When I Leave My Gear Home

Sometimes I have to leave my rod at home.  Sometimes it’s a necessity, and sometimes it’s because my wife makes me so I can show her and my daughter where I fish.   

When I do leave my gear home, I walk slower.   The desperation to catch fish seeps into the mud and clay next to the river.

And I notice the river more.  Well, not more, just differently.  I count water skitters  (or whatever it is you grew up calling them).

Today I sat next to a pool and watched bugs emerge and listened to my daughter babble.

I saw fish too.  They pointed their noses up river. They sunk to the bottom of deep pools.  They even rose for the handful of Blue-Wing Olives  I saw.  I tried to point out their little splashes to my wife.  She saw some of them, but not many.

Only One Suggestion

When the Wellsville Mountains are covered in snow (as they are now), and when the sky is clear (as it has been lately), and when you view the scene from the east just at sunrise (as I often do), the snow takes on a definite rosy tone, and the spine of the range stands out boldly against the blue. It lasts for only a short time, starting when the sun sits high enough to shine over the mountaintops but low enough to keep the valley floor in shadow. During this period, killdeer cries and the dyspeptic honking of Canada geese may be heard in the pasturelands. Ten or fifteen minutes later, the sun clears the Bear River Range by a few degrees, and the day as most people know it begins. A photo can suggest the effect.