I’ve got a trip coming up soon, one I’ve looked forward to for a couple of months. Right now I am in the uncomfortable-yet-exciting phase in which I am worried about forgetting an important piece of gear or not tying the right flies while simultaneously counting down the hours to lift off. All this waiting and counting and worrying has got me thinking about anticipation and how it pulls the strings on us fly fishers in a dozen different ways.
Perhaps its my bias but I think fly anglers have have a pretty good chunk of the anticipation market. We’ve got this pre-trip anticipation and all that goes with it, but we also have the anticipation that comes with stringing up a rod as we stand by a river. Its a different strain and often more exciting (if there are fish rising it can be quite nerve-wracking). Even the moment when we walk down the trail or take that first step into the river or push the boat off the dock is a moment of what just might be. We feel it in our guts. Today could be the day, the one we’ve always dreamed about. We’ve even got the anticipation of reading about someone else’s trip–that forlorn, unshakeable feeling that one day we will fish that same water and cast to those same fish–even if our logical brain knows we never will.
I think that’s the trick, really. Each day spent with a fly rod on water is so uniquely different (especially for those of us who don’t fish every day) that we can’t help but wonder what the next 6 or 8 or 14 hours holds (if fishing, Alaska in the summer, you can make that 18 hours). I have a theory that every fisherman is something of an optimist. How else could we stand out there waving a rod like a magic wand hoping to cast a spell on the trout. Something in each of us is a believer. And that part of us feeds on anticipation.
I think my favorite anticipatory moments are those first few seconds of a good drift with a new fly. Generally I am standing calf-deep at the edge of a decent hole where the old fly has failed to produce. Maybe there are trout rising, maybe not. But I feel as though I should have caught a fish and I’ve decided the fly is the reason that I haven’t. So I tuck my rod under my arm and proceed to change my rig. I usually have to swat a mosquito or a deer fly away from my face, maybe wipe the sweat from my forehead. The knots can be a struggle if there are fish rising, and maybe my tippet is too short and I need to tie on a new section of 4X.
Whatever the situation, eventually I reach a point at which I make that first cast. Having already fished the run, I know right where I want to light the fly and let it drift. There are those seconds–that seem like hours–when the fly first lands and drifts over the spot where I think a fish might be waiting. Win or lose, there is something about those first few seconds that courses through me like dry lightning. Something like hope–only more powerful and electric.
