What’s in Your Wader Pocket?

On the benefits of being a messy angler

Last week I pulled up to one of my favorite fishing spots, not a single car on the side of the road. I grabbed my rod and practically ran to the water. Trout splashed and rose for caddis, and good fishing seemed imminent. I reached into my pack for my tippet, pulled at the tag-end, and was left with a measly four-inch strand — the last of the spool. The fragment waved slowly in the wind, my elation turning to a seething self-loathing.

How could you forget to check your gear?

I dumped the contents of my pack onto the bank, searching feverishly among the fly boxes and half-empty Gink bottles for an extra spool that wasn’t there. Facing the prospect of six hours of fishing sans tippet I felt a rising sense of desperation, but as I muttered a series of scathing expletives and cursed myself for my thoughtlessness, I had an idea. I reached into my wader pocket, sifting through wrappers, wet paper, old hooks and — how many tippet pieces are in here? Enough to tie on a dry fly? Oh hell yes.

Five minutes later I was standing in the river casting to a pod of rising fish, my caddisfly tied to three sections of lightly-used monofilament. Not surprisingly, the fish didn’t care. They rose to gulp my fly while I grinned and smugly patted my chest. Who needs a knotless leader when you have a wader pocket?

My wader pocket is a bottomless hole, a Mary Poppins carpet bag. Housing the remnants of hours on the river, it is fly shop and fridge, trashcan and desk drawer. Any self-respecting human would clean it out once in a while and remove the stray tippet that tangles in the zipper teeth like unbrushed hair. I would not be surprised to pull out a lampshade. Yet, there are so many days when that wader pocket is my Hail Mary.

Hungry? There’s a granola bar in there somewhere, or maybe some Cheez-Its and a beef stick if they survived the dip I took in the last hole. Fly dinged on a rock? Hold on… down at the bottom is a hook hone. There are spare flies and strike indicators, hand warmers, candy, sunscreen, half-soaked plastic bags, and fishing licenses from four different states. Take your pick.

I can’t be bothered to organize this mess. The only thing I care about is finding fish. I keep my eyes on the water, watch for rises, and unzip that pocket without even looking to pull out a snack or tuck away some trash. It’s liberating. And I take comfort in knowing that no matter what the circumstance I’ll always have exactly what I need.

You can keep your spotless, spanking-clean chest-highs. These stink-footed waders and their soggy pocket save my ass every time.

-EH, July 2021