Spring? I remember one of those, years ago!

 If I were off fly fishing today, I’d be standing around for 30 or 45 minutes, or more, between casts thanks to the gusty winds. That explains why I’m not off fly fishing this afternoon. I’ve not the patience to stand around that long between casts. If I’m going to stand around and do nothing but wait, I’ll do that during duck season, when the winds might well stir up some flocks and cause them to look for a quieter place to loaf.

trout stream tributary to the St. Croix River

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday, I began to pick up the winter’s collection of dead branches that had fallen along the drive. Today there are more dead branches where yesterday they had been collected. It’s demoralizing but not overwhelming. I’ll not even try to burn them in the fire pit until the wind calms by a lot.

Temperatures all next week are forecast to continue well below normal. No signs of local farmers starting planting season yet. With  the bird feeders down because of avian flu, we’ll miss most or all of the migrants passing through and the locals won’t have any reason to stop by and say hi! All in all this has been, and continues to be, one of the most dismal springs in the five decades or so we’ve lived in Minnesota.

At least we’ve lucked out by discovering, and acquiring, a couple of wonderful books about trout fishing and the country and people involved with it. We’ve just started reading Ted Leeson’s Jerusalem Creek: Journeys into Driftless Country. Much of what he writes about, coming to intimately know a stream or river, reminds me of the North and South Rivers back in Massachusetts, which I came to know as well as I’ve known anywhere. I’m still looking for someplace to learn comparably well in my current bioregion. That means it would probably have to be in or around the St. Croix River watershed. At least the search is pleasant and rewarding in and of itself. The other book is a volume of poetry, Daybreak on the Water, by Gary Lark. We’ll get into that in a future posting.

FISHING

By Gary Lark                      

                                                

Standing thigh deep

in the Yachats river

the fly drifting under a shadow

I wear my father's shirt.

His body in mine

I in his shirt

our hands move

in similar patterns.

                                                

I've the turn of his mouth

in my reflection.

Our language is mostly silence,

but somehow from his father

to me there comes this patchwork

of sensations.

                                                

The river swirls

around my knees

tugging me downstream 

under the trees.

A long quiet pool.

A cutthroat takes the fly

and three arms set the hook.

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