The wait. For spring. For the ice to leave. For spare time. For decent weather. Eventually the wait has to end. Make some time. Fuck the weatherman. He’s usually wrong anyways. Leave the boat at home, don’t be slowed down. Take the canoe. Be portable. “Go solo. Go light. Go now.”

A long drive to find out the weatherman was right. Launch anyways. The clouds roll in. The wind picks up. The rain comes down. The coves on the north side might offer some protection. Paddle hard. There’s no time to revel in the greenery. No break to admire the eagles. No chance to snap a few photos. Paddle hard. Stay straight. Get to the otherside.

Two hours of paddling, ten minutes of fishing, one small juvenile pike. Then lightning flashes. The thunder rolls. Go to shore. Crack a beer. Huddle under a spruce. Fend off the mosquito hordes.

And wait some more. Seven beers worth. Enough time for exsistential worry and personal crisis. The whys. The whats. The how comes.

The rain stops. The wind dies. A little.

Launch. Leave the bugs on shore. Cast. Retrieve. Cast. Retrieve. Cast. Strip. Strip. Stip. Hesitate. The fly stalls and hangs. And then it happens. A flash from out of nowhere. A vicious take. A strong run. Line peels off. The see-saw battle. Three, four, maybe five, more good strong runs. Fighting dirty at the boat. The rolls and twists, mad dashes under the canoe. Finally to the net.

The wait is over.

It was a beautiful pike and it deserved a better photo. One that truly captured it, in all it’s glory.

Not like this.

A fish lying in a net, at the bottom of the canoe. Clutter strewn about. A paddle on the floor. The offending fly cast off to the side, next to the hemostats. A rubber boot in the bottom right corner. A homemade fly box in the top left. The composition poor. Water spots on the lens. The angle all wrong. No way to see the decent length or impressive girth of the fish. No way to see those wonderful markings. Nothing to show the power and speed, the fury and the beauty.

But its hard to get all artsy with the camera while solo. In a tippy canoe. With a sizable fish thrashing madly in the boat, its razor sharp teeth threatening to grab hold of anything within reach. In rough water. Nerves frayed from the weather. Tired from a twenty minute fight and the all day battle to stay upright. This one poorly taken photo is all the evidence there is.

To you it may just look like a fish, in a net, in the bottom of a canoe.

But I’ll remember as it truly was.

One good fish.

And a reminder that often times, that’s all it takes.