I went out in the rain, I caught one nice brown two pools down from Dave’s house, then snuck up to his back door. In a steady, light rain I checked my knots, all of them, and then made my cast.
The afternoon was spent under that gray sky with the sun trying to penetrate it looking like nothing more than a distant low wattage lightbulb. For this time of year the conditions were really about as perfect as you could expect.
Maybe it was the right time. Maybe I was just lucky. Maybe I was more patient and more observant than I had been years ago.
But there’s something to be said about a good snag. It reminds you what it feels like if only for a second to find a fish. And remembering that feeling suddenly can have an effect on your mind. I think it’s called hope. Hope ain’t bad.
But not only did I totally ignore the fact that I was sure I wouldn’t catch anything, but I began fishing, working my way downstream where the fish would be facing my approach in such clear water. I know the right way to do things, I just ignore them a lot of the time. And now that I’m forty-five, I feel as though I can start blaming my age for my stubbornness.
When you worked hard for a fish all day on the previous day and came up empty and then had reserved yourself to the idea that today would be more of the same, suddenly that fish, that moment, becomes the most genuine high five with a friend that’s ever happened.
I stood at the Jeep, a fly box on the hood opened up displaying my tools to the fishing gods while I struggled to tie on a size 16 scud. A red squirrel sat on a rotten limb leaning against the base of a tree, watching me with indifference as it rolled something over and over in its paws, gnawing away feverishly and filling its cheeks. If the truth was told, we were probably both in the same frame of mind. Better get this done now while we still can. A forty-five degree day in December is nothing to take for granted. I rig up a fly rod. The squirrels search out and store away more food. We all have our priorities.
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