Wet lines

You know as I was buying neoprene waders today I realized how much adulthood can complicate fishing.  I’m not saying we don’t still fish with the same passion we just at some point in our lives decide that we need more stuff to go fishing.

I can remember as a boy wading endless rivers and streams in nothing but my sneakers, “Fishing shoes” I called them, and shorts.  Of course these were mountain streams that seemed so cold at times I was convinced everything was glacier fed.  But as a kid you were okay with the varying levels of numbness and hypothermia you encountered.  It was always more important to reach that other bank or that hidey hole behind the big rock in the middle then your own personal comfort. 

Now in my 30’s something seems to have come over me that I can’t explain.  I can barely stick my toe into a lake or stream without having serious reservations about wading in.  Hence the new waders.  And of course with the new waders come a rod and reel that have to meet certain specifications designed by engineers in a test lab somewhere who have convinced me of their inane findings.  Now I must have tippet material and dope my line.  I must have a landing net and that chest pack.  I have somehow lost my inner kid!

 Its not that I have lost my love for fishing by any means, now it is even more precious to me.  I just wish somedays I was once again in my fishing shoes, numb from the waist down with spinning line as tippet.  Only worried about reaching that next fish.

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