Dear Jack,
I've had 3 or 4 prolonged slumps over a 35 year span of fly fishing. They simply do just come and go.
The onset of a slump can never be accurately predicted, and you'll have no more luck predicting the end of a slump.
My most recent slump was lifted by a prompt from a fellow board member to try some local smallmouth creeks. Longwader had been talking to me for a couple of years about places to try and finally I relented. I joined him in early May on a local stream. I hung some nice smallmouth and definitely felt re-energized and invigorated.
Since then I have been out fly fishing several other times, with mixed success, but I can at least say it seems interesting to me once again. I've spent a few nights tying flies too, which is something I had rarely done in the past few years.
Unfortunately, weather seems to play a bigger role nowadays too. It seems that in the past few years every Thursday evening brought a torrent of rain that ruined streams with high muddy water. Years ago I would have just driven 200 miles one way to find good water, but diesel fuel was 99 cents a gallon back then. Now I try to limit my excursions to times when conditions are most favorable, I'm not wasting $ 50.00 - $ 60.00 on gas on the if come.
Perhaps the biggest reason for slump periods, for me at least, is the lack of an inspirational fly fishing partner. My brother Terry was my main fishing bud and we fished 45 + weekends a year for over a decade.
He moved to CO in 1997 and as much as I don't like to say it, he took more than a little bit of me with him. My fishing interest went to less than zero when he departed. Fortunately I had some buddies that pestered me to fish so I found a way to muddle through.
Now I have a fiancee'/girlfriend, and for all intents and purposes other than the legal ones, "wife" that enjoys fishing. She enjoys it to the extent that I bought a boat and we spent weekends fishing local lakes for sunnies and crappies and the occasional bass or pickerel. It's not fly fishing, but it's still fishing.
In closing all I can tell you is to just let the slump take it's course. You'll have an "Aha!" day again and things will return to what you previously considered to be normal.
Take care dude,
Tim Murphy