Most early afternoons, I grab a camping chair and force myself outside to sit in the sun. I hear it helps with seasonal depression, and I find it also keeps me from resembling a sickly ghost. It's in those still, warm moments that I can remember the feel of summer fishing and the warmth of the sun peering through the trees, the crisp air, and the clean smell of mountain water. I think back on how it feels to jump freely from rock to rock, not constrained by bulky clothing or cumbersome boots. How liberating it is to walk through the forest in search of that specific stretch of river, away from the sounds of a city or children's playground, away from the smell of the stagnant river and sewage treatment plants. Summer will always be my favorite time. There's simply no changing that.
In the cold of winter, I find myself almost lost. Stretches of the same river that I've been to time and time again feel distant and unfamiliar. It is at this time that I perceive myself the most fraudulent in my identity as an 'angler,' too many clothes, too many things, too much trouble.
But something happens when it snows. I can't quite place my finger on it, as it amazes me every time it happens.
It wasn't supposed to snow, the sun should have been out, but it began to fall anyway. And, in that instance, time began to stand still. The bitter cold wasn't so bitter, and the silence seemed to spread out forever. I began to notice the things I had missed in my longing for warmth. The sight of tracks and the formation of icicles along the river's edge. The sound of a fly entering the water, the slight splash made by mending the line. All small details that my mind refused to take in until now.
As with most winter fishing trips, the catching of fish was still slow, and they all seemed to be a variety bred at the hatchery up the road. Identical rainbows, lacking in any distinguishable characteristics, void of any wild spirit, but fish nonetheless. I suppose their one redeeming quality was their willingness to consume flies that resembled the midges crawling about on the rocks. A sign that perhaps the wild was changing them into the creatures they're meant to be.
I can't remember how long that time stopped. The sun began to peek out from behind the mesa, pushing the small snowstorm up north. I noticed that my feet weren't just cold, but the feeling was gone completely. A short buzz in my waders, an email, reminded me that there was work to be done.
The sun is out right now, warm and peaceful, reminding me that the Vernal Equinox will be here before too long. I'll have to get my Chaco's fixed in the next couple of months. But, this week it's going to snow again. Maybe I'll get another timeless day.
