Preparation

the night before

Do you dream about wild trout fishing?  I do, particularly over the wilder winter months. With a new season ahead, anticipation and preparation build gradually.  Snap shots of memorable fish have been gazed at lovingly, questions form in the mind… “Will they still be on station this year?  And just how big will they be? Or will they have slipped quietly away to the secret lie in the sky, existing only as nostalgia framed memories.

 

The trout season starts early here, on March 3^rd, and preceding weeks have been spent littering the kitchen table with the accumulated paraphernalia of seasons past and needless purchases for a season future. 

 

Rods have been assembled and waggled, dreaming casts made with a grace and effortless ease that evades me on the river.  Reels exhumed from foisty neoprene pouches, their spools spun and their clicks examined for the appropriate tone and timbre.  Lines have been stripped vigorously from their winter bedding, then subjected to a range of invigorating treatments drawn from our under-the-sink collection of domestic cleaning products.  (S finds this latter process fascinating and frustrating: It demonstrates to her that I do know the location of such products even though I frequently appear reluctant to use them for their true intended purpose).    Flies have been shuffled pointlessly from one box to another; their serried ranks conveying a sense of organisation that is utterly missing from the reality of my angling mind-set.  Suitable pocket space for new gadgets, accessories and fly boxed is sought but none found.  We are ready.

Now just the river awaits  attention, and so it begins…