The Winter Maliase

Consulting my fishing journal, I have fished 4 times on New Years Day. Pablo can testify of one resolute trip to the Smith River in VA where our directions stated, "put in just past the empty mirror factory." We duly froze our empty creoles off. Every trip has yielded the same result- nada. Yet every Christmas Vacation would end with me pining to get out of the house and away from the traditional Christmas morass. This year I had the 'xact same pine, "I've been off work for 7 days and haven't wet a line". My father seemed to sense my doldrums and asked if I wanted to go fishing the day we got home. Boy how I wanted to go. But the temp was forecast for a biting 40 degrees with a Jack Daniels stiff wind and I foresaw a replay of years past save the added bonus of my 70 year old father's freezing hands clutching his new spinning setup while chunking a spinner endlessly through a probably fishless pool while I sloggged around up stream, drifting egg patterns to finicky if existent planters. So maybe I am gaining some wisdom. Instead of chalking up New Years skunk number 5, I took the trash out and felt that wind cut clear to the bone and slunk back into my easy chair by the gas logs and dreamed of my future trout adventures just a few months into this new decade.