the dharma blog

They ate breakfast and then threw the Frisbee around for a half-hour. About noon, Jim left Honey and Lily at the campsite and walked off through the campground with rod in hand and his pockets stuffed with a fly box, clippers, and a few of the other small tools he would need.

He walked along a trail that most people took to the bathrooms and then met up with the campground road. He took the road to the bridge over the river. At the bridge, he struck upstream. He hiked far enough that he didn’t feel like he was still in the campground and then found a good place to stand while he rigged up.

The gear he carried was almost all he owned. It was all he owned because it was all he wanted. He used the graphite 5-weight for every stream and pond he fished and never used more than his 15 familiar fly patterns.

This day, the fish ate his Blue Wing Olives eagerly. After he caught two he sat on a big rock and lit a cigarette. He pulled a can of beer out of a cargo pocket and drank it. The rest of the afternoon was hot and the sun was high and the sky cloudless so the fish spooked easily. As the water warmed, they lost their appetites.

When he returned to the site around five o’ clock, Honey had a fire going. She was marinating steaks to grill and had potatoes in tin foil in the fire and Lily was chopping peppers and mushrooms for the grill. Honey asked Jim how the fishing was and he told her it was good and he got a beer from the cooler.

As he headed to sit down by the fire Lily asked him, Did you see anybody else on the river.

He stopped where he was walking and said, No, but I thought I heard someone talking once.

After some time, Lily walked off toward the bathrooms and Jim said to Honey, You seem to remind me of my mom right now.

Honey kept looking down at the food, and she said, Yes, I know what you mean.