The added weight must not have been felt by the angler and the little brookie slammed into the back of the angler's head directly behind the right ear of the angler. Needless to say, the image of this picturesque angler was shattered when he fell face first into the stream extinguishing his pipe and filling his waders full of cold clear water. I tried to explain, but I don't think he thought that I was sincere because every time I told him about the little brookie jumping on his fly I began to laugh. The last I saw of that guy was when he picked up his belongings and sloshed out of the pool all the time muttering something under his breath. The laughter tends to make the muttering fade into the sounds given off from the moving water of the stream.
Winter is necessary.
Winter is the earth's opportunity to lie fallow, to regroup, to prepare for a new season of birth and growth we call spring. Even the river, whose gray, cold expanse gives the appearance of lifelessness, is awaiting the transformation that will come with rising temperatures, a rise just as certain as the crawl of the sun across the sky. Bass swim in schools in the deep channels, waiting to move to shallow water to spawn. Other species slowly fin in dark holes nearby. Cold and sluggish at the moment, they, too, will cruise shallow water, searching out partners for their rites of spring.