Goofing Off!

For the first time in weeks, the weather dummies had predicted a day above the 50° mark. After working on my taxes for a couple of days (still not done!) and spinning my wheels with a painting currently on the easel, I needed a break. It took a few phone calls the night before to wrangle a fishing partner, but with that out of the way, I put my fishing bag in the truck anticipating the next day's adventure.

I let Otis the Wonder Dog out at 7am and thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. The thermometer read 15°! Are you kidding me?! As I poured my first cup of coffee, I was happy for both the warmth it offered and the fact that BT wouldn't be arriving for a few hours. I was keeping my fingers crossed the air would at least reach the freezing mark by then.
Neither of us were absolutely hell bent on fishing until things began to warm a bit. On the way to the river we stopped here and there checking other streams, looking for turkey sign, and generally goofing off the way outdoor types do when there's time to kill.

Once we were on the water, we fished hard. We always do. And I'm not ashamed to say that after 5 hours of wading, casting, changing flies, and trudging along the stream bank, BT caught the only fish we saw all day.
When we'd both had enough, we pealed off our waders next to the truck. It finally felt like the temperature was near 50° and the warm sun felt good on my back. For the next hour we sat on the tailgate of the truck, drank a cold beer, and laughed about stories of misadventure in years past. Tree swallows checked out nearby bluebird boxes, to a serenade of spring peepers and a lone Canada goose was already on a nest within sight of our position. It was perfect.
It's funny how there's a necessary process to times like that. You can't just jump right into a tailgate powwow without first going through the preliminary actions... be they fishing, hunting, painting, whatever. It just doesn't work that way. But the entire day was leading up to that moment on the tailgate of the truck when we clanked beer bottles and BT said around his cigar, "This is quite a day, eh Bortzie?"
Quite a day indeed. Thanks BT. I needed that.