When we are on the water, our contemplative impulses range from the intense to the nearly absent.

Fishing is a quest for knowledge and wonder as much as a pursuit of fish; it is as much an acquaintance with beavers, dippers, and other fishermen as it is the challenge of catching trout.

If you keep at it long enough, one day you may witness some greater disturbance, some rushing breach of the water's surface so startling and violent and exhilarating that you too will suddenly, and always thereafter, believe in monsters.

If you aren't a fisher you'll see many things, but the river, except where it is ridden by waterfowl or waded by moose, will rarely enter your thoughts, much less stimulate your spirit. It's different if you fish. The surface of the water tells a story.

The issue of imitation has always occupied fly fishers, and part of its endless attraction has been the imponderable uncertainty of how much it matters to the fish in the first place.

As the old fisherman remarked after explaining the various ways to attach a frog to a hook, it's all the same to the frog.

Fishing is a quest for knowledge and wonder as much as a pursuit of fish.