Summer Saturday

It was one of those fishing trips that gets planned over a late breakfast at a local cafe.
One of those good cafes too, with a sheen of bacon grease covering the light fixtures, and a full on breakfast and coffee running under six bucks.

"Why don't we go fish later?"
"OK."
"I've got a few things to do but I'll call you later."
"Excellent."

And then you do your "few things" and you make the call and you grab an 8 weight and throw a couple of beers in a cooler and your buddy shows up with his drift boat and you drive to the river.

To be fair, I love the big trips, the missions.  I love the outings where you spend time at your vice a week before you leave, the trips where you actually make a list of things to not forget.

And then there are the summer Saturday trips.  Special in their own way because you are just going fishing.

You arrive at the bottom end of the float and meet your buddy's buddy and then you decide how the shuttle is going to work.  You drive and play chess with cars, making sure that the keys you will need will be in the place you will need them when you get to where you are going.  (This part goes smoothly because chances are fair that earlier in your life you learned the hard way how bad it can suck when you get this part wrong.)

Before you know it, it's a summer Saturday evening and the oars are dripping water between pulls and fly line is exiting and entering the bottom of the boat.  You throw top water flies because you have nothing to prove and if you do get a fish you'd rather see it explode into the setting sun then just feel a tug.

You've been fishing hard since the ice left the lakes in the spring and the July evening feels like a sort of halftime in the season long game.

Fish are caught and celebratory beers are cracked.

It's your turn at the oars and you watch your buddy and his buddy throw to the bank as you move the oars just enough so that they might think you are working for them.

A smallmouth chasing bait explodes fifty yards back upstream and you do the quick calculations factoring in the time of day/available light, river miles left, interest in actually rowing against the current and then you see the hopeful looks from the two guys holding rods.  This cancels all calculations and you pull hard on the oars until you are upstream of the spot where the fish betrayed itself.  You drop the anchor, let out rope and if you are lucky, as you are this evening, the anchor grabs and the anchor line comes tight just as the boat settles in just off the bank from where a second fish now erupts on its dinner.

Flies get crushed, fish blow up and some are caught.  Earlier in the season and certainly earlier in your life you would have added a third fly to fray.  But, it's a summer Saturday in July and you have a camera and a cold beer and it's much easier to heckle when you are watching and not fishing.