Closing Time

Another season ends...

Interesting fall thus far. Unseasonably warm. Which is good, mostly. Spending time watching things transition. Collecting nuts. Wrapping up the garden. Watching all the biomass on the tomato plants get that extra push from the heat and turn would-have-been-forever-green tomatoes bright red. Eating various colored peppers. Practicing handoffs, passes, receptions with kids. Etc. etc. But in a backwards way the whole deal makes me even more grumpier than I already am known to be: I look outside and get pissed that I'm not out there. Instead I'm in an office. Burns me up a bit. Fuckin nice weather. I did make it out on 9/30, with a mind to fish a tough, crowded stream full of nice BNT. I was going to start up, work down, swinging streamers. Tucking black leeches and buggers under log piles. Etc. Good plan there. 9/30 was many things: a Friday; a perfect weather day; last day of trout season; and most notably: the day that DNR decided to shock the stretch of stream I was going to fish. I drove down an old field road... quite a ways back there... and "WTF - is that a gleaming truck cab?" Yes it was. Well I harbor no resentment there. On the contrary, I love every one of those guys and I appreciate what they do. I left the scene and fished a downstream reach; couple fish to hand but heart wasn't in it. Went on to another stream and didn't cover much water because I was intrigued by some trout cinema playing out before me: a pod of moderately sized fish, dancing in midcurrent, taking nymphs. Somewhat fascinating to watch. Gripping anyway, enough so that I did not move for a good number of minutes. I watched and floated my nymphs through. Watching the flies; watching the fish. Caught a fair number. Hold, hold, spot something, shoot to the side, take, flit back to the hold. You could imagine then your nymph getting in that lane; at that x, y and z coordinate. Drifting through. Something to see really. Later on I spooked one of the bigger trout I've encountered. Easy mid-20s. It was in a relatively shallow reach; hiding under a log. It came out into plain sight and I stared at it. Vibrantly colored fish. Very deep. It moved behind a rock and I continued upstream. So the season didn't close with a conventional bang; but I was cool with it. You get what you get and you don't have a fit. The heart of the weekend was spent taking the boys camping on the local river. Twelve minutes away. Basic car camping. It's not really noble, wild or particularly special. But the boys love it; it cost $15; not much gas. It is good for everyone to be cold at night: local USGS station showed 40 F was the low. Amazing to sit outside and feel the exponential evacuation of heat from ~ 6 PM to 8 PM. Big fires in evening and morning were appreciated. And we are taking a different approach to camp food lately; in this case, stir fry: our peppers; friend's onions; road kill venison. So maybe noble afterall because that's a bang-up ingredient list. Just eat it right off the iron gridle. Salt, pepper, oil. James, he walked up to the river with his spinning rod; cast a twister tail once and landed a SMB. I AM good, is what he said. He proceeded to catch a handful of fish, employing a new-found bounce retrieve. Rock bass and SMB. A carp of 10-12 lbs swam within spitting distance of me. Didn't flinch. Rod was in the car. I'm cool with some carp swimming unmolested. Some carp. Well hell this is old news; season's been over two weeks. Days are ticking by. Xs on the calendar. I hope we're doing some good stuff around here but who knows. The kids bounce like yo-yos, in that one day we're slapping their backs and we're all smiling and good vibes are everywhere; next day we got all kinds of foul words and wishes and bitching and whining. It ain't steady around here. Not at this moment. Not bad though. Not bad at all. Maybe some good things going on. Watching one son read far past his grade level; execute various math problems, including application of negative integers. Marveling at his pretty powerful south-paw cannon. Seeing the little guy just want to love everyone around him. Watching him look for approval. Coming to understand that my wife helps a lot of people, in different ways. What I do is not readily explainable but lately I've been feeling pretty good about that too: some good analysis to add to on-going campaigns that, while obscure, are particularly and clearly important and necessary. Campaigns and struggles are long and grueling and they are made of component parts. Every component part must be constructed and installed. Even if ignored (deliberately or otherwise) they must be constructed and installed. There are few if any immediate rewards in such campaigns. No kids to smile at in class; no built house to look on in admiration; no sale to close. And that can be frustrating. But I play out scenarios all the time. Especially in non-engaging meetings. And scenarios without the aforementioned campaigns are dark indeed. But that is too much talk on that. It wasn't intentional. Fuckin keyboard. And monitor. Fuckin burn em all up and compost the ashes for what they're worth. Or better yet they can all burn in hell which is where they belong. The only other thing worth mentioning at this point is that not all seasons are closed. Not all closed. I have developed a lazy technique called layin in the cut that just might net me one final cyprinid. To implement this approach I will need approximately two hours this weekend. Just a couple hours. Waiting 'em out. For after this weekend, things turn dark and cold. Dark and cold... so this is the final show. Bring it on! Woohoo!!