After my recent story about tying flies as a winter pastime I got texts, emails, phone calls and even face-to-face ideas from beleaguered outdoorsmen with one or more personal hobbies to stay sane during cold weather months. If you’re not a fly fisherman or tying flies just doesn’t interest you, let me pass along a few options from other regional sportsmen.
When it’s time for an outdoorsman to become an indoorsman, having an enjoyable hobby or pastime to occupy a few hours each evening or on weekends helps deter cabin fever. As well as passing time, hobbies related to other favorite summer sports keep you connected and hopeful of future warm weather outings.
Numerous Crown of Maine outdoorsmen use cold winter evenings to support warm-weather pastimes by reloading shells or building some sort of new fishing rod. This is also the perfect time to fix up older flies that have been beaten up and need to be steam-cleaned or have a new coat of head cement. Perhaps a favorite fishing rod should have a guide rewound or the windings need a coat of varnish. These are perfect jobs for the off season. One fellow actually builds his own spinners, lures, and spoons for casting and trolling. I’ve dabbled in that hobby and it’s not only fun, but you can be creative and produce many shapes, sizes and colors of trout and salmon hardware.
Loading rifle, pistol and shotgun ammunition is another way to spend storm days or long nights. After doing this hobby for many years I’m not sure how much of a money saver it is, but I’m positive my ammunition is far superior in power and accuracy to any I can buy, because I field test each load and match it to a specific gun. Variety is another plus of reloading shells. It’s possible to create loads with certain weights and styles of bullets, or types of shotgun pellets, that are not commercially available at all.
Reloading has skyrocketed in popularity since COVID shut down commercial ammunition manufacturers two years ago and ammo shelves in sporting goods stores became barren. Materials for loading all types of ammunition became scarce also, but that has improved somewhat.
There are dozens of excellent reloading manuals available, and using them properly is no different than following an exact recipe in a cookbook. Shooters who fire dozens of boxes of trap and skeet loads, waterfowl shells, or do a good deal of plinking and target practicing will benefit moneywise and have dependable ammo. When steel shot became mandatory for waterfowl and store selections were limited and expensive, I was reloading all sizes of steel in all gauges and lengths. Now I load Hevi-Shot, Tungsten Steel and plastic matrix shotshells and never have to worry about availability, and these are large money savings over retail pricing. It’s a fun and fascinating pastime.
With a variety of components it’s possible to handcraft a wide variety of sized, shaped and colored lures, spoons and spinners for casting and trolling. (Courtesy of Bill Graves)
Sportsmen with a knack for woodworking often turn to more in-depth outdoor-oriented projects such as constructing hand-made trout nets, special canoe paddles and push poles, or even building their own wood strip canoes. All these endeavors take patience, skill, and plenty of time, but self-satisfaction is immense. A few guys with a bit of gunsmith training use the snow season to refinish the wood or bluing on favorite firearms, or perhaps do a bit of intricate work on a particular gun’s action.
Waterfowlers often spend their winter nights learning and practicing carving and creating decoys for field use or more elaborate models for decorative display. A growing group of sportsmen are making their own duck and goose calls, some have turned an enjoyable hobby into a profitable business venture. Over the last 30 years, collecting and trading and selling duck, goose and even some fish carvings has become big business as the work of some older, often deceased wood workers can bring thousands of dollars at auction.
Collecting hunting and fishing paraphernalia is another interesting pastime. I trade and collect federal duck stamps and other sportsmen do the same with various stamps and licenses for hunting and fishing. Some anglers collect old flies, reels and extraordinary rods, especially bamboo models. Others specialize in antique lures and plugs.
Of course there’s a big market for buying, selling and trading older models of guns. Antique ammunition, ammo boxes, outdoor magazines and sporting goods catalogs are other items that plenty of sportsmen collect and trade. Out of print or first edition books about hunting and fishing are another field that draws a lot of attention. All of these collecting markets are a perfect winter pastime for one person or another.
If none of these collecting pastimes or outdoor-oriented hobbies strikes your fancy, spend some extra time reading books and magazine that relate to your favorite cast and blast endeavors. It’s also a great time of year to catch up on all the TV shows you missed on the outdoor channels or enjoy a few DVDs about woods and water adventures. When all else fails, some of the current hunting and fishing video games for the computer are a blast for all ages.
Now if none of these ideas fits the bill or you still spend way too much time stuck inside, there’s only one option. Pack up and drive or fly to a place where fishing doesn’t require drilling a hole in the ice and shooting doesn’t require snowshoes and three layers of clothing. Hang in there — it’s March already.
