the un-landed fish --- a flash of an idea, inspiration and impression - an unrealized idea

The first four fish - I didn't land them.

​I saw them - shimmering  sliver and the flashing of orange-red gills - I saw them through the fast moving shallow water. I felt them pull and tussle. I saw them get close only to disappear.  I didn't get to touch them. I didn't see their bright and lively eyes.

But I had them on my line, didn't I?

I began to think about the seen but not held fish, so tantalizing but unrealized. 

Like a flash of an idea, an insight, something not quite finished - but still it's  something that can ignite the senses, the  imagination, and the heart. Yes, we fish to use all the parts of our brains, logical, emotional and felt senses. Probably why fishing is so damn compelling.
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Probably why I  keep going out year after year....

me by the top of the bridge where you get in - low but wide water this time of year - pretty easy to get around.

 I was casting across the river trying to reach across where it was wide - standing in fast moving but shallow water - as far out as I could wade comfortably - and it was actually a little farther than that - but still having to make long casts with the five weight across the current to get to the edges- near the far bank, under a tree, by a depression - getting just enough of a float -- and then, I had one - I felt the fish pull - I saw it get close - but pulling the line  in - up river and across the wide fast water on the #16 barbless fly - each time,  the  fish set themselves free.

That's the point, though isn't it?  I reassured myself - it is catch and release, after all... But did they count as caught? Is an idea unacted on still a  worth while idea?

Yes, I think it is , but it's not the same as an idea realized. after walking upstream where the water was deeper and not as wide, I caught and  landed four fish. They were holding in very fast water but they didn't have to be hauled across a wide expanse. Maybe that says something about insight and distance and realization.... I'll see what the river says next time.