The 12th of the 8th

Anticipation...Satisfaction

As some of you know, I have this great affinity for the water.  Fishing has been a life long past time, starting with an old metal bait casting rod, on an Eastern Pennsylvania trout stream, at the age of about nine, with a grandfather called "Bull Daddies".

I have no idea---but  know you will ask.  Where does anyone get a nick name?  He was my mother's father and she had six brothers, so it could have come from anywhere.

The photo above of the Congaree River in South Carolina, suggests all kinds of mysteries in her depths.  In actuality, there are snakes galore, gators from time to time, bass, brim, and lord knows what else.  Not too further upstream there are supposed to be record sized trout.  Never fished up there....see snakes in the second sentence.  Beautiful spot, deep water, and I forgot to mention catfish and strippers.

A trout fisherman is also called a "Reader of streams".  That is, he or she must look at the water and guess what lies below by the activity on the surface.  The natural life under submerged rocks or floating on the surface will also suggest what the fish prefer to eat that day.  The current tells us where the trout will lie.  In the slack water, between or amongst faster food laden riffs.  Perhaps in the easy current bubbling beside a submerged branch.  It's pretty much and educated guess wrapped in huge hidden anticipation.

Often times the anticipation is born of experience but more often than not it is a result of a new experience.  A three mile walk on a almost undefined trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire leads to a small mountain pond that just has to have a huge pool of resident trout.

Just the pure mystery of what lies beneath the glassy surface makes the long hike worthwhile.  The lake could be barren of aquatic life, but no never mind.  The mind conjures up the four pound brook trout rising to small black midges on the surface, when reality shows the fish to be but of eight inches in length.

Big water again in New Hampshire.  Trout water swollen with snow runoff.  Fog and a misty rain gives an almost guarantee of jumping trout on the end of a pound and half leader.  Anticipation!  Someone once told me that satisfaction is about ninety percent anticipation.  Not so sure about that, but those types of scenes do get me to mending old equipment and thinking about gone fishin.