HAPPY EASTER
For Christians around the globe Easter marks the most important event on the calendar, the resurrection of Christ. It is on this fact that Christians places their hope and faith; that as Christ was resurrected from the dead so too shall we who believe in Him be resurrected.
For fly-fishers in the Northern Hemisphere Easter marks the beginning of the spring fishing season. Whether it comes early [the last Sunday in March] or late into April, Easter is a date that assures us that spring, no matter what the weather might be outside on that date, is coming. It is something upon which we place our faith and hope for the coming season.
Spring is a time of renewal. Spring provides us with another beginning, another chance to succeed where once we may have failed; it is a blank sheet of paper just waiting for us to make our bold mark on its unblemished surface.
Spring is a time of resurrection, a time when the entire world, which seemed so sterile and dead just a few weeks before, suddenly comes alive again. Overnight brown turns to green, leafless trees put forth leaves to cover their nakedness, birds that had only been chirping break into song, and ice choked rivers gush with new vigor as they shed their frozen coat.
In lakes and streams lethargic trout, invigorated by the warming of their watery home, are suddenly hungry again after a long cold winter. Rainbow trout feel an urge to propagate, and brown trout, still lean and mean from their annual mating ritual in the fall, are on the fin and eager to fill their empty stomachs.
Amidst the detritus and cobble on the river bottom a plethora of insect fauna, from caddis worm to mayfly nymph, feels the urge to move toward the sun, to shed their nymphal shell and fly away into the bright sunshine of another spring.
Even in the warmer climes, where winter is marked less by cold weather and more by the shorting of the days, bream and bass move out of the deeper recesses of their watery home and into the warming shallows. All kinds of living things are attracted to these warm shallow expanses and the fish find a smorgasbord of food awaiting them.
And we, anglers all, rejoice in the coming of another spring. We revel at the thought of pleasant days afield with rod and reel. Our hopes are elevated as we anticipate the possibilities of days spent plying our sport on our favorite waters. We look forward with expectancy, forgetting all the long cold days of winter and looking only toward those days of expected delight.
We give thanks for resurrection, we are thankful for renewed hope, and we rejoice in being alive. Happy Easter.