Annual Report for 2018

More than 70 inches of rain – officially. For months, it seemed as though we could not get more than two or three consecutive days of sunshine before things clouded up and the heavens let loose with heavy rains. At times, I actually thought Noah might come floating by in his ark.

The bad weather began early and continued for the entire year. It negatively affected every outdoor activity I enjoy.

Fly-fishing for trout is my favorite outdoor pastime. However, with all the rain we endured from the beginning of spring through the end of the year, I lost out on a lot of fishing time because of flooded or nearly flooded streams. In addition, since the streams were out of sorts during the spring when most fly hatches occur, dry-fly fishing to these hatches was compressed into only a few weeks. Even then the water was too high for effective hatch matching much of the time. For most of the season, I had to resort to nymph fishing, which I enjoy but which is a second choice for me. At any rate, I fished fewer times, caught fewer trout, and landed only a handful of what I consider to be big trout during the 2018 trout-fishing campaign.

Turkey hunting was also adversely influenced by the weather, though during the spring I managed to get out twenty different mornings between rain events. Unlike expert hunters who seem to be able to walk into the woods and kill gobblers without much effort, it took me until my twentieth hunt to call a gobbler in close enough for a shot. This turned out to be the smallest spring gobbler I have ever killed. Even so, after the turkeys had me down 19 - 0, I was glad finally to put a tag on a bird.

Autumn turkey-hunting weather was not conducive for success. Rain on the opening day and during the morning of the first Monday kept me out of the woods. When the rain ended, I got to the woods but knew I had to hunt effectively, since cold, rainy weather was scheduled to set in that Thursday. I hunted hard during the nice weather, planning to stay till dark on Wednesday. However, a couple big gobblers silently came in to my calls that afternoon, and I shot the biggest autumn turkey I have ever tagged. My son, Bob, said I had my seasons backwards. (He later killed a big gobbler during a dreadful weather hunt.)

Deer season: We all know what that weather was like.