Water Works

by Bob Luck
A few years ago, I read "This Is Your Mind On Plants", Michael Pollen's book about plants that can alter human consciousness.  As part of his research, he quit caffeine, cold turkey.  After a couple of months of withdrawal, he stopped thinking about it when he woke up in the morning.  In part 2 of his self-experiment, he stopped by a coffee shop in a mall one morning and ordered a coffee.  It was the best thing he ever tasted, and the after-effects were even better: he found himself in a perfect state of alertness, optimism and enthusiasm--name an adjective for a positive emotion and that's how he felt.  "This is the trick", he thought.  "If I just drink a couple of cups a week I can have all these positive feelings without any of the side effects".  His resolution lasted until early afternoon, when he started coming up with reasons he needed to go back to the same mall to go shopping...

I sympathize with Michael Pollen.  In November I put my rod in the closet and head off to Japan until early April.  There are trout in Japan, but the season is closed until May so I am forced to go cold turkey.  When I get on the stream in early April it is a life-changing experience, and I tell myself that I really would be better off with more balance in my life, and I should really only fish a couple of times a week.  That feeling lasts until about halfway through the drive home, when I start thinking about where I want to fish the next day.  This year, I arrived in the US on April 3rd, and on April 4th I was fishing the Kinni.  Given all the threats aquatic insects face, the most pernicious being Neonics, I am nervous every spring that I will arrive at the stream to find the bugs completely wiped out.  That hasn't happened yet--there have been decent hatches of Blue-Wing Olives this spring and I have been working on fishing dry flies with my Tenkara rod.  It works! That is, it does if the wind isn't blowing.  Yesterday the wind was blowing hard enough that the window seal on my car whined like a banshee at speeds above 50mph, so I stuck with nymphs all day.  I was still suffering from jet lag and after a cold raw day on the stream, I told myself on the drive home that I needed to take a day off.  But this morning I had a cup of coffee and decided to hit the Little Cannon with streamers as soon as I finish writing this article.