I have not added new material to this blog for some time. My life has been one of activity that has taken me away from musing about life. Now in the last few weeks, midst the nearly daily downpour in Denver, I find time to review and to muse upon where I am and what it is that I am doing with the closing decade or decades of my life.

I am going to share my experiences with fishing, with birds and general thoughts. Let us begin with a bit that I wrote nearly five years ago:

A day on the stream

1 August 2011

A cool morning, a bit of fog rising from the river.

The smell of the fresh cottonwood, pungent, pleasant.

A whining mosquito, trying to get to my blood.

Birds darting from the stream side willows, snatching mayflies or caddis as they emerge from the water.

Rocks and sticks along the stream alive with the motion of hundreds of salmon flies ridding themselves of their nymphal shucks.

Gray-dried algae, as thin as paper peeling from a rock, an empty salmon fly husk, glistening water silently sliding by.

A kingfisher rattling in the distance, brilliant blue standing out against the green trees.

A smooth, dark glide with ripples, a dimpling of the surface as the trout sip flies gliding along on the steady, slow current.

Slashing, splashing leaps into the alien air, chasing the escaping caddis fly as it pops through the surface film.

Staring down into the crystal clear water, watching the giant minnow slowly finning to hold its place in the current (and ignoring every offering I drift past it!).

Dusk, clouds of may flies over the water, rising and falling in the ancient ritual of courting and coupling, dropping the egg case on the surface, trout watching from below waiting for the inevitable fall and then dinner.

May fly, ephemeral, a day and then gone.

Huge salmon flies lumbering above the water surface like clumsy helicopters, seeking the safety of the willow on the bank.

Large trout leaping to grab the salmon fly before it can reach the willow.

A smooth lake surface, a graceful dragon-fly swishing back and forth, a silvery arrow, straight and true rising from the depths and into the air – snap! Its over.

The heavy pull, then a taught line wrapped around a rock, a stump, slack line, another one gone.

Musing on the river, a noisy splash, the line darting away.

A drifted egg-fly, the flash, the line suddenly taught, reversing direction, throwing a “rooster tail’ as it slices through the water.

Darkness falls, the cool breeze blows up stream, the crickets call – it is time to call it a day.