Skip to content

Reality Revisited

Dave’s post the other day kept me thinking for a few days about getting away…unplugging, disconnecting, getting out of range of cell coverage. That need to get away became even stronger late on Thursday afternoon.  “One of those days” had turned into four in a row.  

 

At 4:15, I headed home, changed into my wet-wading shorts, put on my socks and boots, and headed west up Hiway 24.  The tensions of the day begin to fade just past the stoplight in Divide.  By Florissant, my focus had shifted from the day’s challenges to the evening ahead.  Caddis or terrestrial?  

 

At 5:45 I was casting the first Amy’s Ant in Elevenmile Canyon.  Over the next two hours, I would land two — a beautiful 12″ Rainbow whose brilliant colors shimmered when he leapt a couple feet out of the water and caught the sun’s dusky rays.  The 14″ Brown hit the caddis hard just at the tailout of a long stretch of fast water.  His fight was not that of the Rainbow’s three leaps and thrashing struggle.  His fight was that steady pull deep into the water.  The release of both fish into the current released some of the past week’s challenges, too.  

 

As Thoreau said “Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”  I knew what I was after last Thursday evening.  The two fish were simply a bonus.  

Leave a Comment