Thursday, January 21, 2010

There was a time ...

There was a time when nothing - absolutely nothing - would stop me from getting to the river. I remember being an undergraduate student, and working the night shift at a local convenient store. My schedule was set. Classes from three or four in the afternoon until nine or so at night. Grab a quick bite somewhere, and then off to work for eleven. My relief came by seven a.m., and by eight I was on the river. Six or eight hours on the water, nearly everyday. The weekends meant fourteen hour fishing days, and evening spinner falls.

I remember once being so sleep deprived and out of sorts that I asked my buddy to pull the car to the shoulder, and I promptly vomited all over route 313. Three days worth of Green Mountain Home Blend coffee and gas station chimichangas formed a Jackson Pollackesque smear on the shoulder of the road. Afterward, I simply shrugged it off, and continued on to Arlington to fish the hendrickson hatch on the Battenkill. Caught some good fish too.

How many times have you swatted at your alarm clock as the buzzer rang, and the LCD flashed 3:00? I've done it on the first of every April since I was sixteen. Every April since I was sixteen I've been the first person to the river. Nearly every April since I was sixteen I've caught fish on opening day, but I just don't know that it's going to happen this year. I'm getting older. I'm getting tired. I have other stuff on my plate. Let's face it, even though I've plenty of natural insulation, I just don't deal as well with the cold as I once did.

Is it possible that fishing just isn't my first priority anymore? Yes, I suppose it's possible. After all, I am a husband and father. Three children have a way of making one reorganize the essential elements of one's life. My wife isn't exactly high maintenance - in fact, she's about as laid back a woman as any man could want - but she needs some attention too. Then there's my career. Contrary to popular belief, teaching takes a lot energy. Teaching well does, anyway. All that aside, however, I am in no way suggesting that fishing isn't essential.

I simply couldn't imagine my life without fly rods, waders, and bits of fur and feather wrapped around strands of wire. Few things bring me as much joy as a well tied fly, a well executed cast, or a solid fish pulled from a difficult holding lie. As I look through the kaleidescope of my history, most of the images I see involve running water and fleeting flashes of silver and gold. Increasingly, however, these moments - precious as they are - run in the background.

Now, images of family occupy most of my thoughts. As I sit here at this keyboard I find myself thinking that it will be a special day indeed, when memories of family and of fishing begin to meld into one. Until then, I'll try to be content with looking forward to the day when my boy and my girls ask to fish one of my bamboo rods or to teach them to tie a woolly-bugger. And while this might be the first year in two decades that I miss fishing on the first of April, you can be damn sure I'll probably be fishing on the second.

2 comments:

R.K. said...

Balance and priorities. Comes with age. Doesn't mean our passion is any less...if anything, it's just as strong, if not stronger than what it was in years past.

Anonymous said...

Great site here and very nice article that is well written. This is a topic I can clearly relate to. For the past 25 years I'd been a flyrod junkie at the expense of most everything else in my life; health-winter fishing in sub zero temps with bouts of frostbite, work- years of cutting out of my job early Thursdays during the season and daily during the fall salmon runs, family- white lies to the wife about where I'd been and what I'd been doing...
Now at 50 with my wife and two teenage daughters- although the passion is still there, it's clear the intensity has waned to a degree. Sure, it is still all consuming on my gray matter, however the crazy antics of "whatever it takes" have eased their way out of my soul. 3AM wake ups are now 5:30, and often times now I can actually sleep the night before. "The fish aren't going anywhere" I say to myself. Wisdom? Age? Maturity? Probably a little bit of each.
A link to my blog below- enjoy!
http://fishtalesnewengland.blogspot.com