| "You're wondering if I'm lonely. No, I am a fisherman. I keep the company of rivers. When darkness whispers behind echoes of the wind, I cast. When I am trapped in patterns and afraid, I cast into the veins of rivers: into the veins of rivers formed from the sweat of 10-inch trout.
There is no secret to it. As I get ready for bed, I look out the window, staring at the moon, listening for echoes of windsongs. All night, rivers come prowling sleekly under and over my bed, silver smooth. And when daylight comes sniffing around with its cold nose and large feet, I say, "Wait for me." I say, "Wait for me. I'm coming with you."
Occasionally, it thunders. I like that.
Standing ankle deep in mayfly wings, I study the format of the river. I become alive in rivers, a glimmer in mayfly wings. Because I'm the kind guy who wears his heart on his sleeve, I don't forget to poke my head up into the sunlight and be the very hero of the birds. I don't forget to walk all around, swim upstream and breathe in trees.
Sometimes, sparks fly from the pipe of lightning. I like that.
Like an old stone savage, I wade through bean rows of rivers, and I wonder, "Where are the meek?" and, "Why do they get the earth?"
Though my backcast needs work, there are days on rivers I live from joy to joy, from fish to fish, and from wing to wing - as if death were nowhere in the background. From the earliest times, I have been the human connection here and the whole dreams of things to come; an angle of geese, a field of sumac and the farthest star. Hot stuff. I am alive.
I am a fisherman, and on several levels, I am never alone."
- Jerry Wilber
Printed in Wisconsin Outdoor Journal, Fishing Annual 2002
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