Trout Lake Report: Predictability

You wish everything was predictable. You'd like to be prepared. But things happen out of the blue, you're victimized by randomness yet again. But then you take a closer look and realize that random events also have causes, could have been predicted. If only you'd been more observant, focused, tuned in, if only you had known then what you know now. You should have known. Worse, you realize in hindsight that you did know. But you can't go back.

So you go fishing. The stakes are low. The degree of predictability is high. You do the things you know how to do in a place you know well, and the things you hope will happen do happen. You predict that you will catch trout, and you do. You predict that you will catch brown trout, and you do. What you didn't predict is that the first and biggest brown would jump--twice--and throw the hook as you maneuvered him toward the waiting net. But you can live with that.

Because you've been fishing long enough to realize that it was totally predictable.