A New Chapter

I've heard a lot of talk and chatter lately concerning a "New Chapter".  What does that mean?  Is it just some nonsense some high ranking official (Gov) has taken to saying, just some sound bite?To each, I'm sure, it may have a different meaning.  To me, it means each new experience should be embraced, savored, enjoyed for what it is.  This is very difficult to do.  I find myself always looking forward to the next "fix", the next big trip. It's always what's "next".  Last years (can't believe it is already "last years" trip) trip was on the surface a disappointment.  A struggle, endurance.  If I really ponder that trip, I can find the silver lining.  I can see it for what it was, a great trip.  A new experience, a new taste.  Did I realize that during the trip?  Possibly.  One day at a time. That, to me, is the New Chapter.

Volume 2 Season 22, Epilogue

The great frontier tends to dominate our minds and, rightfully so, is the capstone of our season.  Of course this year was consistent, in that it was new and unpredictable- and the first time since our rookie outing that the weather got the best of us.  But as I pulled in the last rainbow trout today from my home waters- I realized that AK this year hadn't defined my season.  I guess my season has become so long, with so many regular outings, AK is just a grand chapter this year, but not the whole story.  Seems it just reinforced this seasons plot line.

One of the prized pictures in my home study- thanks to Pablo- is one of a young Jack Berry holding a monster Lahonton Cutthroat in the kitchen of our house on Welling way.  Just a little taller than the trout he is holding is an 8 or 9 year old Mickey, decked out in pajamas and grinning in amazement.  A premonition?  Well, I had some great early days chasing trout on Paradise Pond, right in the heart of Reno and taking a date to catch rainbows in a big pool below the substation on the Truckee.  Dad took us with Grandpa to cast to ocean run Shad on the Feather River and we regularly cast for bass in the dredger ponds of California or Lake Lahonton.  But as happens- basketball, girls and whatever else, soon pushed out the fishing and for many years I never took a rod in hand.  Almost fatefully, my last winter in Provo I think the stress of grad school and the looming weight of a professional career drove me back to the water.  I so distinctly remember one late March day, rising early and with a bottle of potzki's balls of fire, crawled up on a railroad bridge and took a couple of rainbows from a big deep pool on the lower section of the Provo River.  The morning chill, the calm solitude, the flowing water and the wriggling trout- I had found something I'd lost, something I needed.

A couple of years later, Pablo introduced me to the fly rod and I began scouting the waters of Appalachia.  It was slow and tedious, but just being in the woods was reward enough. Jones' Hole that year truly marked the beginning of the volume I'm still writing.  Neoprene waders in the July heat and huge, locally procured crane fly larva tied with rubber bands so as to be chewy- yielded for me a few rainbow trout at the base of a 400 foot red rock wall- a setting beyond description.

Today the conditions were challenging.  Fish weary from a thousand drifts and dwindling like August Sockeye, skies cold and windy- but it wasn't frustrating.  It wasn't endurance.  It wasn't opportunity lost.   Thoughtfully, peacefully I switched flies, wrestled greedy tree branches, laughed out loud at the refusals and long distance releases.  Made great casts and sloppy casts and even took a few memorable fish.

I believe this season has ended the volume begun on the railroad trusses over the Provo.  I don't need a counter, I don't need pictures of red striped behemoths, or tales of the backing.  I just need the water, a rod and a fly and I'm back in my pajamas in the kitchen on Welling Way, a big ole grin on my face.

Careful What You Wish For

Just one fish. That's all I needed. Just one. After the first one I felt the greed begin to creep into the recess of my subconscious.  "Man, that was too easy, fourth cast, one fish", so went my thinking. 

Fall is ebbing away, much too quickly.  First time out this Fall, can't believe it myself. What has my life become? Distracted summer, moving addresses in the Fall. A punishing trip to AK. 

I'm distracted by the odd things I find stream side.  Found a tennis ball, thought comes into my head, "would be odd if I found a soccer ball".  Wish granted.  Time to go. Just one more fish, just one more.  Wish granted. 

OUCH!

Just a quick note.  Back from AK. Still licking wounds. Hurricane force winds, flood stage water. Few fish.
Will elaborate later, when the numbness wears off.

T- Minus 4 Weeks: The final gear list amendments

Gees, I head to Salt for a few days and no one sends out a picture of the day and all the pre trip enthusiasm bleeds out like a dolly hooked through the eye ball.  Ok, so it's close enough now to start real, earnest gear review and obsession.  So here is my personal "add on list"- things I've noticed from film, read in my journal or dreamed about.  Feel free to add, but don't subtract:

• Bigger (3L) video camera bag that attaches to wading belt
• Versa tip (easy change between floating and sinking, cause this year I AM going to do more mousing)
• 5-6 more dalais, assorted flavors
• dry gloves to wear around camp

Group questions sill outstanding:

• What'd we decide about chairs?  Does Mike have 6?  Yes, I think Mike said he has 6. I'll ask for sure.
• Maybe we do still bring the rod caddie so at least 3 of the rods are stowed and not being walked on.  Depends on weight, if we can, take it.
• Do two of us bring an extra reel and extra rod, as "group spares" so everyone doesn't bring one, yet we've got a couple in case we break a rod (likely) or drop a reel in the river? everyone better bring an extra rod.
• I never heard back from Janet about a second raft, do I try again? Yes, we'll take it. ask again.
• How many snickers bars are you sending up JB?  Are you still incharge of buying and shipping all the food? yes, I'm in charge. I think I have about 120??  I sent up Dehyd food last night.
• Who's bringing stoves?  Last year we had 3 but only used 2... so it should figure that 4 stoves will suffice for party of 6.  JB, Hondo and I each have jet boils, Steve or Bill, ya'll got a stove to bring?  AND since we can't bring fuel on the plane, you sending any fuel up JB? I think 3 Jetboils are fine. two to a stove. Fuel? we have some in storage, we should probably try to find another can or two in Dilly.

What else?????? Bear spray. I'll order some, or get Mike to buy some for us, and reimburse him.
what else Gov? you're the man with the list and journal etc.. what'd you have written down?

We're going When?

Ok, I can't argue that the best fishing is in August. The bo's and Dolly's are up in mass, and they've gotten girth on the first two waves of salmon (kings and reds), there will be some pinks still around and with some luck there will be silvers. We'll be fishing in bone land with all those carcasses littering the banks, but the rainbo's will be fierce and the dolly's decked out for the spawn..... BUT DANG MAN, it's so LONG TO WAIT... kids just got out of school and we aren't going until they are BACK IN SCHOOL. Sheesh, I can't take this. Some one's gotta do something!

The Distant Future, The Distant Future...

This is what Alaska looks like, from three months out.  Can't quite make it out, a bit shrouded in fog, but I know it's there.  For some inmates I won't name, like Mule & Hefe, this is the only thing keeping them alive; while with bleeding fingers they paint tally marks onto the walls of their cells.

Here's to dreaming boys, a bright future; only 3-4 months away