Rooting for the River

Au Sable Canoe Marathon winners, approaching the finish line.

I can sum up the fishing I did on our trip last weekend quickly: It sucked. Morning hatches of Tricos and Slate wing olives were sparse, risers scattered and finicky. I caught three brooks about 8-9" on Friday from the North Branch Au Sable, a single, smaller one from the Mainstream on Saturday. I would have expected better hatches and a lot more feeding at this point in the summmer. Unfortunately, I didn't get out for the afternoon, when terrestrials might have done well.

On the other hand, the Canoe Marathon on Saturday night/Sunday morning was amazing. While I've never been very enthusiastic about spectator sports, I couldn't help being drawn in to the excitement of watching seventy-some canoes paddled at top speed and jostling for position in the narrow upper river, or sharing in the anticipation of a couple hundred fans crowded onto a bridge at midnight, waiting to see the leaders pass by. My heart sunk when one of the teams competing for the lead hit a delay (what I didn't quite see) that set them back a few seconds while portaging the final dam. And this without any particular concern with who won or lost.

Still, I can't say I had no emotional investment in the race; it just wasn't attatched primarily to the competitors. I do have a strong attatchement to that river. Participating in the spectacle of the Marathon, one knows a bit more of the life the Au Sable has, and that it brings to those who encounter it.

Aside from its setting, this competition has another great advantage over most spectator sports: you don't have to sit in one place for three hours. You arrive at the landing or bridge, wait a bit, watch the racers pass (and actually you could do that for over an hour if you wanted to), then drive on to the next viewing point. It's the perfect event for fans with short attention spans.

Come On, Feel the Noise

An interesting experiment took place last weekend in Finland:


HELSINKI (Reuters) - A Finnish researcher is to study fish in an aquarium while a rock group performs nearby, to see if the sound causes any ill-effects or distress.


Bands including aging rockers Uriah Heep will perform on Friday night to about 3,000 fans in a tent just a couple of dozen metres away from the aquarium.

"I will be looking for any abnormal behavior or activity," said researcher Mikko Erkinaro.

The 500,000-liter tank is home to salmon, trout, pike and perch and other species common in Finland's brackish coastal waters.

"Abnormal behavior or activity"--like what, hanging out by the brewery drainpipe, fin piercing, casual spawning?

I'm not sure what to make of the closing quote:

"It could be quite nasty to arrange such an aquarium and a performance venue (so close)," Erkinaro said, "especially when the (band) is a bit old-fashioned."

I'm curious now: would it be a bad idea to expose coldwater species to salsa?





Tonight Kristine and I are heading north for a few days, looking over some spots where her family used to vacation, then heading down to Grayling on Friday for the Au Sable Canoe Marathon. That's billed as the World's Toughest Spectator Event, not that the 120 mile overnight race is a piece of cake for the canoers. But with enough trail mix, water, and mosquito repellent, I'm sure we'll manage.

For a long time I've wanted to see this, mainly just to get in on the spectacle. The marathon is one of the biggest events of the year in Grayling, and as a fan of most things Graylingish (aside from the possibly impending 1,800 acre amusement park), I'd like to be a part of this at least once. Hopefully the crowds won't bring me to regret that desire before the weekend is out. Naturally, I'll be doing some fishing while I'm up there, with the usual reports to follow.

RIP Again

Death week continues at FTR...

This afternoon Kristine and I are headed to a "celebration for the life" of one of her coworkers who died earlier this week following a brief bout with cancer. Judging by the bouyant mood, the laughter, and the Jimmy Buffet tape playing in the background at the wake last night, I would guess that in this case "celebration" is not a euphemism for funeral.

Though I didn't know Mike, the deceased, well, he always seemed like an easygoing, generally happy guy. He was, you may have guessed, a Jimmy Bufffet fan, and he lived out the Parrothead philosophy to some extent. Even owned a parrot. Those attending his celebration this afternoon have been directed to wear hawaiian shirts, and advised that the festivities will move to a bar later in the afternoon. I suppose I will drink a margarita in Mike's honor.

In a note written shortly before he died, Mike directed that a verse from a Buffet song be inscribed on his headstone, the final lines of it reading

I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead.

I think he got his wish. One could do worse.

To avoid standing on the wrong side of that couplet, I think one additional fishing trip this August will be in order.

