Huron Hex; Teacher as a Student

Last night I fished the Huron around Dexter-Huron Metropark. Fished streamers for a while with no results. Had my eyes open for hex spinners, though. Saw one or two around 8:30 (I think--didn't wear a watch), then one or two thousand, rhythmically rising and plunging, or flying swiftly upstream just above the river's surface. Did not see any on the water, unfortunately. Saw about three rises the entire evening. One fish came up about fifteen feet to my left, and I quickly flicked my hex spinner in its direction. It took immediately, and I enjoyed a short tussle with a nice 12" smallmouth.

The bugs really got thick after I released the fish, flying into my chest, beneath my shirt collar, nearly into my mouth a couple of times. You'd think a few would have hit the water, but not around me. The sky was still pretty bright when the bugs disappeared. At that point I packed up and left, as I needed to run a few errands on the way home. I've heard of white flies hatching a bit later at night, but I would have to investigate that rumor some other night.

Just after I'd gotten on the river, I'd heard a couple of voices coming from downstream. Other fishermen, I assumed. But when I waded down that way during the spinner flight, I saw no one in the river, though the voices were still there. Then one of them asked me how the fishing was, and I turned to see two men sitting in folding chairs on the bank, a cooler between them. Just two guys out enjoying a warm summer night in the woods. Can't say my evening was more profitable than theirs.
I don't start teaching until the 22nd, but I'll be taking a class myself for the next two weekends. The Toledo Metroparks are offering training to become a Certified Interpretive Guide, a kind of ecological docent. The certifying body is the National Association for Interpretation. Because the name doesn't specify the kind of interpretation involved, English professor types like me might conclude it referred to a group affilitated with the Modern Language Association. That we literary types don't hold a monopoly on interpretation might shock of few of my colleagues.

I'm taking the class to become better at helping others to read and comprehend landscapes, something I will need to do in the environmentally focused writing courses I'm developing. But on the NAI website, there are listings for jobs in this field and sometimes I wonder if I ought to give that a shot.

An old grad school classmate of mine is teaching the course, something I only discovered after I'd signed up. Sometimes your past catches up with you in pleasant ways.