It starts of with a discussion after a session on the local dam.. The topic is how great it is to get out on the water, any water, and invariably ends up about how we miss fishing the streams. A plan is quickly hatched about how we should do an exploratory trip to some obscure little river somewhere to see how the fishing is. Plans are made and schedules get synchronized.
A couple of times it almost gets to happen but mostly the weather, work or a million other things don't play along. Eventually the weather gods and the boss (read wife) agrees with each other and the green light is given.
The night before fly boxes gets checked, and you realize that the flies in there are truly horrible little things. Never mind that they were working last season and will still be working this season , but you have evolved since tying the current stock and are a much better fly tier now and so the vice gets dragged out and you start tying the new and improved versions of last years flies. Once completed they look pretty much the same as the old ones, buy you feel much better about them.
The morning of D-day arrives and you drag yourself out of bed at the crack of dawn. Over a cup of coffee, you look out the window and see that the weather gods are still asleep and haven't bothered yet to start thinking about how they can bugger up your day.
Suddenly you realize that you cannot remember where you have stashed all your stuff when you last swapped your small steam rod for the still water rod. It is a mad scramble to get everything together and into the bag. Eventually you even find your wading boots that the wife has stashed in a far of deep corner of the garage to put as much distance between herself and the moldy smell that only a good pair of wading boots can have.
You eventually have everything in the car, crank up some good tunes and head of to some distant destination with the hopes of catching some fish.
On the way there you stop every time when you see the river somewhere in the distance to "Have a look". Not sure what that look is for seeing that you have already driven for more than a hour to get there and there is no way that you are going to turn back now, but look you must.
Arriving at the parking spot it is a scramble to get your boots and vest on as fish fever is high. Leaders gets checked, fly boxes gets packed and its a race to see who get to the water first.
That first step into the cold water is a doozy, but a few minutes later your legs are numb enough that you don't care anymore.
For the next few hours it is you and your rod, fly line, leader and fly against nature. You scramble over rocks, slip and fall, crawl on your knees through bush, shoot off some bow and arrow casts, hook trees, hook rocks, hook yourself, swear that there is no fish in this damn river, but still you and the river are one.
Then suddenly, you see a small flash, the anticipation shoots through your body and then ....BAM ..... the fish hits your tiny little dry fly, you set the hook and land a beauty.
The rest of the day nothing further happens and you put it down to some or other weather system that is on the way,the Fish Eagles ate all the fish, the fish are still in shagging mode or some other obscure reason, but you are satisfied that at least there is fish in the river.
You hike back out for the next hour, pack up your stuff and drive the hour home.You get on the computer, download the photo's and tell the wife to come and look at the pretty fish you caught.
She takes one look and says "I dont get it. All that effort for that? Was it worth it?"
HELL YES!!!
