Winter

"Winter. Ugh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!" My apologies to Edwin Starr. That's the song most fishermen sing when it's 'too cold' to go fishing. That doesn't count, of course, those hearty souls who drag a hut out onto a frozen river or lake, cut a hole in the ice and jig for whatever's got the energy to strike.

Those of us down south use this time for maintenance in much the same way a gardener pores over seed catalogs in February. I was brought up by an avid fisherman who spent his bleak days cleaning reels and loading newly waxed line and repairing chewed-up, well-used lures.

Here's how it would go: Dad would call me in from play on the appointed day. Funny. It was never too cold to go outside and play, but it got too cold to let me even near the water. I guess it was because I always found a way to get immersed -- or at least wet. Some days I'd come in and find the reels, tools and oil already spread out on an old, soft towel. Other times there'd be spools of line, wax and empty reels.

Cleaning reels was my favorite. Dad broke down the reels in 'exploded view' order. My job was to dab oil on a piece of old tee shirt and carefully -- no -- tenderly wipe them off, removing rust and lubricating moving parts. It was work for a pre-teen; actually it was tedious work. But, that wasn't the fun part.

We, Dad and I, filled up the time talking about fishing trips we'd taken that year. We'd tell and retell stories of getting on a bed of bream or discovering the lair of a particularly large bass. We'd talk and drink cocolas (Cokes for you yankees, foreigners or both), laugh 'till it hurt or even cry -- always wiping away each other's tears.

When we'd done all we could, Dad reassembled the reels and tested them. Only when they passed both our approvals would he declare them ready to fish. The two I remember best were an early 1940s Pflueger Supreme bait casting reel and his mid-1940s fly reel he bought from Reeder-MacGahee's. The bait caster sits on my shelf now, retired but still loaded with Dad's last bit of woven line. The fly reel, however, is loaded and screwed to the butt of my fly rod ready to help bring home supper.

Those were good times back then. Father and son fishermen bonded over shared experiences, becoming closer than best friends ever could. It's what made winter worthwhile.