Snowblind

The power chords erupt from the depths of my memory, and I can clearly hear the voice of the late Ozzy Osbourne: Lying snowblind in the sun…

Snow is falling once more in the Catskill Mountains. My brain needs to balance between the Weather Channel’s warnings of “a big nor’easter”, and the much more tractable local forecast amounting to maybe three inches across eight of the next ten days which bear snowflakes in their headers. I want to believe that local story, but I can still hear Ozzy’s wail.

I have had enough of winter!

Baseball begins today, and I welcome the distraction; and Flyfest comes around next Saturday, maybe even an evening out listening to Nate Gross’ incomparable blues guitar. All of these are sorely needed to set my mind free from indoor temperatures in the fifties and this ever enduring white landscape!

Right now, I have to get myself through the morning. Perhaps I will plan out what I’ll tie at Flyfest this year, set aside the materials I’ll need to stock my travel kit. I am leaning toward some of the new patterns I’ve been working on, maybe some old, old ones like the soft hackle dry flies… Terrestrials might inject a little warmth into the spirits of my fellow anglers and fly tyers…

Right now I just have to get through another week, for beyond Flyfest and the blues lies March! Yes, yes, it will still feature cold winds, perhaps more snow and ice, but it is finite and ends in springtime!

I get myself going each March, getting my boat ready, fussing with the tackle I plan for the opening salvos of the new season, and actually wandering riverbanks, wading those rivers, and casting a fly. I know I will begin to see tiny black caddis and early stoneflies and I will dream I can see the ring of a rise once more! Once in the past seven years my first dry fly trout of the season was actually landed in March, so miracles can truly happen, not just appear in waking dreams!

Forty-five days remain; but thirty-one shall be in March!