As spring finally starts to show its face around here, I am overwhelmed with a feeling that I am continually missing out on some adventurous, beautiful, inspiring happenings that are going on out there in the woods. The noise from the street is like a baby crying, and I’m the new dad helpless to stop it. Sometimes I lie awake at night, editing a mental list of all of the places I want to go, knowing that my weekends until mid-August are all planned out, and some trips aren’t going to make the cut. No matter how many times I run the numbers, they just don’t add up, just like they didn’t last year or the year before that.
Becoming an outdoorsman awakes a sincere appreciation and understanding of the importance and necessity of seasons. This constant awareness of the timeliness of it all, the fact that certain things in the wild only happen at a particular time and not at others is mind-opening, and you really start to understand the meaning of being one with nature. But it can also become a source of anxiety. For instance, there is a particular time window during the summer when most trout that live in Colorado will take almost any hopper imitation that you cast at it. You toss it, they bite it, you release or bonk the fucker on the head and repeat. But the angler who happens to let his non-fishing life get too busy during this time is an angler who you should be scared to be driving behind. It’s likely he spends more time at the wheel staring at bodies of water trying to catch a glimpse of a fish than watching the road on which he is traveling. He knows that he is missing it, and even worse, it won’t be like this again for another twelve long months.
One hard left could end it all.
My first warm spring day on the stream this year, when the snow had melted, but one final storm was almost certainly on the way, was more emotional than usual. I was walking up the short trail to a good spot on the Poudre with my fancy-pants Patagucci waders pulled halfway down and no jacket on, smelling the smells and hearing the sounds of spring, and out of nowhere I just started tearing up. Trying and failing to pull myself together and tie a fly on, I just sat down on the bank of one of my favorite rivers, loving that I even had a list of favorite rivers in the first place, just being a part of the scenery. A few short years ago I could barely remember the name of the Platte, and now here I was, sobbing like a baby because I had been looking forward to this moment for so long. You won’t catch me crying in Cheesman Canyon in the middle of September after I have spent months fishing three or four times a week. No, at the end of the season I am more apt to be cursing the fish for not biting instead of just being thankful that we (me and the fish) are here at the same place at the same time.
Pure joy with no strings attached is hard to come by in this world, but in fishing and family, I find it in excess. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and when you love something this much, that first trip out of the year can be as joyful and heart-breaking as seeing an old friend after years of separation. And just as in my relationships with my friends and family, I will sometimes contemplate and extrapolate my lack of free time in the summer to the bitter end, when we are all eventually separated by death. No more fishing trips to plan, no warm embraces, no more flies to tie.
There's just not enough damn time for any of it.