Pining

It's hitting me today. It's a little under 3 weeks until we fly to New Zealand. We're working hard to wrap up quite a few loose ends - I'm working hard on a brand new Fly Fish Alberta website that will come on line this week or next, as well as laying new foundation to our Fortress Lake Retreat site. It's been go-go-go on the computer the past 2-1/2 weeks with the new sites and a ton of video work - the sight fishing dvds, laying some foundation to a "Real New Zealand" dvd as well as 2 others to compliment a submission to the Back Cast Fly Fishing Film Festival. There's quite a roll of videos to come soon - while having taken their time, are being scrutinized for layout and content , presented in our style.

So here I am today, tired eyes and all. I flipped open Google Earth to have a look at my favorite locations. I began to daydream about a river AJ & I had an amazing experience on last year. We managed to land many dozens of browns in the 4 to 7 pound range in under 5 hours of fishing. Given how far back in the wilderness this reach was, we only had so many hours to fish. As it turned out, we only fished 1.4 km of the water due to the impassable beech forest. We planned to head back there late in our trip but the weather never allowed for it. So, today, I'm looking at Google Earth, zooming a little tighter to see the tiny tribs under the beech forest. I'm looking at the water between where we fished and the lowest take out. While we fished 1.4 km, there's about 6 km of water that is readily fishable - if a guy packs in a small dingy. So, here I sit, day dreaming of the singing, deafening cicadas echoing through the beech forest as we slowly drift though, under the beech forest, Amelia casting at browns and me with the fish eye lens trying to capture the feel of the moment on video, while holding her in position to tag into as many browns as she can. Will we be able to actually pull this off, given how remote this water is? I don't know but the day dreaming makes me pine for the possibilities. And why, when reality was that for a month we couldn't get back to the river due to heavy rains, do we only envision these perfect moments when the sun shines and the fish are easy to catch?