The Literary Fly Fisher

January can be cold and dry, but it can also be a very wet month, a month of heavy rain or quick thaw and freshet-guarded rivers. February is more dependable…. And February is likely to have splendid days of bright sun after frost, with the first faint feelings of spring in the them, for the sap is rising in the maples again and the willow shoots are scarlet with it and the alders and fruit trees budded with it.

February is a good month too because Washington was born on the twenty-second, and that means that my brother-in-law Buck Elmore will probably be able to take time out and come up to try for a fish.

Roderick Haig-Brown, A River Never Sleeps, 1946.

Unlike Haig-Brown’s brother-in-law, I had to work on what is now Presidents’ Day.   However, I  did some exploring with my wife and daughter yesterday– a sort of Sunday drive–and I surely agree with Haig-Brown’s

assessment of February.  It is a solidly winter month; the evidence of this is everywhere.  Yet, the month is also pregnant with the feeling that spring is just around the corner.

This entry was posted on February 17, 2014 at 4:00 PM and is filed under Environmental Literature, Fly Fishing Literature, The Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.