to succeeding at things as long as I put in enough effort and hard work.  That's how it's suppose to be, right?  As long as someone sets realistic goals and works hard to reach those goals, there's no reason they shouldn't succeed.  At least that's what I thought before I started the obsessive pastime of chasing steelhead in Northern Wisconsin.  I'll admit that I became a little obsessed this season with steelheading.  Over the past three years, I put in close to a hundred hours on the water with only minor results.  Sure, I landed a steelhead last year, but being under 20 inches, it wasn't a REAL steelhead.  I had also had a fish on briefly before it broke me off, but neither of those events were enough to satiate my steelhead appetite.  I wanted to land a real steelhead--I wanted to feel its power through the zipping line and see its beauty up close.  So after getting skunked on my first trip of the fall, I pushed aside my swinging tunnel vision and spent time tying new flies and planning a new approach.  If swinging flies wasn't fruitful the next time out, I was ready to trail an egg pattern behind a weighted nymph and dead-drift the runs, even though this went against my stubbornly purist tendencies.  Desperate times called for desperate measures.


There's a chance I may have blocked it out of my memory, but I honestly can't recall a point in my life when I wasn't able to accomplish something I set out to do. Growing up in a family of strong-headed men and women, "can't" has never been in my vocabulary, and being the competitive person I am, I've just always worked at things until I achieved them. Quitting is rarely in my radar, but my steelheading failure was really throwing me for a loop.  I even began to question whether I subconsciously gravitate towards activities I know I'll excel at and avoid those things that don't play to my strengths.   Maybe I wasn't cut out for this steelheading thing and I should just stick to casting dry flies to Driftless trout.  So what if I can't land a worthy steelhead?  I can be good at other things.  I could tell the steelhead slump was really working me over because I was already making up excuses in my head for continued steelhead failure, which was totally unlike me.

With all these thoughts going through my head, I called up a good friend who lives near the river and arranged to stay with him for a few days. I had two full days on the water set aside.....three if necessary.  He joined me the first day, and we took turns swinging through the deep runs of our selected stretch.  A few hours into the day, I had a grab at my fly, which had never happened to me before.  The two fish I had had on in other years never took my fly with much power.  They certainly didn't hit like a freight train, as some people have described them doing.  Instead, they felt like another snag on the rocks; there were no huge tugs on the line.  One minute my line was swinging and the next there was a fish on.  In contrast, the grab I felt this time shook me to the core and got my heart racing.  I definitely could tell it was a living thing at the other end and not just a snag.  The power transmitted through the line was awesome.


After several more hours of inaction, I decided I had given the swing a good chance, but it was time to switch to the weighted nymph and trailing egg pattern.  I re-fished the runs on our return hike but still had no results.

After a tailgate lunch, we headed to a different stretch of water a bit further upstream.  We planned to fish each run twice:  once with his swinging and once with my nymphing.  We hiked down to the first hole, and my friend started casting to the top of the run.  After about the fifth swing of his fly, he hooked into a beautiful steelhead.  Neither of us had a net along, so I stripped off my gloves and waded into the water to lend a hand.  He guided the fish towards me, and it became the first real steelhead I had the opportunity to hold.  It was beautiful.  In a way, it felt like a shared fish.  I remember thinking that it was almost as good as catching one myself.  Almost.

My friend had been fighting a bad cold and decided to stay home on the second day, which meant I'd be fishing solo. I was actually looking forward to a day alone on the river. At this point I had seen a steelhead landed on the swing and knew where the fish should be. On the drive over, I was very confident that I'd finally land a true steelhead this day; I could visualize it in my head.  I also wondered, though, how I would react at the end of the day if I were heading home skunked once again, which was a very plausible scenario.   Would I give up steelheading because I can't stand to fail, or would I become even more obsessed with it because of repeated failure?   I had a keen sense that the day of reckoning was upon me. 

I pulled into the parking lot of my chosen stretch of river expecting to find too many cars, which would force me to decide on a plan B.  Amazingly, only one car was there.  I took my time gearing up and adding to my multiple layers of clothing.  My friend generously sent his switch rig with me, which meant I could swing flies the entire day.  It was a good feeling to have no backup plan this time.  I would swing my flies and leave the nymphs and eggs in my fishing bag.  I crossed the river and hiked past the other fisherman who was trying his luck at the first hole.  I skipped ahead further downstream until I came to a run where I had seen fish previously hooked.  I took my time and quickly got into a rhythm.  Glide the line back, roll cast, swing the fly.  Glide the line back, roll cast, swing the fly.  After fishing to the end of the first run, I continued downstream.  Being on a stretch of river that normally has a good number of fishermen on it at any given time, I felt very fortunate to have no one downstream from me.  I could take my time and make my way down river without wondering whether a run would be occupied or not.

The third hole I fished was the spot I had been subconsciously approaching.  A fishing partner on my last steelhead outing had caught several nice fish in this hole.  I began swinging my fly through the top of the run.  The repetitive rhythm of the casting easily allowed my mind to wander to other things.  After half a dozen casts, I felt movement at the end of my line at mid-swing.  I raised my rod tip and felt the fish on.  As the rod danced up and down, I caught glimpses of silver as the fish rose to the surface.  Because I had visualized this moment so many times, I was surprisingly calm after I realized there was a REAL steelhead at the end of my line.  I let it pull some line out when it ran towards deeper water, and reeled line in when it gave me the chance.  The 12' rod forced me to land the fish on the bank, and after a quick snapshot to make sure the moment was real, I thanked the fish and delivered it back to its watery world.

The feeling I had in that moment was pure elation.  I had finally accomplished something that had eluded and frustrated me for some time, and it made all the previous fishless days evaporate from my memory. 

Did I owe a huge portion of this fish to luck, persistence, or both?  With the number of hours I spent on the river, had it been just a matter of time before a steelhead connected with my fly?  If the parking lot had been full that morning, would I still be in a steelhead slump?  Would this fish have grabbed an egg if I had been nymphing rather than swinging?  Regardless of how or why I finally landed a REAL steelhead, catching one on the swing with one of my very own flies makes me a very satisfied girl.  I can now enter the real offseason of fly fishing in Wisconsin without any regrets.