At this point, pretty much regardless of where you’re located, you’re probably either self-quarantining or at least practicing social-distancing. While this may seem like a bummer and limiting the start of your fishing season, fear not, there are plenty of fun and necessary activities you can get to work on to prepare you for the fishing season once the Coronavirus pandemic has waned!
Tie Flies
This is easily our favorite go-to indoor fly fishing activity, regardless of why we’re stuck inside. Tying flies is easily the most productive way to stay connected to fly fishing while quarantined, and by the end of this, your fly boxes will probably be filled up and ready to get you on the water the moment you can escape your home!
Looking to get started tying your own flies? Add a fly tying kit to your Postfly subscription and get easy to use fly tying kits delivered monthly!
Clean & Repair Your Gear
Since you won’t be making any trips to the water if you’re quarantined, it’s a great time to bust out your wader repair kits, reel lube and fly line cleaner and get to work to get your gear in A+ working shape. Personally, I have 2 pairs of leaky waders making their way onto my wader-surgery table to get those puppies back into working order. Cleaning and treating your fly lines will keep them casting all spring and summer. Even the most bulletproof fly reels need some TLC every once in a while and we’d recommend giving them a nice bath and scrub to get rid of any gunk that may have built up, and to lubricate ’em to keep that drag as buttery smooth as possible. Really, there is no better excuse than being stuck indoors to get your gear into prime fishing shape!
Organize Your Fly Boxes
If you’re anything like me, it probably takes 3-4 fishing outings for your fly boxes to go from perfectly organized to absolute chaos. Now is the time to get those boxes back into lock-step so you can know exactly which boxes to take on your first fishing adventure out of doors. We like to keep ours organized by species and then by fly type. So, for example, we’ve got our trout boxes broken down into nymphs, dries, and streamers. This makes it easy to quickly grab what we need for our fishing escapes!
Tie/Repair Fresh Leaders
As someone who is absolutely guilty of using a leader for waaaaay too long, I’ve been taking my quarantine time to tie up some fresh leaders and/or repair older ones in my packs. All you need is leader material or tippet, and some knot-knowledge to get to work rebuilding/repairing your leaders, so you can be confident they will hold up when a big fish is pulling hard. Personally, I am focusing on building a few nymphing leaders, zero-twist streamer leaders, muskie/pike leaders and several saltwater leaders for when the Stripers show back up on the East Coast.
Support Fellow Anglers
Now more than ever it’s important for us, as an angling community, to rally and support each other. Whether that’s shooting your fishing buddy a “How are you doing?” text or supporting your favorite local fly shops, this is a great time to reach out and do your part to help keep everyone sane and in business. Buying gift cards to shops and sites that you know you will be purchasing from in the future is a phenomenal way to help them in these low-cash-flow times, and will go farther than you know to help our entire community through these crazy weeks!
All other things aside, we here at Postfly want our Tribe members to stay healthy, in both body and mind during these next months that COVID-19 is hanging around. If you’re feeling ill, stay inside and keep away from others until you have recovered or for the government-recommended amount of time, and refer to local authorities’ recommendations regarding self-quarantining and social distancing. In the meantime, get outside, keep that fishing stoke high, and your head up. We know we will all be able to brave this storm!
Dan Zazworsky’s passion is sharing his love of fly fishing with anyone that will listen, read or watch. You can find him exploring new waters every day while chasing any fish that will eat a fly!
I am now on the $40.00 month Guide Box plan. How would I go about alternating warm water with trout, every other month?
Noah,
I would reach out to our customer service at info@postflybox.com!
Best,
Team Postfly