Saturday, February 20, 2010

February- Warm Breezes and the Written Word

Okay. It's been awhile. Too long in fact. This is the time of year that makes me get agitated. I get the season's new fishing magazines, new catalogs, new products. My eyes scan the pages for helpful tagging, suggesting new items, never before fished. The butterfly jig. The eight inch amber colored hogy. Each saddle hackle feather package makes me visualize a half and half clouser or a articulated streamer pattern for bull trout. I ask my youngest son to practice tying the bimini twist instead of origami storks, his manual dexterity being worthy of the task. I begin doing inventory of tippet materials. I look over my boxes of flies and wonder if, should I die tomorrow, who will use all this stuff?
This morning, my springer spaniel made a noise never heard before. Deep, tremulous, and wild. Looking along her angle of sight, my eyes locked with the eyes of an adult male coyote, standing but fifteen feet away in our side yard, unfazed by the yelping of a family pet. "Breakfast" was probably the thought formed in its head. "Playtime" was probably the thought formed in Sophie's innocent canine mind. Neither would be satisfied. Are these signs of the coming season, an edge of wildness creeping into suburbia? The primal look of the hunter, uncontained by context, ready to take to the field in search of the tug, capturing the vision of a tail holding in the current, the swirl, the refusal, the take. I am readying myself, even as I continue to live the routines of my life. I am now looking for opportunity.