This morning I got an alert on my phone prompting me to be ready to evacuate my home in case of flooding or a landslide. I'm not too worried about the flooding part. We live on a hill, and while we may not be able to leave the house, we'll be okay. But, I've been surveying my neighbor's yard all morning and reminiscing about all the trees they've cut down over the years. I packed a small bag that's in the car, just in case.
It's been raining here in Western North Carolina for two straight days and we've got three to go. Last week we went through the same predicament. I'm not talking about soft, delicate rain, but hard rain, the kind associated with thunderstorms and hurricanes and tropical depressions (insert Alberto). It's dark and wet, a feeling of seasonal depression has started to creep back into my being.
The Next Valley Over
"The majority of anglers who travel to fish are by nature either pastoralists or nomads."
-Charles Gaines
Meaning that while we're all there for the same reason, you've got those that are happy to stay in the "designated" waters and those that are always looking towards The Next Valley Over.
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The Reason
A few weeks ago I was digging around in my desk in search of a memory card or pen or something relatively unimportant. I came across a newspaper clipping of an obituary from a few years back. It was for my father's best friend, Jack.
Jack was a carpenter and fisherman. He was a worm dunker, but I try not to hold that against him, and primarily had no interest in mountain fishing, but was much more fond of salt water. Every year Jack would migrate down to Florida for the winter and spend his time in a boat or kayak with a rod in his hand. I remember when we found out that Jack was sick. He decided that it wasn't time to waste his life in a hospital, but to spend it with the people he loved, fishing. And, that's exactly what he did.
Snap!
Snap! There it is, that moment every angler knows, and maybe the most frustrating part of the whole sport.
After spending some time, perhaps quite a bit of time if the flies are small and the air is cold, tying on your weapon of choice, your tippet snaps. It's a moment of grievance followed by profanity followed by frantically checking to see if you've fumbled the knot or if the tippet's gone bad.
Fishing Small Streams
"I guess it's the size of the trout (or, should I say, the suspected size of the trout) that keeps many serious fly fishermen off the small streams. To be perfectly honest, if the deal being proposed was that you get the best of all the good things fly fishing offers in return for catching smaller trout, I'd take it. Actually, I did make that very deal with myself once and was perfectly happy with it."
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