RIP Fred Trost

Yesterday, Fred Trost, a longtime host of outdoor shows on Michigan public television, passed away at the age of 61. On the outdoor bulletin boards, people who watched his shows are mourning his loss and offering prayers for his family, which is a remarkable development in that for the first time in twenty or so years, they are more or less unanimous in their feelings toward him.

In an obituary from the Lansing State Journal, a fellow outdoor journalist observed that “Fred was very controversial, and he could be divisive. "

Yeah.

A man who worked with him on one of his shows recalled that “We just hit it right off because we’re both kind of crazy.”

A lot of people would concur with that assessment, if not with its implied definition of "crazy."

Trost was outspoken, passionate, and dedicated to his work and the outdoors. He was also whiny, quixotic, and more than a touch paranoid. To some people he was a trusted friend and voice of reason. To others he was a well-intentioned kook. Still others doubted his intentions. Yet thousands watched him every week on "Michigan Out of Doors" or "The Practical Sportsman." And for years, I was one of them.

I first encountered Fred watching his "Practical Sportsman" show in the early 90s. At the time I was a graduate student, and most Saturday mornings, I would wake up around 7 or 8, read or grade papers for a few hours, then wander into the living room around 11:00 for what my wife referred to as the "huntin' and killin' hour": "Michigan Out of Doors" (which he had hosted for some years previously) at 11, and, following an incongruously placed home improvement show, Fred's "Practical Sportsman" at noon. Since I rarely had time to go fishing during the school year (and still don't), I was glad to share in Fred's small-screen outings. I chuckled at his cornball commentary and batty-uncle demeanor, but found myself inevitably caught up in his sheer joy at being in the outdoors engaged in the simple and time honored pursuits of hunting and fishing.

The ideas of simplicity and tradition were central to Fred's presentation of the sporting life, and his advocacy for them really drove the later part of his career and gave "The Practical Sportsman" its raison d'etre. Fred was very consciously the voice of a fading era in the outdoors, and in sometimes winsome and sometimes ungainly ways, he strove to reinforce the values and customs of that era in one rife with threats from both new self-declared enemies and erstwhile friends.

It's hard to say when that era began, but Fred could identify countless agents bringing it to a close: Animal rights activists and sundry tree huggers who questioned the inherent rightness of hunting and fishing, for starters, but also a tv-and-video-game culture that lured kids away from the outdoors, the gun control lobby, rapid development of farmlands that were once hunting grounds, and a declining profile of hunting and fishing in the culture at large. Then there were the wolves in sheeps clothing: catch and release fishermen, trophy hunters, and wildlife managers who introduced regulations favoring them; the companies introducing ever more exotic and expensive sporting equipment and the sportsmen with more money than sense who bought every bit of it; overzealous game wardens (Fred occasionally gave the impression there was no other kind), and proliferating cable outdoors shows focused on destinations and quarries beyond the reach of the "average sportsman."

Fred was the self-styled champion of that "average sportsman," someone who hunted in hunting season, fished in fishing season, and kept all the fish he caught. He drove north for the opening of deer season and shot the first buck he saw, trophy or not. He bought his gear at the local sporting goods store or at Sears or K-Mart. He (or she--Fred welcomed women's increasing participation in outdoor sports) probably learned about hunting and fishing from his (or her) father. He or she was in essence a "PRACTICAL sportsman." (Emphasis Fred's) For him or her, the outdoor sports were about having fun with friends and family, passing on traditions, and getting some food for the table. They weren't about bagging a trophy (Fred's annual Big Buck night notwithstanding) or having the newest high tech gear or communing with nature.

This average sportsman was a blue-collar Michigander who probably was representative of a large number of outdoorspeople in this state, and most others. But like the Michigan auto workers who would find themselves displaced by economic changes at the end of the 20th century, he too would find him (or her) self pushed toward the margins of American culture (including American sporting culture). Fred was determined to reverse the trend, and took his case for the old ways to viewers week by week. He (usually) filmed outings to places that most hunters or fishermen could drive to easily and used commmonly available, low-to-mid budget gear. Sometimes he was successful and sometimes he wasn't--just like "average sportsmen," and most others. He also devoted part of his show to polemics against the Department of Natual Resources, elitist sportsmen, and environmentalists, among others. In the mid 90s, his attacks on state wildlife managers and conservation officers bore an unsettling resemblance to the anti-government rhetoric of the right wing militia movement.

