My face is severely windburned. My cheeks resemble the red leather from your 1984 Michael Jackson zipper jacket. The left side of my lower body is numb...the upper left, burning pain. That's a recurring condition, so it's cool. The rest of my body is happy from brown liquor, served from an outdoor riverside bar and smokehouse in one of the fishiest places on earth, Almont, Colorado.
There is no complaining here, only proud battle scars from a day doing what I love. I'm not young anymore, but I'm not old yet. This day consisted of fishing three world class fisheries in formidable conditions, then ending the afternoon with smoked meats, pints of cold beer, and brown whiskey, fireside. This is a work trip. I like what I do. I'm not the best at it, but I'm not the worst. I am currently in my lodge room, listening to Tyler Childers (thank you, Jeffrey) after ingesting smoked brisket and pulled pork sliders, fresh smoked kokanee salmon with capers, several tall glasses of beer, and several more short pours of whisk. I angled rainbow trout, brown trout, and kokanee salmon by way of fly rod today. Then I FaceTimed with my 3 yr old daughter while she was eating ice cream and getting more of it in her hair than in her mouth. I am happy. I enjoy my life. //re:
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This evening I've decided to self-medicate a bit, to combat an ornery spinal cord that I had a needle full of medicine jousted into this afternoon. Medicine versus "medicine". So please forgive any uncharacteristic flubs. I will be rambling incoherently for the duration of this post. Ramble #1: Why fly fishing is better than regular fishing. It's not. I've done both, a lot. I am no expert in either, but I can catch a damn fish. If you're an expert, then that's great (you're not). I can't do much, but I can catch a sackload of fish. Those are just the cards I was dealt. To me, fly fishing is more challenging than conventional angling. Putting a worm, minnow, or chicken liver on a hook and throwing in the lake is for children and drunks. Eerily, I am very close to being both. But I tend to take my angling a bit more seriously than putting edibles on a hook and casting into a pond with my Zebco 33. If I were 10, it would be heaven. If I were 43 and shit-hammered drunk on the tailgate of an '88 Bronco backed up to the lip of a farm pond in Fair Grove, Missouri it'd be heaven. But neither of those scenarios is happening right now. So there is the simpleton version of fishing, which is totally acceptable. We all do it. But to try a different method of angling--one that is vastly different from the conventional way we all teach our young children--learn it, and actually stick with it (because it can be a maddening sport), is admirable. To learn fly fishing, embrace it, appreciate it, and attempt to master it (impossible), takes commitment and ambition. But if you decide to tell fly fishing to eat some shit while you cast your nightcrawler into the deep part of the pond...flip your jig & pig into a shallow deadfall...drop a minnow into 15 feet of water off the side of your crappie boat...or troll big, goofy spinner contraptions for walleye and pike...then you're not wrong either. Fishing's fishing, man. Ramble #2: Why Roth is better than Hagar. He is. I'm getting tired of this "conversation". Sammy before Van Halen was okay. His early stuff was tolerable, if not decent. He later faded into early/mid 80s Rock Light, ala Eddie Money, Night Ranger, and Journey. Van Halen did not. They kept being awesome. When Roth split and Hagar joined, Van Halen turned into a Pop-Rock Light concoction of crap. Fueled by keyboards and songs about love and feelings, this version of VH immediately turned into an unrecognizable, top 40-striving, rock 'n roll abandoning band of mediocrity. Sure, they sold more albums with Hagar. That should tell you all you need to know right there. Ramble #3: While staying in the same vein....Who is better; Bon or Brian? Geeky question, I know. But I think about this more than most normal humans should. Which AC/DC singer is superior? >1980 Bon Scott? Or <1980 Brian Johnson? I'm partial to Bon. Bon is crunchy, dumb, dirty, older-cousin-working-on-his-'73 Olds Cutlass, unpolished, underproduced, simple rock and roll. Brian is a bit of the same, only with a newer (for 1980) screechy, metal-ly, screamy, crackly voice. But brought a different personality. AC/DC's songs became better produced, and cleaner in a sense as time went on. Maybe that would have happened if Bon were with them, too. But Bon died by drinking himself into a stupor, and ended up gagging on his own barf. So that in itself, along with the fact that his name is Bon Scott, and Brian's is Brian Johnson, outweigh any chance that Bon is the substandard rock and roller. Bon wins. Ramble #4: Nature. That's why I come up here. This weekend my family and I drove up into the mountains and found solace away from other humans. It was a nice moment. There were neon yellow aspen leaves, brisk, pine-fueled mountain breezes, and bluebird skies patched with pillowy, white clouds. It was gratifying to see my kids and my wife all take moments to sit and admire what we had found. A gentle, relaxing grove of yellow aspen trees, soft grass and pine needles to lay in, breeze fluttering the leaves into a rhythm. I too, thought of all the times I am on the river and forget to take just a moment to sit and check out all the reasons that I am there. It makes you think about things in a whole new light. Then Hank gagged on a leaf and shit his pants. //re: |
AuthorI am Earl. Archives
May 2024
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