A call from a friend… “let’s go”. I hadn’t been out in over a month for fun, for myself. I was truly overwhelmed with a solid month of work and home projects, every single day getting my home ready to sell. (Check out how bad things were from the previous post). I said no. He persisted, sensing I was truly overwhelmed. Isn’t it funny how friends can tell.

I finally gave in, felt like I shouldn’t have, ran around crazy getting stuff together, and met my friend at the river. I didn’t get out of the car before a cigar was thrust through the window. Still frazzled, I got waders on, rod, vest, and to the water we went.

There’s something about the first few steps into the river, and the first few casts, isn’t there? So fresh, so refreshing, so much promise. Stepping from the bank into the water is like going through a door into a completely different world. Immediately I felt my concerns and pressures start to melt. It’s really tough to flycast and worry. They’re so incompatible.

Watching my friend fish was a treat, as he has such a polished fly cast. It always looks like a training video. Elegant like a bird of prey in coasting in flight, or big fish swimming upstream. We worked our way downstream fishing a variety of flies until we set up ahead of a pool he predicted would come alive when the Hex arrived. He was right.

We switched over to Hex, waited, and the slurping started. Splashing little guys and slurping big boys. What made this a great night was the uniqueness of what then transpired. Though each of us had our techniques, our drifts, caught our fish, something else impressed me as one of the true reasons I fly fish. Like a tag team, we told each other of rises we saw and directed each other where to cast. We both wanted the other guy to catch fish. Some of you know exactly what I mean. “There’s a rise about 10 feet directly downstream from me”, I said, and with some sort of a backhanded roll cast thing (I still don’t know what the heck that was, but I’m gonna find out) the fly landed about 6 feet in front of me. I froze. “That might be a little close SLURP ok maybe not”, I said, and my friend was into a 12″ smallie that became airborne immediately just a few feet away from me. We both laughed uncontrollably. “To my left about 20 feet”, he said. Squiggling the rod tip just before it landed, I dropped the Hex about 5 feet up from where he was pointing. Another smallmouth. And so it went until the Hex stopped and the fish pushed away from the dinner table.

Back at the car over a delicious cold one sitting on the tailgate, we re-lived the evening, met up with another angler, enjoyed the warm summer night, told some other fish stories. I thanked my friend profusely for what he had done for me. Flyfishing this night was a healing salve for a life that had gotten out of control and was running on chaotic autopilot. If I could play a tape of a perfect flyfishing evening whenever I wanted to, this would be the one I would chose. I think alot of us think the same. It’s the friends, isn’t it?

As we left, the topic of how many fish and how big were they tonight came up. Both of us agreed that even if we could have added more fish, and bigger fish, it couldn’t have made the evening any better.

“Please go downstairs Drake”, I thought to myself. After several attempts to make him stay downstairs where the fans were blowing, I gave up. I had taken all the screens off the upstairs bedroom windows to be repaired, and had a deadline to get those rooms painted. The day had been in the upper 80’s, and it was super hot up there. I opened the windows without the screens, but had to close them almost immediately due to mosquitos.

So there I was, up there painting after an 11 hour day at work, and it must have been over 100, humid, and no air moving. Sweat dripped off my face as I bent down to load a roller with paint, and I could barely stand it. And there was Drake. He insisted on being where I was, laying no more than 10 feet from me, panting at an incredible rate. He was so hot, but had to be where I was. Talk about loyalty. I felt terrible, but praised him and had to keep working.

Keep working. No fishing. The summer is waning, and this is some of the best fishing of the season. As I mentioned in one of the last posts “leaving the lake”, I decided to sell the lakefront home. That decision didn’t come with a full understanding of what needed to be done to get the place in order to sell - until I started, and saw the list at two pages and growing. This is certainly one of those situations where one thing gets accomplished and two more get put on the list. You’ve been there.

So, I sacrifice. Sacrifice time previously spent on fishing, relaxing, sleeping, friends, relationships, neighbors, Daughters, Sons…and Drake. One of the definitions of sacrifice is giving up something good for something better. I hope that’s the way it turns out. Right now I think I’m neglecting those I care about while I drive myself on these projects. All I can say is I’m sorry, but it’s got to be done.

I hope everyone understands. And if I could, I’d even hope Drake “understands”.