Yet his defense of outdoor traditions could be deeply sentimental, sometimes mawkishly so. Reviewing stories about people newly moved to country complaining about deer eating their flowers and coyotes eating their cats, Trost observed that they were learning what hunters had ALWAYS known about nature--that it wasn't all cute and welcoming. These exurbanites, he contended, needed hunters to keep these offensive elements of the wild at bay, to be a sort of thin orange line between gracious country living and nature red in tooth and claw. After the 9/11 bombings, he proposed that should terrorists ever disrupt the nation's supply of power, fuel, and food, sportmen could step up to sustain their fellow citizens with the bounty of nature. Never mind that most sportsmen (me included) would have a hard time sustaining themselves on their take, and that people who train to survive when society goes to hell tend to be anti-social and geared toward guarding their provsions instead of sharing them. On the outdoor bulletin boards, sportsmen voiced their heartfelt gratitude--in the great cause of defending liberty and the homeland, we mattered.

As time passed, Fred's program seemed to matter less. He tried a number of new emphases for the show, some of which seemed contrived (e.g., hunting and fishing in RVs...sponsored by an RV dealer) and none of which caught on. There was too, as he regularly observed, growing competition with cable outdoor shows for sponsors and viewers. In 2005, "Practical Sportsman" went off the air. I expect that had he lived, he would have been back eventually, on TV or in another venue, pursuing some scheme to make a living doing what he loved and sticking up for the vision of outdoor life he believed in.
It's hard to say if he made any headway against the social and economic bogeymen he fought, but it would be wrong to say he fought in vain. That so many people identified with his message shows that the old ways are far from dead. And that sportsmen like me--so decidedly at odds with the profile of his "average sportsman"--could watch him weekly and grant him a measure of respect (however ambivalent) suggests he was more than raving coot others (sometimes justifiably) dismissed him as. His passion for the outdoor life was beyond question, and something about a heart bond to wild things and their pursuit translates well across ideologies and sensibilities.

Fred having been translated out of materiality, the time for controversy is over. So widely cursed, he shall be more widely missed.

Grant him eternal rest, O Lord,
and let light perpetual shine upon him.

Saturday Quote, 7/14/07

When you show someone something you've written, you hand them a sharpened stake, lie back in your coffin, and say 'Whenever you're ready.'

Davide Mitchell, Black Swan Green

I Wonder if He Caught Something?

This week's news has included reports that madams of two busted brothels identified Louisiana Senator David Vitter as a former client. I'll leave it to the political bloggers to discuss how this testifies to the corruption and hypocrisy of today's Republican party; the element of this story that caught my eye was this bit from a report in the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

U.S. Senator David Vitter visited a Canal Street brothel several times beginning in the mid-1990s, paying $300 per hour for services at the bordello after he met the madam at a fishing rodeo that included prostitutes and other politicians, according to Jeanette Maier, the "Canal Street Madam" whose operation was shut down by a federal investigators in 2001.

Like some other readers of Talking Points Memo, where I first came across the story, I want to know exactly what a "fishing rodeo" is and why it involves prostitutes. It could be the participants are angling for something other than fish. After all, who wants to bother with petty distractions like sex when they're actually fishing?

The first time I read the article, I thought one of the lines said "politicians and other prostitutes." Not the case, but it would have been a choice morsel of ambiguity, and entirely fitting.

Starving Cat Update; Flowing Together?

Pavlov's tests came back with some encouraging results. While his blood toxin levels are elevated, they are nowhere near crisis levels, and his level of phosphorous, an especially important indicator, remains normal. So we're not done with him yet. He continues to have an insatiable appetite for Gerber strained chicken--he scarfed 4 1/2 jars yesterday and probably could have eaten more. Since his weight loss remains a more serious problem at this point than his failing kidneys, we'll give him all the pureed fowl he can handle. The vet says we can't possibly overfeed him.

If you're looking for an investment, I'd reccomend a short position in Gerber.



Yesterday, the NYT ran a neat little profile of water. Yes, water, that common, precious, and imperiled fluid we drink, wash with, and fish in. Rich in fact yet playful in tone, the article examined its chemical properties and the roles it plays in maintaning life. In the midst of information about solvency, viscosity, and molecular bonds, one passage set me thinking about the bond that many anglers feel toward favorite waters and their environs.

“Water acts as the contact between biological molecules, not just separating them, but imparting information among them,” said Martin Chaplin, a professor of applied science who studies the structure of water at London South Bank University. “In an aqueous environment, all the molecules are able to feel the structure of all the other molecules that are present, so they can work as whole rather than as individuals.”

Could this explain some anglers' feelings of "oneness" with rivers, trout, mayflies, and the riparian realm in general?

