Friday Writings for Randos - Fly Fishing

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:.

An excerpt from A River Runs Through it

One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing. It is also interesting that thoughts about fly fishing are often carried on in dialogue form where Hope and Fear - or many times, two fears - try to outweigh each other. 

One Fear looked down the shoreline and said to me (a third person distinct from other two fears), "There is nothing but rocks for thirty yards, but don't get scared and try to land him before you get all the way down to the first sandbar." 

The Second Fear said, "its forty, not thirty yards, to the first sandbar and the weather has been warm and the fish's mouth will be soft and he will work off the hook if you try to fight him forty yards down river. It's not good but it will be best to try to land him on a rock that is closer."

The First Fear said, "there is a big rock in the river that you will have to take him past before you land him, but, if you hold the line tight enough on him to keep him on this side of the rock you will probably lose him."

The Second fear said, "But if you let him get on the far side of the rock, the line will get caught under it and you will be sure to lose him" 

That's how you know when you have thought too much-when you become a dialogue between You'll probably lose and You're sure to lose.

. . .

I thought all these thoughts and some besides that proved of no value and then I cast and I caught him.