There's something special about the beginning.
There's something special about the beginning of a long familiar river. For me the beginning is here on the east branch of the Westfield River. This is where I began my rebirth as a trout fisherman. Here that I learned what a river can teach. This is one of the few parts of any river that support the native fish. I learned that it is in the beginnings of places that the past is still present. in the beginnings things are small. The small things go unnoticed, they're hard to find, we drive by them or we can't drive to them at all.
One has to want to find places like this.
I go to the beginning often. I go there to find some reasons for the present.

It's easy to get caught up in the big water.
It's hard to get away from the water that holds old timers. June on the xxxway is one of the places it easy up get caught up with. Big wild fish feeding on the surface. Fish that spook at the slightest shadow. Fish that will eat my fly. Big wild fish one can spend the summer casting to. A place you need to return to, and do.
There are other places. Places I drive over and wonder about. This is one of those places. I wondered about this stream years ago so I stopped and had a look. I found a meadow constructed by eons of beaver activity. Deep dark undercut banks. Big stumps barely visible in the tea. Lots of brook trout four inches long.
But you know? There could be others, there could be old timers hiding under those stumps.
We had some good storms a few weeks ago, removed all the dams and returned the stream to it's base so we went fishing there. We walked on the stream bed through an imaginary six feet of tea stained water and looked in on the living rooms of the wise old fish. We imagined the world of these creatures and their prey. We caught fish in all the likely places and saw fish in unlikely places. We didn't fish in some places for all the right reasons and we imagined fishing in others for all the right reasons. We fell in love with this place and when we return? It will be different. There will be water over our waders, there will be water covering our tracks.
The places we drive over and wonder about are often places we will love, places no one visits. These places are not always easy to reach, sometimes there is work and imagination involved and fantasy.

It gets difficult when the sun starts to fall behind the hill. It gets blurry.
It's time to par down the gear to only what's needed. Heavy tippet material, big white noisy flies, a working light and glasses. With these few things in my bag I can expect the night to sharpen up.
I can expect Sam to stand by my side and I can get lost in my thoughts and the darkness. I can only imagine where my fly is and how it looks on the water. I have to work the fly using any knowledge I have of the water. Maybe I got a glimpse of the surroundings before the light went away. Sometimes it's intuition I have to rely on and fantasy.
If I'm not catching fish my mind wanders all over the place and I can freak myself out. My mind wanders over to the people I love and the loves I've had. The people I've forgotten are now remembered and stand with me and Sam.
The dark places on the river are long pools and wide. They are bottomless and my light doesn't reach the far bank. But sometimes my cast will. Sometimes the fly will make it to into a darkened or lost memory and I can retrieve the memory and the fly. Sometimes a fish will eat the fly and the memory. Sometimes there are sounds in the water and Sam will show me. Sometimes there are eyes in the dark and Sam will growl. I'm not afraid of the dark or the wanderers of the dark, I'm too much trouble to eat, I'm not the low hanging fruit. Any one who is out at the same time sees me as just another prowler, wanderer, hunter.
Night time fishing puts me in a different world. A world of dreams and memory. A world of hunters and hiders. A world of survivors, prehistoric and perfectly adapted. Silent.
It's time for me to awkwardly and thankfully find my way home in the dark.

It's not often that it happens. In fact, I can remember a time when both of us have gotten skunked. There should have been fish. Everything looked fishy. We then had to climb out. I don't think we could have picked a more difficul ascent.
Not only was it steep, rocky and full of thorns but we also found ourselves smack in the middle of some hillbillies dope garden.
We kept climbing.

Today, badly!

This all seems quite and in fact it sounds quite to me but just sitting for a few minutes and watching reveals the constant frantic activity. Every one is doing something important except me. I'm just sitting here melting into the scenery.

I have a weak spot for long broken roads.
Especially long broken roads following cold little rivers. And if the name of the long broken road is River Road?... well,
my imagination just takes off.

I suppose that depends on who's listening...so

Come one,come all

Come none too tall

Throw in a topic 

And we'll crane the myopic

What right do I have to be a fisherman?
What gives me the right to find my peace while purposely causing distress to another living creature? The very creature that symbolizes my peace? I have a lot of words but no answers.

This is a hard one.

The very first fish I caught I released. Empathy. That poor fish. I mean it must have been so freaked out! I didn't want to take it home and look at it.  I didn't want to eat it.  I knew I couldn't keep it.  I knew I couldn't hold on to that feeling - the feeling I had while it was attached to me. So, it was simple - let it go. Truth be told I felt sorry for that fish.

There was a pond near the church, in the town that I grew up, that held largemouth bass. They were easy. There was a kid I was friends with and we went fishing there and he caught one of these bass. He was so excited. My plan was to keep it alive while we fished. I constructed a little pool connected to the pond and we put the fish in it. My friend was skeptical and I was panicking. I didn't want this fish to die. I wanted this fish to stay in the pond alive. Well, of course the fish got out of the little pool and my friend was so angry. I can't remember his name.

Tonight, I caught one fish and I let it go. What else could I do?