Mornings

George Conway

Morning sure comes early around here.  Hey, why are my legs asleep?  I look down at the foot of the bed and see one of my two dogs lying atop my feet.  He wasn’t there last night when I finally got to sleep.  What with basic house duties and work, a little sleep is a luxury and getting to bed before midnight doesn’t happen too often.  Now I have to contend with rubber legs when my toes hit the cold floor.  The tingling of the blood re-circulating in my lower extremities pulls me awake and follows me to the closet for some clothes.  I pull on some old shorts and a sweatshirt.   The dogs are beginning their daily routine of roughhouse play.  I yell at them, probably a little too loudly.  My wife stirs in some restless dream and softly goes back to sleep.  The day begins.

I will never be the earliest riser.  But with the routine I have set up for myself, I have seen more than my share of sunrises.  The days of late spring are refreshing but not what you would call cold, at least not if you came from the Midwest.  At least it’s not raining.  Today is expected to be sunny, truly a California day.  

The dogs are now jumping at the door.  I hurry to get the leashes and poop bags and get them out the door before one of my least favorite things happens.  Cleaning up a dog mess before breakfast is not a good way to start your day.  In fact, I’d rather have my teeth extracted with a spoon than clean up that.  This early morning ritual is an every day affair.  I have tried repeatedly to train them to understand the sanctity of weekends, the concept of daylight savings time, and just because the sun gets up early we do not have to.  They just do not understand.  Or if they do, they have this strange perversion of getting me up anyway and listening to me whine.

What do I do on these early morning walks?  Outside of keeping my dogs urinary tracks healthy and minimizing the droppings in my back yard, this is my time.  This is when I organize my day.  But more often than not, this is when I plan my fishing trips both real and imaginary.  There have been many times when I am visualizing some distant smooth glide with a hatch just beginning and then unexpectedly step off a curb and wrench my knee while falling awkwardly into the street with, hopefully, only my dogs as witnesses.  If the dogs could, I swear I would hear their laughter ringing through the neighborhood.  As it is, I blame them for any embarrassment that I experience.  I get back up, gather what little dignity I have left, and continue on.  

The imaginary trips transport me to exotic places with strange sounding names (I think that is a song title somewhere in my distant past.), Kamchatka for rainbows as long as your leg on mouse patterns, Alaska for about everything, Bahamas for bonefish on crabs, and Argentina for sea-run browns that will spool you on every cast.  These are the places I will probably never see, but who knows.  They sure sound good.  Of course, all of my casts are perfect and the fish are always willing.  If you’re going to dream at least make it a great one.  There are some details of this dream concerning a certain female that will not be discussed here.

Planning is key to enjoying the real trips.  I like spontaneity as much as the next guy but not when I’m traveling thousands of miles, going to somewhere I have never been, and shelling out wads of my hard earned cash.  I need to know where, when, how, and how much.  I need to figure which piggy bank I‘m going to break and what excuses I will make up to justify going somewhere the sky is clear, the water is clean and flowing freely, the people are as friendly as if they have known you for life, the crowds are made up of mayfly hatches not people, and the issues that haunt us daily in the city are just not that important out there.  That just sounds wonderful and the justification for it comes easily.

Now if I can only remember which way home is, it will be a perfect morning.


George

P.s.  This month’s speaker will be Jimmy Morales.  He has graced our club about three years ago and gave an outstanding presentation. This month’s topic will be on fishing the central Sierra, a place sometimes overlooked that has fantastic fishing if you know where to go.  Jimmy knows.