Finally!

And so it has happened!  Spring has sprung, just as it always does year after year.  I don't know why I am always surprised when it finally happens, but every year I am.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the passing of winter always seems to move at the speed of a glacier, while summer and fall come and go seemingly as fast as a twenty three day old hot dog goes through me.  After a morning spent at work, it seemed like a good idea to Glen and myself to get out on the river for the first time this year and cast a fly.  I was hoping the blue winged olives were still hatching and that there might be rising fish.  No such luck!

After fortifying ourselves with some smoked moose meat sandwiches, (sooo good), we dropped into the river for an afternoon of urban fishing on one of the best trout rivers in North America (no exaggeration).  There were no rising fish, but the "worm" was working as were stonefly nymphs fished deep and on the bottom.  We caught a few fish and lost a few more, but for the first real day of spring here, and fishing in the middle of the city, it was a very good day.

Time

Tic toc goes the clock.  Yeah, yeah I know I am dating myself when begin to talk about the sound a clock makes as it denotes the passing of time.  These days luminescent digital numbers change quickly, silently on our phones or I-pads, and time marches on almost without notice.  I notice though, maybe all of us who are on the downside of forty notice.  I am made all to aware of the fact that I am getting to the point where I have more fishing to do than time left to do it in, so today when I spotted open water on one of the city resevoirs for the first time, that desire to wet a line became ever more fervent!

Because I am currently working at the water treatment plant on the resevoir I was able to walk down to the base of the dam, and it was down there where the river begins again that I saw a nice hatch of blue wing olives coming off.

This weekend the temperatures are supposed to climb high enough to at least give the appearance that spring has sprung, and if they do I'm going to go out and stand in the river, rod in hand, fly on the water humming time is on my side.....yes it is.

Glen

This is Glen! 

You can tell this is Glen, and not someone impersonating him, by the look of surprise on his face.  This is how he looks in most of the pictures I have of him.

See!

I'm not sure why he is surprised, and it has been the pondering of this question that has kept me up at night.  Did he not expect me to be there to take the picture?  He should have, we drove there together.  Maybe there was a bear behind me, and that was what was causing him such stupefaction.  Was he surprised he caught a fish?  I wouldn't think so, because he is a perfectly competent fisherman.  You can see here as well, notice the pursed lips and drawn eyes.

Maybe it was the fact that I came at him with the sun at my back, like a WWII fighter pilot, that made him clench his sphincter so.  I can't be sure about any of this though, it is all just random thoughts bouncing around in my mostly empty (except for the voices) cranium.  Anyway, you will be seeing more of him, hopefully, as he is generally my partner when I ply the rivers for fish.  Presumably, after reading this, he won't look so surprised the next time he catches a fish.

But I doubt it!