We stand in the stream and we become part of the circulatory system of the planet — the rivulets, brooks, streams and rivers that pulse throughout our lands and connect the land to the sea, and those seas to other seas (and through water vapor and clouds, and migratory birds and fish, those seas back to the land). Through fishing, we can, for brief moments, achieve a kind of immortality when we step into this perpetual flow, and see our reflection in the water, and become part of it.

In spring, at the start of trout season, this flow is pulsing harder than ever. Snowmelt has filled the water table to overflowing, insects are emerging from their larval exoskeletons, birds are hatching from their eggs, spring wildflowers are unfolding from the ground, thrusting their heads through dry leaves. The eggs of brook trout, buried in the gravel by their parents the previous fall, are hatching, and tiny fish are trying their tails and pelvic fins in the cold currents. Spring fishing for trout allows us to participate in a physical and spiritual emergence, shed our winter coats and also our human skin, and melt into an experience that cannot be quantified or named.