I Can See Clearly Now

It seemed like another busy week, but I'm beginning to see clearly what the problem is. After a whole winter of basically being available to everybody, it's time for me to set those limits again: I'm available this much time, but the rest of the time--sorry--the trout need me.

My wife understands this by now, sort of. I'm not saying she's happy about it, but she knows full well what will be happening. She was asking for more of my time for this and that a couple of weeks ago, and when I showed just a bit of perfectly understandable hesitance, she exclaimed, "But you know you'll be fishing for the next six months!"

She said it like it was something bad. Meanwhile, I was completely gone for a few moments, standing there with a silly grin on my face and a far away look in my eyes. Boy, did that sound good just then.

I just checked the regs to make sure, and I could see it there clearly. Yes, it's really true; the early season lake opens on April 1. That's just eight days away.

For now, though, I've been keeping my eyes on the river. The murk of last Monday is gone. The river looked blue and sparkly as I drove over the bridge, but I swung through the park when I was in town on Thursday afternoon, and walked down to the boat launch to take a close-up look. Yep. Look. It's clear. There are rocks down there.

So I think I can see my way clear to head down to the river on Friday. I'll have to blow off a 4:00 work commitment, but that won't be a problem. Besides, it will be good practice for when the lakes open.