Summer is officially gone, and unfortunately, I could still use another month of sitting there watching the hummingbirds on our deck, but that is not how things work. Every year I go through a switching-over process. My truck by this time of the year looks like a fly shop on wheels, and I have to shift over for fall hunting. I am not done fishing yet, but the hunting gear will dominate the free space in the truck.
I am a lifelong bowhunter, so while I still fish in the fall, my priority is getting after the deer in October and November. I still sneak away for some final smallmouth fishing, or some lake-run browns and steelhead, though. One thing that I do use this time for is trying to figure out my fly fishing gear from my spring and summer fishing. I do a lot of fly fishing, and my gear takes a beating during this time. I like to go over my stuff and make any fixes or corrections before I put things away.
One thing that I struggle with are my tackle packs. I use a sling pack for my trout fishing and have a boatload of fly boxes in there, which stands to reason because trout require a load of flies. I like to get the boxes in there organized and go through the fly drying patch and put them away. I also go through the other pockets and square up my strike indicators, leader material, tippet spools and other gear because things go from organized to chaos during the trout season. That way, when spring comes, everything is ready.
Another thing that gets messed up over the course of the season are my leaders. My favorite smallmouth rod got plenty of use this season and when I took it out of the truck I made the time to tie up a new leader so that when I pull it out of the case next time it will be ready. It is a good idea to change them if they have gotten a few wind knots or they have been tied and retied a bunch of times throughout the season. It’s nice starting out with a fresh one.
One of the banes of my existence are my waders. I have a good set of waders and wading boots that I use, and while the waders were great for the first season, now no matter what I do there are always pinhole leaks from my knees to my where the boots start. I think what I am going to do this time is send them to Driftless Wader Repair and let them try and fix them and see if I can get another year out of them.
My wading boots have made it through the season, and the Korkers shoes that I use have replaceable soles. I wear the cleated sole and there are a couple of the cleats that are gone, but they will do for now. Once they get worse I’ll buy another replacement sole set. I think being able to replace the soles is great and you get an extra year or so out of them because of it.
I’m not putting everything away, though. I have to assemble gear together for a chance at a landlocked salmon in October, and I will then have to go through my steelhead gear pretty soon for a chance at a lake run brown trout or steelhead out on the Lake Ontario Tributaries. I get away to fish once in awhile once the gun hunting starts. So it seems that while the seasons change, some gear gets put away, some gets reconfigured, and some of it gets pulled out and put in service. Like the seasons, The gear gets switched over.