On the Fly: Nice day for fishing

BASALT — Fly-fishing is not about fish. It’s about patience and communing with nature. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

I was reminded of these truisms early this week, when temperatures soared into the ’60s, luring me to the river for the first time this season. If fly-fishing was really about catching trout, I’d just stay home and jab fishhooks beneath my fingernails. It can be that painful.

Spring is the time of year when anglers fish with nymphs in order to remind themselves anew of the importance of patience. Many nymphs are only slightly larger than microorganisms, and tying one onto the end of a nearly invisible strand of filament is something akin to lassoing a tick. You spend a lot of time sitting on the bank, cursing.

But, this exercise gives you plenty of time to admire nature’s finery, and the lower Roaring Fork River provided plenty of it — herons, hawks and a bald eagle all swooped into the scene. Apparently, they’ve been feasting on fish. That’s why there was only one left when I got there. And I caught it. What are the odds?

I popped into a flyshop before trying my luck on the Fryingpan. The shopkeepers tend to be friendly and readily dispense angling advice, even if it’s wrong. This one sold me on several varieties of tiny flies — 16 of them cost me $32 and change — a painful sum, especially when I watched trout ignore every one of them.

But it was a beautiful day on the Pan and I had a stretch to myself. How often does that happen on the Grand Central Station of Colorado rivers? It gave me time to ponder life’s great mysteries, like how I managed to lose my favorite strike indicator before I’d even left the car. It was there, and then it wasn’t. As it turned out, I wouldn’t really need a strike indicator (the snooty fly-fishing equivalent of a bobber) anyway.

But, there was the bigger question: What happened to my pants?

They disappeared on day one of my fishing season.

I wasn’t wearing them at the time, fortunately.

janet@aspentimes.com