Gear

Spent some time re-organizing fishing gear last night. Despite an excellent organizing system, GEEZ there's a lot of stuff in my basement! I suppose that's because I don't confine my pursuit of fish to any one species, so you need a multitude of tools. And, since steelhead are my passion, that brings in another wealth of specialized gear.

I use one main bag for the gear for the current season. In the Fall I load it up for steelhead, and around the Trout Opener I swap everything over to trout and warmwater pursuit. The off-season gear goes into a dedicated plastic container. Last night in the steelhead bin I noticed 2 Ross Momentums, 1 Orvis Battenkill V (with spare spool, lined up), a Raven Matrix centerpin, 3 boxes of flies, 2 wallets of sink tips, 4 spools of centerpin line, and more. And that's just the hardware, doesn't even touch on the 87 layers needed to wade when it's 20 degrees outside.

Originally the off-season box was much smaller, but it seems to have grown, too. Once upon a time it was just a box of dry flies and my trusty Scott A2 6-wt. with Ross CLA 3. Then streamers were added, and a 7 wt. A3, with Ross Evolution LT and three spools (sink tip, intermediate, and floating lines) joined the quiver, along with a 4-wt. A3 with Ross CLA 1.5 for dries.

Funny thing is, I use all this stuff. If something's not useful, it gets sold. I can point to every piece of gear and tell you why I have it. And, fortunately, I've been able to find deals and used equipment in many cases, so the investment is greatly reduced. But man, what a bunch of stuff!

-Sean-