Jacob and I are both creatures of habit. Our everyday lives revolve around a constant set of norms. Jacob wakes up to a certain number of alarms, and I have turned on the local NPR station immediately. The coffee maker started, the woodstove readied for the day, morning walks are taken. It’s almost always the same. These patterns and comforts seep over into our work and play. We find our comfortable spot, where we know where to go, how to get there, the road conditions, and even have a few of the local trout named. Most folks tell me how they’d love to fish a local creek from beginning to end at least once. Jacob and I tend to do this every summer.
There are some mornings you wake up with an overwhelming desire to get out and do some fishing, and if you’re lucky, the stars align, and you decide to go for it. And, when I say the stars align, I mean that you conclude stacking wood, sewing some bags, making a few guides, even washing the dishes can wait until tomorrow. Jacob and I decided that we were going to have one of those days.
The truck always heads East and then North for fishing trips, it knows the way. That’s the direction of the fish, most days. But, when we pulled out of the driveway, we headed Northwest. To an unfamiliar, uncomfortable stretch of promising trout water. I’d say that both the truck and the dog were confused, evidence of the latter being the small pile of vomit that landed in the back floorboards soon after departure. The weather seemed as perplexed as we were, a peculiar combination of rain, sleet, and possibly snow, pulled together with periodic glimpses of sun. We drove further and higher, mesas and oak shrubs giving way to spectacular aspen and snow-covered mountains. While the route was foreign, this was precisely the familiar experience we were in search of.
The pull-off was uninhabited by any other vehicle, a reassuring sign to any angler. Any cars that sped by had out-of-state plates, more than likely leaf lookers that would only bother us momentarily to look over the ridge, point, and say, “Hey, look, they’re fishing” if they even stopped at all. I bundled into my outer layers as the temperature hung around 40 and the precipitation continued; cleaning out unnecessary fly boxes to hold a vest or jacket later. If you’ve ever fished out west, you know that the moment the sun comes out, it seems to increase a good 20 degrees. Luckily, these changes in temperatures don’t seem to bother ‘The Bern’ much. He’s still going to get in the water to chase a bubble or knock over a rock.
I’d like to tell you that Jacob and I had such a fantastic day that we have changed our ways, that we’ve gone out to far unknown places many times since this trip, but we haven’t. Old habits die hard. There’s not much better than knowing where all the good ‘butt rocks’ are along a familiar stream.
I looked around while perched on a rather uncomfortable ‘butt rock,’ Jacob fishing behind me, the sun fighting to make an appearance, trying to piece together just how lucky I am to be and to be in this place. There’s something about those great mountains with their white caps that can make you feel so small and so safe all at once. The way that the light dances across the water and reflects the orange glow of the aspens can warm you on even the coldest days. The smell of warm pine mixed with cold water is, easily, the smell of home. This stretch of water may have been different, but the feeling was just the same, and that was the feeling we were after.
We eventually got around to stacking the wood and washing the dishes. Jacob is working on wrapping a rod, and bags have been sewn, shipped, and new ones have begun. I woke up this morning and turned on my radio, poured a cup of coffee, and went out with the dog for a brisk four miles, all of our mundane tasks. But, amid all the day-to-day, I think back on our Northwest adventure, planning our next probably more familiar excursion.
