Trout Season is Coming Just 15 days

Pastorally I've just finished a long week. I haven't had a full day off in a couple weeks and the hardest part was the second funeral of the week for a wonderful guy who just last month was one of our crew leaders working at Camp Victor in Mississippi. He died of meningitis way before any of us ever thought he'd leave this world.

God's timing and our timing aren't the same. The hard part of living in this place between the first resurrection and the fulfillness of time is losing some of the great people we've gotten to walk with on this earth. I can complain; but I am still not in control. (If you don't get this go read Job).

My best responses to the stresses and frustrations of my job as a pastor is to get outside and enjoy the world. Some people call this, "self care." The rest of us call it either "getting a life" or fun. To that end I begin my countdown to trout season and the personally even more important Mother's Day Weekend Trouter.

Minnesota's Trout Season Opens April 14.
One of the great joys of life in this part of the world is the spring and trout fishing.
Trout fishing in the Middle-West is not quite the same as the romantic picture painted by A River Runs Through It and other mountain fishing that people seem to imagine based on books and movies. We don't head hundreds of miles from home up into the secluded mountains. Instead we head a couple miles away early in the morning or late in the afternoon to our favorite fishin' stream. Some streams run right through cow pastures, others run through deep lime-stone gorges on their way to the mighty Mississippi. Some teem with elusive and tasty native Brook Trout that have been here as long as recorded history; others are well stocked with the imported Brown to keep up high populations.

My Great innovation in preparation for trout fishing this year is a very small, very light, fast action rod its a 2 section 5 foot 2 weight. A year ago I got my second ever rod, its a biggie, 4 section 9 foot 7 weight as a Birthday/Father's Day gift. It's great for crappies off the back of a pontoon or casting for Brown Trout in a 30 foot wide river, but in some narrow creeks it just is to big to get under the overhanging branches. So this year I will be fishing with 2 very different rods.

My logic is based on this same piece of advice from two different fly shop owners in very different parts of Colorado, "you wouldn't play golf with just one club in your bag so why would you try to fish with just one fly rod." So far my wife is bemused with the rationale. I was like a kid on Christmas eve waiting for the box to come. Then the day arrived and I got two boxes to open, each one filled with wonderful goodies. Rod, reel, backing, floating flyline, float line conditioner, and a rod case (an unexpected bonus).