{"id":9173,"date":"2016-06-16T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T19:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com-2\/?p=9173"},"modified":"2017-06-02T08:06:39","modified_gmt":"2017-06-02T15:06:39","slug":"wedgie-waders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2016\/06\/16\/wedgie-waders\/","title":{"rendered":"Wedgie Waders: A Beginnings Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lace to my wading boot snaps in half.<\/p>\n

\u201cFuuuuuuu…\u201d I moan, eyeing the gray mass of clouds moving down the canyon in my direction. I make quick \u201cshould I bail\u201d calculations in my head. I decide the need for my body to stand in river outweighs the proximity to negative temperatures and limited remaining hours of daylight.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Covering my lace in tape, I cram the boot on my foot, hoping my \u201cdon\u2019t know knots, tie lots!\u201d method will hold. My waders, constructed for an overweight, four-foot tall, 12-year-old tourist, are already giving me a wedgie. I lace my line through the guides of my rod, my hands raw in the cold. I wonder what the weird sticky stuff on my fly line is, consider buying one of those fly line cleaning rags, then figure that\u2019s for over-enthused gear junkies. There\u2019s sand caked into my reel from my last river trip. I don\u2019t qualify as a gear junkie yet.<\/p>\n

I tie on a nymph with two beads and a San Juan worm. Last week, I tied a small army of fuzzy annelids. The San Juan worm is a beginner fly but effective. \u00a0Don\u2019t pretend you didn\u2019t start with tying the San Juan worm, fly fishing experts. Don\u2019t pretend it wasn\u2019t a big moment when you realized the bead had a tapered hole to keep it from slipping over the eyelet of the hook.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Streamers, a much more glamorous fly than the little San Juan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I tromp down the mud bank and over the ice shelf onto the island, boot flapping and wader-wedgie firmly in place. I push through dogwoods the color of my hands and clamber over fallen cottonwoods to the run. This morning as I daydreamed at work, I imagined myself taking a meditative moment on the bank. I thought I would curl up against a log with a steaming cup of tea in and listen to that sweet pop and rumble of water over cobble.<\/p>\n

Imagine the fishing catalog photo spread here\u2014can\u2019t you see it?<\/p>\n

But when I reach the river I\u2019m cold and too excited, and I can sense a trout is hungry and maybe willing to put some junk food in it\u2019s mouth on its way home from work like I do all the time.<\/p>\n

I slide back off the ice shelf into the river. It\u2019s starting to rain-snow in that Montana shoulder season way. Then, thigh deep in water, time slows to the pace of my drifts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A heron contracts her awkward limbs and flaps downstream.
\nRain forms droplets on the dogwood branches.
\nI wonder if I locked my keys in my car.
\nMy fingers draw back and forth along my sticky fly line.<\/p>\n

A tug. My arm rises; there\u2019s a flash of silver and that feeling (that feeling!) of river, of life, of time itself on the end of my line. The rainbow isn\u2019t big\u2014it\u2019s not small either. A maroon worm hangs from its jaw. My knuckles go numb as I plunge my hand into the river, free the hook and the fish darts away. I stand up and shake my wedgie-wadered ass and yell, \u201cThank you! THANK YOU!\u201d out into the sleet-filled, gray canyon. Slipping on the cobbles, I fall in the water.<\/p>\n