Tomorrow, I will be 30 years old.... sobering.
It seems like yesterday I was a 20 year old kid running up and down river banks looking for risers, scraping my knees on rocks and smoking cigarettes. Now I rarely do either, choosing to fish more from boats and laying off the tobacky. I've seen a lot of stuff since then. At 20, I had yet to fish a lot of amazing places. Alaska, Montana, Oregon, Wyoming and the Keys were all places that were far off fantasy lands. Now I have experienced them all. I have even managed to catch a few fish along the way.
So what now? Is this the part of my life where I settle down? Is this the beginning of the end?
I like to think the opposite. My 30's are going to be the best years of my life. I am going to fish more exotic places like Kamchatka and Argentina. Hopefully I will be able to afford nicer things, so I plan on getting more into bamboo, nicer spey gear and classic glass rods. I am going to spend more time looking for mushrooms and identifying birds instead of watching a bobber bounce. Instead of resorting to nymphs, I will fish dries or streamers even more than I do now. I will fish less crowded places than are harder to get to. Not because I want to catch more or bigger fish, but simply because if I don't do it now, who knows when I will. My thirties will be my best years of my life filled with love, excitement and adventure.
Carpe Diem, my friends.
I hope you're right, man. My mid-thirties saw me buy a house and find myself searching for a job right when the U.S. began to experience the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. My lower back started to hurt, too.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I met the best friends I could ever hope to know (probably because they, too, have lower back pain and worry about our economy...and fish.)
So, my advice (not that you asked for it) is to buy a few of those things, but save a bit of that money as well.
Identifying birds won't cost you a thing, though, and in my case, it actually pays the bills!
Nice post. Have fun, and happy birthday!
Thanks the the kind words, TJ. I wish I got paid to identify birds. If I would have known better in college, I would have went into wildlife, but oh well.
ReplyDeleteCheers.