I think one of the best things to do in the winter months when the fist arn’t biting is to focus on your fly tying skills.
I like to escape to the gorage turn on some classical music and start tying. To me making flies is almoast as relaxing as fishing it’s self. I’m curious to hear hear other peoples flytying stories. Advice,comments, what ever…What do you do in the “off season”
This year I am trying to not have an off season and keep fishing, but I have all my tying stuff set up and have been tying while watching football this fall. I am also going to try rod building this winter, just got my blank delivered today in fact. Should be a fun winter.
tnflyman;
My season is done so it’s tying and rod building for me. Planning next years trips takes up some time also.
Flytying , trying to get a warm enough day to improve my casting . I spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to hide the honey-do jar from the wife. I try to spent at least an hour a day playing catch with the dog. I watch my tropical fish for at least an hour every evening wishing they were about 18 inches longer and hungry .
I try not to think of how long it is till spring . (its just 157 sleeps till ice off )
In 19 minutes it will be just 156 days till spring .
Jack…One of those trips you’re planning better be to Canton, Ohio…you have "honorary nieces & a nephew to meet & I’ll put you on a couple (or few) GREAT ponds & some pretty decent streams!
Gnu Bee…The older WE get, the shorter 156 days get!..it’s all relative…when we were 5 years old & waiting for Santa, a year was 20% of our lifetime as we knew it…now it’s less than 2% (I’ll be 59 soon)!!!
Mike
This site’s about sharing!
Fortunately for us, there is no off-season…fishing that is. Fortunately there IS the off-season workwise. Elsewise we would be REAL hard-pressed to get enough flies tied to exercise fish all year.
There is a general trout season, then there’s trout water that is open all year, then there’s steelheads, then there’s stripers, then there’s shad, then there’s halibut, then there’s albies, then there’s, LM’s, then there’s BG’s, then there’s…well you get the idea. 
Thankfully we do not experience “hard water” in our local.
…lee s.
[This message has been edited by lee s (edited 23 November 2005).]
tnflylman, RW here
Tie flies at home, tie flies at shows, go to state IF&W meetings, serve on committees, secretary of my fishing club, go to and help plan club events, host here on FAOL three times a week, and I’ve written an outdoor column for newspapers and magazines for over 35 years. There really is no “off” season for me. Shouldn’t I be winding down by now? Or maybe I’ll write a book…who knows? My son can illustrate it. Yeah…Yeah…that’s what I’ll do…write a book. Really! I will! Someday…
Later, RW
“We fish for pleasure; I for mine, you for yours.” -James Leisenring on fishing the wet fly-
I spend most of my time in the off season tying. Searun trout season opens in february but the kind of cold here is a damp cold and it just hits the bones.
Ummm … there’s an off season?!?
Trouts don’t live in ugly places
What off season?
I tie year round and fish year round. It’s just that I’m more comfortable in the summer wet wading than I am in waders in the winter.
About the only difference between now and the rest of year for me is the amount of clothing I wear and the tackle and type of fishing I do:
Sweatshirt, six weight, wet flies, streamers & nymphs.
Whats with all these post about an off season from fishing?
I just do not get it. I almost wish there really was because both Amie’s and mine nympth boxes are almost empty of well tied bugs and nothing smaller then a size 14 is left at all. I had to tie like crazy for a weekend trip to the Yakima river just a few weeks back and lost every last one by the 4th day. The dry fly box we share has many holes I have yet to fill. Our Salt box and Steelhead boxes are still mostly full at least for now though a few trips for Steel will empty out that box pretty darn quick. The Bass box we share is so empty there is no way even one of us could even hope to fish for them on the surface until I sit down and tie some deer hair poppers. At least the leech and sculpin box is still full for now.
The boat gets out of the shop on Friday to be put into storage until at least March since this time of year is river fishing at its best. Amie and I are starting our river fishing season off right by fishing all day Thankgiving day and I just hope we do not lose to many flies to the river gods in the chase of Chums, Steelhead and Bull Trout with I hope some Whitefish for spice.
Late December through Feb I will put my time in feeding the Salt pen raised Coho we will release in a few months as part of a project our TU group has done for over many years to help provide a winter fishery on Puget Sound. The Coho are raised in a pen in Puget Sound till they are big enough to be released to grow some more, until they are of a catchable size. Lots of fun to feed them little guys, that for sure. The fish seem to remember me a few years after release and seem to be really willing to feed on whats on my line. By then they are about 3-5 LBs on average and that fishery for us at least, starts in late March most years but thats also the time I like to start hitting lakes.
Between now and March I will spend my time chasing that fish of a 1000 cast while the sound of the river is in my ears.
I just wished I did not have to work so I could have time to tie some flies to restock those boxes, but I would most likley spend the time fishing instead and of then of course because of that go through even more flies. Then I might have to just break down and say those dreaded words to the man at the local fly shop “I would like to buy some flies today”.
No such thing for me as an off season or time when the fish aren’t biting. So, I have to take care of the tying, rod and line maintenace, and all the other suff all year as I can fit it in.
Best,
-John
I agree with Betty…what a concept…fish’in was’nt bad this afternoon…shhh don’t let the boss find out…lol
“I’ve often wondered why it is that so many anglers spend so much money on,and pay so much attention to.the details on the wrong end of the fly line.If they took as much care in selecting or tying their flies as they did in the selection of the reel and rod,They might be able to gain the real extra edge that makes it possible to fool a fish that has,in fact,seen it all before” A.K.Best
Everyone wants to excel in this sport but at the same time we let traditionalists place restrictions on our tactics, methods, and ideas. I always assumed that fly fishing was a sport that allowed imagination, creation, adaptation, investigation, dedication, education, revelation? : Fox Statler, On Spinners (Not the dainty Dry Fly kind) “Spinner’d Minner Fly”
“Wish ya great fishing”
Bill