Philosofishing....

The thought crossed my mind last night while knee deep in a river somewhere that river fishing for striped fish is a lot like the quote used to describe World War I, "boredom punctuated by moments of terror".
One minute you are watching a kingfisher dive bomb minnows across the pool and idly listening to birdsong and the next you are stumbling half drowned trying to keep up as a fish tries it's best to empty your reel. It's the nature of the game really. In a small river you are denied the 3000 horsepower metalflake beast bristling with sonar, graphs, hydrowave, photon torpedoes and lord knows what else. Instead you chase a highly migratory fish in a watershed a hundred miles long armed only with the hope that this is a good spot, a fish will feed here, if not now later, if not today, tomorrow.
Which in many ways makes it even more magical when it works.