Like an Amputation (thanks for the inspiration BTF)
Posted in beatdown, Sad Clowns, Why do we make this so complicated?, yet another excuse fer drinkin' on May 30th, 2009 by Gaper
I’ve hacked a piece of myself away. It’s somewhere well donwstream by now, lodged in a sweeper or stuck in a receding ice jam. I know it’s still up there because I left it there before I hopped on that plane last year, perhaps it found its way to the bay. I like to picture it in moving water though, plastered against a plug of timber with heavily spotted rainbows feeding just behind. They should be spawning by now, the bows all rutted out with bladed kypes and dayglo stripes. They’re getting ready for the salmon smolt and the baby lampreys, they’re getting ready for some post-coital gorging, like a mykiss version of an open fridge lighting a dark kitchen, scarfing leftover brownies and chugging milk from the carton.
In nine days, I should be standing on a gravel bar beside a dented jon boat, coaxing unsure hands around eight weight cork. I should be adding more weight, yes, more weight, I don’t care if you don’t like casting it, that’s where he is, down there. I know the fly is six inches long with giant barbell eyes and double lead wire under the magnum strips. Trust me, just get it out there.
I should be dreading sockeye season already. I should be pounding nails and cutting boards. I should be galvanizing, hauling fuel, eating canned gravy and greasy sausage. I should be preparing myself for months of celibacy, getting my kicks fondling plump hens and competing with antsy bucks. I should be hating my boss and loving my co-workers. I should have already given up the soft and the plush for the sharp and the functional. I should not be on this couch counting appendages and finding nothing missing.
I should be tying on #2s not #22s. I should be buying filler spools of Maxima not 6X florocarbon tippit.
I should be going back to Alaska.
