
I think there are merits in being slow to judge. I was out on a river with a friend last season (or was it the one before?), on a fiercely windy day. It was easy to become discouraged in the face of that difficulty. We had fished a long stretch of river and he was tired, but I wanted to fish through the last pool near the road, before we walked back to the car. I had given up on the day, but for a last chance in that pool. He seemed to have done so too: Adjudged the day

Flowers about to burst open…a season about to open.

A few hours in a tangle of switchbacks, deadfalls and forgotten fables.