Starving Cat Chronicles #4

Yesterday we got some bad news that wasn't unexpected but was still hard to hear. Our vet told us that our cat Pavlov's kidneys were failing. Short of giving him a transplant, he won't get better. We can give him peritoneal dialysis treatments (meaning the vet injects water into his belly), but these will only prolong the inevitable.

This afternoon, we'll get some test results back that will indicate how much kidney function he still has and, consequently, how much longer he'll live. At the moment, things don't look too bad. He still walks around, is energetic enough to jump on the kitchen table when we're not looking, wants to eat. When he is too weak to get up, he's at the end of the line.

Like I said, I'm not surprised. Though I didn't suspect his kidneys were failing, he does have some pretty serious digestive problems--he's had them to some degree since the day after we brought him home. Over the last four years, he's dropped from 11 to 6 pounds, and is more or less a walking skeleton, despite our trying numerous treatments and diet regimens. He's a bit wobbly on his feet now, though, as I said, he still puts on an occasional acrobatic display. While he's declined visibly for the last few years, he's worsened rapidly since the beginning of this summer--much weaker, more lethargic, less able to digest food, his affectionate disposition turned sour. He also seems confused at times. Last night, to keep him out of the kitchen while Kristine mopped the floor, we brought his FULL food dish into the living room, and though he had been crying for food, he just sniffed at it and tried to run back in the kitchen. Once we did return the food to its usual spot, he sucked it down immediately.

Lately we've discovered that he tolerates Gerber strained chicken pretty well. I guess his old age really is a second childhood.

I want to keep him around as long as possible, though I'm concerned about his quality of life too, and right now that seems questionable. He spends most of his day either sitting in front of his food bowl begging (i.e., meowing sharply and glaring at us) or sleeping behind shoes stacked around our back door. He doesn't like to be handled--this from a cat that couldn't seem to stay off us if we were sitting down--and he doesn't purr much anymore. I would like to pamper him (more) during the time he has left, but I'm not sure whether he's capable of appreciating it.

Like I said, we'll know more today about where he stands. I think I will need at least a few weeks to say goodbye. At 17, he's had a pretty good run. And when it's over, I pray that he'll go in his sleep.

Saturday Quote, 7/7/07

Bass are like beer. I don't want them unless there's nothing else around.

--Doc, in Jim Harrison's novel Farmer



That doesn't apply to me on either score, but I still got a laugh out of it.

Take It Back

I sometimes listen more carefully to how people say things than to what they mean to say. This drives some people (notably my wife) nuts, but it's probably unavoidable for a lover and professional student of language and its uses. I'm intrigued by how people use indirection, ambiguity, and conversational shorthand in their speech, how ethnic, subcultural, or vocational influences affect their language, and by the little quirks that that give everyday speech a vitality that writing struggles to attain.

A favorite linguistic phenomenon is what I call a "suggestive malapropism." This is when an incorrectly used word results in a phrase that, taken at face value, radically reconstrues the situation in which it was spoken in some comic or philosophically procative way. No examples come to mind offhand (in most situations, I'm terrible at improptu examples; this is especially embarrasing in front of a class), but I did run across a doozie in this feature piece from a New Hampshire newspaper about four friends on a daylong fishing trip.

Near the end of the piece, the writer gives an account of the day's conclusion:

Back at the truck we met up with Janet and Summer, who had also had a great evening of fishing. We shared a cold soda and recanted the events.

Though they say that any day on the water is a good one, I've had a few I wish I could recant.

From a strict etymological standpoint, you can recant statements but not actions. This is a shame; recanting is much easier than undoing. This Granite State angler, or perhaps a sleepy proofreader, extends a tantalizing impossibility.

Swim it, Liz!

This Saturday, an Ann Arbor woman will begin swimming our local river, the Huron, from end to end. Over 100 miles in all. . And this at the age of 60!

Liz Elling expects to swim the Huron's crescent-shaped course, from the far northwest fringe of surburban Detroit to Lake Erie, in two weeks. She's making this journey to raise awareness of both the river's improving water quality and some of its ongoing problems. More about her adventure here.

I think this is great, and will send along a little check to support her (I wonder if I could get her to wear an FTR logo patch on her wetsuit...of course, I don't have a logo, and I'm sure she's got enough on her mind.) I don't fish it as often as I should, but I am fond of the Huron. It's the region's greatest natural asset, IMO, surprisingly beautiful (with long, undeveloped stretches) and biologically rich for a metropolitan stream. Unlike nearly every river in lower Michigan, it actually has rapids! That still delights this flatland boy.

