October 16, the 2025 season has ended, the final trout released on a cloudy, cool, typical fall day. I was lucky. I got the water I wanted. The Olives hatched, and enough fish were landed to hold me over until January. Yes, I could still fish by traveling to another state, but I won’t. My aging body doesn’t tolerate too many hours in a vehicle. My rule of fishing twice as long as the total travel time makes for a very long day. It’s odd now, for someone who fishes almost every day of the season, to wake up and realize that I won’t be standing in water today. But it will be all right. For the next couple of weeks, I’ll clean up my tackle and store it away, the gardens will get closed out, the outside buttoned up before Old Man Winter appears. Most years, the fly-tying vice will be in position by the beginning of November, residing there for the next several months. The needed fly materials, in-house, hung from pegs, waiting to be opened and attached to hooks. Then, one morning after coffee, it begins again. 

Based on this past year’s fishing, I will tie some new streamer patterns, different colors, and movement still being the top priorities. I will be tying fewer nymphs and yet bringing back a couple of old standbys, one of which I haven’t tied in decades. Working on the theme “ it’s a wing thing,” I will be developing a series of surface imitations where less is more. Due to my fondness of swinging flies and because of decreasing mayfly hatches, I will be increasing my selection of soft hackles and terrestrials. And so it goes. 

Winter will arrive. No fishing for a while. Yet a season in itself. There will be coffee, a podcast playing, flies tied, and afternoon naps. Standing in water, swinging a fly, will come eventually. This season too shall pass.