The start of a new year brings the start of a new season, and the chance to make all of your fly fishing plans a reality. At the start of every year I come up with a single goal or overriding theme for my entire fishing season.

Last year, it was all about the micro adventures. The micro adventure takes advantage of the in-between hours amidst all of life’s responsibilities and that’s exactly what I did in 2016. If there was a weekend that I could escape and go to a different state and fish for a new species, I was there. If I had a single night with no plans, I’d hop in the car after work and go fishing, making it back just in time for work the next day. My entire year was devoted to these micro adventures and now it’s time for me, and you too, to come up with a new goal.

Here’s To 2017

I think I know my goal for this year. This isn’t a resolution, this isn’t an empty promise to myself or some unrealistic expectation that I know I won’t meet, this is my legitimate plan. Here it is: I’m going to branch out this year. I may have fished more and more as the years pass, but it’s usually fishing the exact same way time and time again. Sure I had some pretty killer trips that I’ll remember forever that really took me out of my comfort zone, but near my home waters I did the same thing again, and again, and again.

My goal is to turn the everyday, after-work trips into a learning experience. Instead of chucking the same streamer at the same holes, I’m going to try to get better at nymph fishing. For those of my friends reading this, they know I absolutely hate and suck at nymph fishing, even though it’s the most effective way to fish. Still, I’m going to have to make an effort to try it until I love it. Or at the very least until like it enough to catch a few fish.

Instead of going out to the flats and chasing down stripers in skinny water, my favorite thing to do every, I’m going to fish the other side of the tide a little more often this year. Instead of looking for nervous water in the marsh, I’m going to be searching for birds and blitzes out where it’s deep. Out there, swimming where I’ll never be able to see it coming, I’ll find myself the biggest fish of my life, the one that will affirm I made the right goal this year.

Now It’s Your Turn

It’s all up to you. Whatever it is that you want your 2017 fly fishing season to become, the important this is to have a goal. Your goal could be to have no goal, to just let your season unfold naturally however it wants to, but at least you made that decision now. Maybe you want to have the same goal as me, that’s cool. Maybe you want to have my goal for 2016 and take advantage of the few hours you have in between work, school, kids, and your responsibilities. That’s clearly a good choice, because I almost made the same goal again.

No matter what you do, as long as you’re fishing more this year than you did last year, that’s all that matters. I don’t care if you somehow managed to get 365 days of fishing in last year, I want to see more from you. I want to see you out there 365 and that quarter of a day that eventually adds up to a leap year. The more you fish, the happier you’ll be, so what’s stopping you? What’s your 2017 fly fishing season goal going to be my friend?

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