Still, whenever I go there, I am wary about touching the water. I reflexively think of most of our southern Michigan rivers (and most other rivers in urban or agricultural areas) as unsafe, too laden with pollutants and harmful bacteria to allow much direct contact, or fish consumption. This is in fact the conventional wisdom about them. There are some streams that fit their folkloric profile (especially my native Kalamazoo, with its PCB-infused sediments), but probably fewer than I tend to think. Michigan fish consumption guidelines contain no restrictions on fish from the Huron mainstream, though they do warn against eating certain kinds of fish from the reservoirs along its length.

I think of lakes as cleaner than rivers (few were ever used as industrial waste disposals), but the state recommends no more than one meal per week of most game and pan fish from ANY inland lake. I don't have a problem swimming in most lakes, but I would never have taken a dip in the Huron before hearing of Liz's upcoming swim. I was never pining for one anyway and I'm still not--I'm not much of a swimmer--but I wouldn't be afraid to if the occasion arose. So I guess LIz has driven home her point with at least one watershed dweller.

Patience, Sir

In a comment below, The Mad Fishicist asked, "What's Hexing?"

Simply put, that means going fishing during the hatch of Hexegenia Limbata, hummingbird-size mayflies that emerge after dark from beds of mud and marl on the margins of trout streams in late June and July. They are common in much of the north central and northeastern US, and their emergence marks trout season's the high point for many fly fishermen. And why wouldn't it? Big fish need a big meal; big brown trout usually feed at night, when hexes take to the sky and water; and lots of big meals drifting by on the surface means big, normally wary fish feeding wantonly in full view (or, in the absence of moonlight, earshot) of fishermen. Easy pickin's.

Or so we like to think.

Though the hex hatch does offer one of the season's best chances at a bona fide river shark, it is also notoriously frustrating. For one thing, the hatch "migrates" over its two or three week duration generally from warmer to colder waters, but not always in a regular or predictable way. The bugs may come off inconsistently on any given stretch of river where they "ought to be"; you may see none in your location, while 200 yards downstream there's a blizzard hatch. You may get plenty of bugs, but fish won't respond. Or they respond for twenty minutes then go silent while bugs raft by for another half hour. The fish strike short. All this could apply to nearly any hatch, I guess, but the hex inspires such grandiose hopes and visions in fishermen that the gap between these and the the results of a typical night of hexing can stretch to tragic proportions. It's a game that demands from its players heroic levels and varied shades of patience. Hyperbole? On its face, maybe, but after my first evening on the Manistee last week, I'd say that at least my assertion about patience is a rank understatement.

Last Tuesday, I got out of Ann Arbor late and didn't make it on the water until about 8:45. Normally, I like to be in my spot for the evening by 8, even though I don't expect any action until 10 at the earliest. The hex hatch draws crowds, and it's important to stake your claim to a good hole early. There were already two people on the bend I'd hoped to fish, so I moved to the next one, which I thought had potential.



And at that point all I could do was wait. Sometimes I bring a book to the river to help pass the hours until hatch time. I didn't last Tuesday, but since I didn't settle into my spot until 9:15, my wait wasn't long. Simply watching evening settle over the river is diverting enough on some nights.



By 10, I had seen a handful of hexes on the wing, which was only slightly encouraging; often by that time, they're streaking upstream in a serpentine cloud, like the river itself reflected in olive and tan and flowing in reverse, humming. A few small trout were feeding, but I saw no insects on the water. It was nearly 11 before I started hearing better fish feeding, and under the light of a full moon I could then also make out duns trembling on the surface of the river. Scanning the water with my flashlight, I could also see bunches of empty larval shucks floating by. An emergence had begun.

Most of the feeding I heard came not from the current lanes of the bend itself, but from a slack, mud-bottomed backwater that joined its upstream edge--perfect hex habitat if there ever was any. It's a bad idea to wade any water after dark you haven't first explored in daylight, but the SCHLUMPHs and WUPPs sounding from its edges lured me in. I was more concerned about sinking to my waist in mud (that's nearly happened before on the Manistee) than of falling into a deep hole, but gradually, gratefully learned that this particular basin had a firm bottom. Though a number of fish were active, none fed very consistently, making it hard to fish to any particular spot. A few trout did hit my fly, but quickly threw it. Short strikes are common at the beginning of a hatch.

