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Column: Moving through the seasons

For the past few days now I have been noticing flocks of ducks and geese going by overhead making their long way south.
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James Murray tells a story for a small crowd at the ORL Salmon Arm branch.

For the past few days now I have been noticing flocks of ducks and geese going by overhead making their long way south.

Lately too, I have noticed that like the ducks and geese, the days and weeks, the months and years, seem to be going by ever more swiftly – like birds on the wing. One day it’s the first day of spring, the next day the leaves on the trees are beginning to turn from green into shades of yellow and red. I also find myself contemplating the passing of the season with a degree of longing akin to sadness.

As a young kid contemplating the fact that summer was coming to an end and school would be starting in a matter of days, I would sometimes lie out in the tall grass of a field not far from my grandmother’s house and watch the clouds go by in the blue, blue sky, hoping that dreadful first day of school might never come. But it always did.

During those now long ago summer months, I didn’t really have a care in the world. Perhaps it was over the course of those early summers that I became such an expert at squandering time. Now I spend my time sitting in my adirondack chair out in the backyard watching the clouds go by. Some things never change.

The summers of my youth were mostly spent goofing off and having fun. I remember I couldn’t wait for school to be over.

Back then, the summer months meant freedom to go fishing pretty much whenever I wanted. It meant being able to ride my bike like a crazy person, all the while not giving a rat’s behind as to when I had to be home – just as long as I was there for supper. It also meant spending time watching great blue herons fishing in the slews and garter snakes sunning themselves on the trail leading down to the creek where I would cast my line to little 10- and 12-inch trout hiding in the shadows of overhanging branches. Like the song says, the liven’ was easy.

Although the end of summer meant having to go back to school, I still found ways to goof off. What I may have lacked in math and Latin skills in the classroom, I more than made up for in the ability to look out the classroom window and daydream. The only good thing about summer’s end was being able to spend Saturday and Sunday mornings helping my grandmother in the garden, pulling carrots and potatoes and eating apples off the tree. For her, the coming of autumn meant canning season and getting ready for winter. For me, it meant six months of drudgery ahead.

I still have little or no use for winter. It is but an inconvenient interruption between fall, when fishing is at its best, and spring, when I can look forward to the arrival of the new fishing season.

Of course, the fall of the year does bring back memories of my mother’s freshly cooked pumpkin pies set out on the window sill to cool ,and dancing with the devil without ever having to look him in the eye on all hallow’s eve. I apologize right here and now for any outhouse that my older brother and I may have accidentally knocked over.

Even today I enjoy a warm lazy summer’s afternoon sitting out in the boat, dragging a line or casting to the possibility of the occasional trout. But nothing comes close to the fall for fishing. The lakes are alive with trout eager to bite at whatever comes their way due to the fact that they are trying to fatten up for the winter months ahead. Salmon are running as are winter steelhead and river fishing is at its best.

My hair may be grey and my step a little slower, but I still get excited when I’m loading up the vehicle to head out and cast my line to all fishing opportunities that the autumn season has to offer.

Over the past 68 years of warm, summer days and cool, crisp autumn winds, and through all the changing of the seasons, I have come to understand that in life, as in nature, everything has its season. What I don’t quite understand is how the summers of my youth have somehow turned into the autumn of my life.

As you read this column, I will be casting my eight-weight fly rod to pinks and spring salmon on the Fraser River.