Choose a bright morning...

I often feel a sense of sadness when I catch a trout I've targeted.  There is something so lonely about the realization that this mysterious and much-anthropomorphized being can in fact be tricked into eating a ball of string and feathers; it's almost as if failure and the reinforcement of the ideal of the wily and elusive trout is preferable because without it I see clearly in what stead I stand with nature.  

I want the fish to be as smart as I give him credit for.  

Of course I doubt most people think like this when a trout grabs a fly.   Heck, I don't think like this when a trout grabs a fly.  Only late at night after a beer or two, and only on a night when everything changes.  Like tonight.

Today I got word that my TBS date was moved up to April.  It's exactly what I wanted; exactly what I've prayed and hoped for these last months.  And it is the end of fly fishing for me.

Not forever.  There may be a time or two back east when I'll be able to sneak off for a few hours, and after my career is over - whenever that may be - there will be time enough for trout.  But this April will be the first that I have not spent in eager anticipation of the first trip to the high country. This will be the summer in which I'll hike to ranges, call for fire, ride helicopters, and shoot machine guns - in short, everything I've ever wanted to do - but not fish.  

Don't get me wrong.  This isn't some mournful plea for a little more time.  I'm happy.  You don't sign up to be a Marine if you don't want to do all those things.  But I'm happy in the way that I am when a hidden, crafty trout swallows a carefully matched fly and doesn't throw the hook.  In both cases, something is done, even lost, which cannot be taken back.