As the feeding grew in intensity, so did my frustration. I tried different spots with no better results. It seemed, as it often does, that as soon as I moved somewhere to work a fish, that location went quiet, while trout in the "dead" spot I just left would begin rising again. Once, a fish began feeding five feet from my leg but refuse to hit the fly I dapped out to it. If there'd been enough light to see, I would have reached out and netted it just to teach it a little respect.

Two things kept me relatively cool-headed: one was the blind hope that eventually one of those trout would have to hit my fly, the other was that all this had happened to me before. And as on other hex nights, things eventually went from worse to better. For a while, the feeding stopped, then it resumed again, not as widespread as before, but more regular. I could pinpoint individual fish rising repeatedly A cast to one feeder at the head of the bend drew a quick strike and solid resistance. Soon I had a brown of about 13" in my net. I moved into the backwater basin where I heard another cluster of feeders and quickly caught and released another of the same size. Stopping to wipe my brow and take a drink (it still had to be nearly 80˚), I looked at my watch and saw it was roughly 11:45.

I got another strike on my next cast. This fish ran toward and behind me and I spun around to follow him and take up the slack he'd created in my line. When I tightened up on the fish, he made a short downstream run and I could tell he was a bit larger than the first two. I worked him back in to within about fifteen feet of me when he made another run. Strong fish, I thought, but I had no idea just how strong until I'd reeled him within a couple rod lengths once again and he stayed put. I simply couldn't budge the fish without risking a broken leader.

I'd waited for the hatch to begin, I'd waited for the feeders to turn their attention to my flies, and now I'd have to wait to tire out a fish that had great strength but no sense of urgency in employing. Large fish hooked during the hex hatch often fight that way--I wonder if they're less inclined to run away if they can't see exactly what they're running from? Whatever the truth of that, no fish has ever bulldogged me as long as this one did. The best fish I'd caught during previous hex outings was a 23 " brown, and that one surrendered in about five minutes.

I gently pumped the rod or worked it from side to side to gain a little slack line, but when I did this, the fish usually took it back in short order. Yet once he had it, he didn't feel compelled to draw still more and widen the distance between us. Before long, hoping to spare my leader and knots, I stopped my pitiful offensive moves and just kept tension on the line, feeling only the considerable weight of the fish and an occasional blunt pulse that registered a shake of the fish's head or tail. I actually find this kind of a fight more demanding than one where the fish is leaping from the water, charging for cover, or making long runs. In the latter, you can do things to respond to the fish--lead the fish away from obstacles, lower your rod when it jumps, tighten the drag, run downstream with it. But when the fish is just hanging like a log, there's nothing you can do. Except wait.

The trout and I kept up our uneasy dance, and eventually, it appeared it would start to let me lead. I drew in some line and was able to hold it at around 12' out for a while, then I reeled it close to netting range. It pushed out again, and became more active, shaking and darting more than it had since I hooked it. I began working harder too, pumping the rod again, and craning it from side to side it to pull the fish off balance.

What this really says is that I finally lost my patience for the night. The fish may have tired, but not enough to succumb to the pressure I was putting on it. My leader had come inside the rod tip for the second time since hooking the fish, so I raised the rod and reached for the net. The tip of the leader snapped. The fish splashed once and vanished. I nearly splashed down when I was left pulling on a weight that had gone. After recovering my balance, I remained hunched down in the river for a moment, catching my breath, then waddled to the bank.

That had to be the largest river-dwelling trout I've ever touched, and I'd lost it because I couldn't delay the gratification of landing it a bit. It was a few minutes after midnight when I sat down: nearly twenty minutes I'd had it on my line, and I couldn't have waited twenty one or twenty two? How many more seasons will I wait to hook another fish like that? (Twenty one or twenty two???) I couldn't have taken a few minutes during the lull in the hatch to cut back to a stronger tippet, as I usually do once I'm fishing well past nightfall? No! That might have cost me a chance at a fish!

Ahead lie many more occasions to apply these lessons of patience. I can hardly wait.

I didn't catch any more fish that night--the feeding had all but stopped by the time I tied another fly on. The next day a cold front blew in, and though many flies braved the evening chill, not many fish came up to feed. I caught two of fair size, plus one dink. With near record low temps predicted for Thursday night, I just fished in the afternoon, caught some 8-10" browns, then came home in the evening.

Maybe that was a good call. Maybe I quit too soon. My patience may be in doubt, but if you're still reading, I can confidently say yours is sterling.