BONEDALE FISHING REPORT #21

BONEDALE FISHING REPORT #21

THERE WILL NEVER BE AN END TO THIS DRONING OF THE SURF

Life is relentless. You get up every day, put on your game face and stumble forward, hoping to achieve something that lasts. Late in the season, I find it harder and harder to be enthusiastic about the fishing. I’m in the holiday business and people on holiday want to be in the company of someone who’s as enthusiastic about the outdoors as they are. But after seventy days of rain, snow, wind, hail and the Goddamned Colorado sun my idea of a good time is indoors. Every bone aches, your lips are split and you have to cut the callouses off your hands with a knife so they don’t tear away on the oars. Your gear is beat to shit and the last thing you want to do after ten hours on the water is get it shipshape. So you duct tape it and yourself together, and hope it will last another seventy days. Seventy days of racking your hands when the winch slips, falling on rocks, removing hooks from thrashing fish and trying not to dwell on the cumulative aches and pains. Come tomorrow I will stumble out at dawn, mack a four-pack of Red Bull and 800 mgs. of ibuprofen, fill the coolers with water and food, scratch together the gear and say to the touristas, “It’s going to be a great day of fishing!” The funny thing is, once we’re on the water, I’m grateful to be gliding across God’s creation, and I certainly have an easier time than the delicate creatures I’m hired to pursue.

Live from the WORLD HEADQUARTERS

Kea C. Hause esq.

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Castwork proofs, Gianinetti’s Spring Creeks, Carbondale, CO. Photo: Liz Steketee