By Jim Mize
When the air temperatures rise above the water temperatures for extended periods, I hang my waders up on the porch wall and let them dry for four months. That’s when I dig out the inserts that fit inside my boots and wade wet.
Usually, these temperatures arrive sometime in May here in the North Carolina mountains. The creeks I fish during the warm months tend to be smaller and the trip involves as much hiking as wading. Often, I am stepping out of the stream to walk up to quiet waters from the bank to avoid sending the fish in search of cover. Or I am stumbling down rocky trails to reach the gurgling waters.
Wet wading comes with many benefits, perhaps comfort being the most important. Wearing waders in warm weather leaves one sweating enough to be almost as wet as they would be without the waders, and certainly less comfortable. The cold streams have a cooling effect that unfortunately comes without a good way to average out the extremes.
Wet wading tends to be the most comfortable way to fish, and even occasionally, you get surprised by a good one.
Admittedly, your feet are cool and somewhat numb, while everything above the waterline stays on the toasty side. If I could figure out a way to make these temperatures equilibrate, I’d probably be a rich man. Still, in other ways, perhaps I am. I mean, I’m the one on the trout stream.
I usually wear long, quick-drying pants when I wade wet rather than shorts simply because of the hiking sections of the trip. The paths to the creeks are often lined with poison oak and I applied enough Calamine lotion in my youth to have my fill. Also, the long pants offer some armor to the occasional briar, tick, or mosquito in search of bare skin.
I also break out my waterproof pouch to protect my keys and wallet from an accidental dousing. After all, wading wet involves getting wet and it’s far too easy to forget you left something important in a pants pocket.
Wet-wading season also brings with it a change in fly-fishing approach. The spring hatches are mostly gone, and terrestrials seem to work better. At least, for me. Flipping ants, hoppers, and inchworms into small pockets feels like an appropriate way to pursue these fish. If I don’t spook them, they rise with a splash that improves my mood considerably.
A nice summer brown on a small stream can make your morning.
These small mountain trout are often opportunistic feeders and attack flies as if they offer the only meal these fish will see. Or maybe these little fish think they are considerably bigger than they are. In any event, these little big fish seem to match up well with splashing around and getting wet in warm weather.
On occasion, I am surprised by a larger fish rushing out from the shadows to take a hopper, leaving a wake. Usually, these are brown trout lying in ambush and waiting for a morsel large enough to make leaving their hiding spot worthwhile.
Seeing the wake while holding off from trying to set the hook takes a bit of control, something I’ve had to learn. Holding off until my fly disappears seems to be time enough. Setting the hook to coincide with the splash can be questionable and may leave me looking over my shoulder at a tangle in the rhododendrons.
The feel of the water and the cool embrace of it take me back to my younger days, before I could afford relative niceties like waders. The summers of my childhood were spent playing in creeks, flipping rocks to find salamanders and crayfish, along with a myriad of insects I didn’t recognize at the time. Now, I know they were mayfly nymphs clinging to those rocks.
But after a day of splashing through those creeks, I returned home wet and muddy. In the yard, I would hose off and sit on the porch to dry. Our porch was made of stone and those rocks absorbed the afternoon heat, where lying on it felt like I was drying in a sauna.
Now, I dry mostly while I walk back to my truck. I might stretch out in the pickup bed, close my eyes, and remember those summer afternoons on my porch. I can never immediately put on socks and shoes to drive home as my socks refuse to slide over wet feet. I give myself a few minutes to dry off, and let the water wrinkles subside while the age wrinkles look on in envy. But for a while, my time in a mountain creek perhaps did some good keeping old age in check, if at least for a moment.
I go for the fish but enjoy splashing around in the creek.
So, I look forward to wet-wading season each year, not so much wishing for time to go by for summer to arrive, but as a unique season to chase mountain trout. Soon enough, it will be too hot to fish, even wading wet. I figure the trout also need a summer vacation, especially when the temperatures edge higher.
Until then, I will splash around as I did in my youth and chase these little big fish with bugs. The cool water can hold time in check while I wade creeks and feel just what the fish feel, with no need to take out a stream thermometer. I will know when it’s time to climb out and wait for cooler weather.
As summer approaches, I hang up my waders when I turn to small mountain streams.
Jim Mize finds pleasures on creeks in almost any weather. You can purchase Jim’s award-winning book, The Jon Boat Years, at https://uscpress.com/The-Jon-Boat-Years or buy autographed copies at www.acreektricklesthroughit.com.
