Ever have one of those days where the harder you try to solve a problem the further the solution seems to run away?
That was my day yesterday.
We had an early start around my camp around 0500 as She Who Must Be Obeyed was up early to meet Jess and hit the road for Calgary to cover The Masters – an international festival of equestrian show jumping. They were off by around 0600, and there I was, standing in the kitchen making coffee thinking – should I work or should I fish? It was a nippy 38 degrees and the stack of urgent things to finish in the office called – so the office won out and I was on the phone with an east coast based photographer by 0615.
A technical / layout problem crept up mid-morning; an obvious solution was not in sight. Help was summoned, the problem was defined, dissected, debated and deliberated – with no solution even appearing on long range radar.
The next few hours were remarkably similar – work on other tasks, return to joust with the problem to be again rebuffed, do something else, answer email, negotiate on the phone, try again. Damn.
Ten hours at the computer later and staring out the window at the prototypical bright, cool fall day served up yesterday – it was clear my problem solving skills had turned to mush.
About that time Jake called without an answer to the issue, but a capital idea – time to hit the Firehole for the evening rise. The lower Firehole is roughly 110 minutes from my front door and the drive up and down 191 has proven to be fertile thinking territory.
Short answer – we immediately left and burned off some frustration.
Throwing a long loop…..
Squeezing off a few rounds…..
The solution mysteriously “crystallized” after swinging a caddis pupa with a soft hackle trailer for two hours on the Firehole.
Worth the drive for 2 hours of fishing? Hell yes.
Tags: So What?
