...fly like an eagle...

...time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin.....

into the future...

Steve Miller Band

"yes, spin fisherman are welcomed," i heard myself saying as i typed these words to khang over instant messenging at work.

khang is a spin fisherman with whom i traveled to iowa last year for a weekend fishing trip.  we have not fished together since, and i think he was sort of beginning to believe that our trip was an anomaly and that he wouldn't ever be invited to join joe and i on any of our fly fishing outings.  this is absurd of course as neither joe nor i would not invite him as a result of his lower trout caste status: spin fisherman.

well....     maybe....   just depends.  :)

with this news and invitation though, khang made plans to join the two of us for the first time this coming weekend.  i was glad to hear as much, and joe was too even if a bit skeptical i suppose.  (joe brought an extra fly fishing rod just in case the opportunity presented itself to proselytize a bit.)

joe wasn't going to make it to the river as early as i wanted to, so khang and i left ahead of him to begin our day early.  i had to leave before sun down so i didn't want to miss more than i had to on the front end.  after scooping the kiddos into the car, and covering the western suburbs (north to south) for drop-offs, we were heading east bound towards the kinni about 90 minutes after having left my house.

we arrived about an hour later, and quickly suited up and headed down the hill next to the parking lot that we go to when fishing the lower kinni.  without my mentor (joe), i stepped into the river and was excited to be there ahead of him today.  khang entered calmer water upstream from my position.  the sun was shining warmly, and the wind was negligible.  it felt great to be cooled down by the water rushing around my legs.

my day got off to a quick start, and within an hour or a little more, i had already caught 5 trout!  to put that into perspective, my previous record was 6 total for an entire day.  so i was ecstatic to say the least.  even the kayakers whizzing by here and there didn't disrupt my success.  my midges were doing the trick at a spot that joe and i had fished last time we were here.  today was different however as the fish were not dimpling as they were weeks ago at this very same spot.  but an occassional rise let me know they were there.

joe arrived about 2 hours after we set foot in the stream as i heard him call over my radio with much static interfering with his words.  we were thinking of trying our luck at the upper kinni, but as a result of not being able to find khang, who had moved further downstream at this point, we decided to stay and fish for awhile to see if we were going to be lucky enough to avoid the crowds that would not be strange for a beautiful day like today.

that didn't last long as the kayakers began to intrude a little more than joe was ready to swallow in terms of patience.  so we finally found khang and all gathered our gear up to fish the upper.

soon we were back in the water, and i was now at a count of 6 for the day which meant i only needed one more trout to break my previous one day record.  twenty minutes later, i was at 8!  it happened so fast, it was almost like "what?"....   "i guess i broke my record...."  never had fish come to me so "easily" as they had today.  it was a very different experience than most of my other outings where i'm hoping to catch just one or two so that i don't have to go home with my tail between the legs.

the rest of the afternoon, i caught nothing.  i tried to fish my "blue steele" fly for awhile to no avail, though deciding to keep "special ed" in the box this week.  i found out that joe was not having any luck either.  khang was too far up stream to know for sure.

five thirty came so quickly.  as i said good bye to joe, and walked back to my van, i found myself thinking a lot about how time just seems to keep moving faster and faster with each year.  you can't do anything to stop it.  but when you're intentional about embracing it, you can, it seems, squeeze out of it fantastic riches and beauty.  this day flew like an eagle, and yet by reflecting on it as i walked in the lower afternoon sun, it seems you can slow it if only for a moment as you live and re-live a day.

i thought about how my record was broken today, almost without me realizing it though.  these things come with anticipation, but they go so quickly....  the same is true of my daughter, and two boys.  before i could really embrace their budding youth as infants and toddlers, the boys are now kindergarten age.  and before i could wrap my head around having a new infant in the home, she's now zipping around the living room on all fours...

if you fall asleep for a short time, you miss so much.....    and complaining or fearing the reality of time slipping through our fingers can so easily lead to missing what we have now.

reflect on the past, yes.  plan for the future, yes.  but neglect the present as little as possible.....   because both the past and the future are abstractions to a degree....  abstractions whose concrete reality actualize in the seemingly infinite chain of "nows" that make up our life........  it is not primarily a thought about the past that will be significant for us, nor a thought about what our future may be, but rather it is the chain of present "moments" that make up what we carry around with us as "memory" once lived, and it is these present moments that then shape our "anticipation" of what future lies ahead.

like photography, fly fishing is a way for me to slow down and embrace the present.  it is a time for me to escape time, and it is also a chance for me to process time....   past, present, and future.

time will keep slippin, slippin, slippin, into the future; inevitably.  but i have the choice to let it do so while i am aware and deeply intentional about engaging what time i have, or i can let it carelessly slip away each moment while not being honest with myself about the finite number of "nows" i have left to cherish......

before turning east away from the river, i decided to drop my line in a few more times.  i actually hooked 3 in a span of 20 minutes, but netted zero of those!  i made one last adjustment and cast into the same spot that i ended my day a month or so ago when i was here.  at that time, i landed a nice size trout that got away.  after missing 3 in a row just now, i wasn't going to let that happen again.

sure enough, my midge found its way to a hungry trout and my indicator followed suit, dropping beneath the surface as the brookie swallowed the fly.

this time, instead of holding my tip up as the trout surfaced, i held the tip low, just above the surface of the water and pulled to the side.  whether this was "helpful" or not, the fact remains that i kept the trout on the line this time, and was able to pull him in for my last trout of the day.....    number nine.

what a fun way to end the day.  i walked back to the van all smiles.

only later, after joe and khang left the river just past sunset, did i find out that i had broken another record for me......    and that was that for the first time, i caught more fish than joe did for the day.  :)

i won't gloat....   i know this won't last long.  but for now, yours truly holds the "Most Trout Caught" trophy (which is for FLY fisherman only khang......    who caught 17 that day!!!    :)

....thanks for the grace on the stream this time joe   ;)