I find beauty while fishing during each of the four seasons, but if I were asked to choose the most satisfying page in the calendar to pursue trout, it would be January. How some people find it in them to stay inside during the first month of the year is beyond my comprehension. The hush between January fish creates a sort of catalyst for hydrogen bonding to occur; for it is at this time that the chain holding my body- made up of mostly water- to the river flowing around it, is hardest to break.

Even at 4:30 in the morning, that feeling of anticipation is coursing through your dream filled brain. The alarm goes off, your eyes snap open, and you’re wide awake as you quickly jump out of your sleeping bag, waders and all. It doesn’t matter that the sun’s warming rays won’t arrive and kiss your ruddy frozen cheeks for another 3 hours, or that you’ll have to settle for a cold, day old breakfast burrito and

Because of this reality, I felt gratitude toward Morley for getting us safely down the river. But I also felt embarrassed for Nole, which wasn’t easy. He just stared out the window. I could see his face whenever the moon broke through the clouds. Unless they belong to us, we tend to ignore the silences in our lives, of which there are millions, each with its own meaning, its own voice, and, if we do not learn to listen, its own consequences. But for the man who’s silent after being tested by the river:
Better put an arm around him.

You know how sometimes- most times- you find it just a bit too difficult to leave the water? I mean, it’s time to go, you know it, I know it…there’s someone waiting, it’s getting late, or dark, or light, or cold or hot, rainy or sunny, crowded or deserted, you’re famished or thirsty, loops are getting ugly…it is for time to leave; but you can’t. You’re just not finished yet.

Don’t quit…don’t even quit.

Gotta finish out the run, or put that last decent cast/drift/swing together. Gotta get that one last rising fish in the corner to commit…or at least show him one last variation. Just one more…

A larger adult mako would scare the living daylights out of these dawgs. This late in the season, though, the larger makos were well out in the Pacific while we were only a couple of miles outside of Mission Bay fishing the 100 fathom curve. I had hoped to catch a mako on the fly, bring him to the boat, and touch him before releasing him back to the sea. With these furballs hanging out in the last chum slick we would set for the day, it began to look as though my ceremonial touch would never happen.