The Ghost of Trips Past Comes Calling

     It happens every year around this time.  More so now that there are no big trips in my future.  Years past come knocking to kick around what once was and get me plotting out trips that'll never happen anywhere in the real world.  I still think a canoe trip to Canada is something I could do.  Hell, I'm not dead yet and am a fair percentage of what I once was.  Would have been nice had my body been the one to intervene and tell me no.  Instead it's merely circumstance.  No one to go with.
     Even if a trip did come about it probably wouldn't be up to the excursions of the past.  The last serious trip in 2009 constantly had me filled with mixed emotions from the get-go.  Not that I didn't want to be there, just that I wasn't filled with the spark of earlier years.  Ask Allan, he'll tell you the same.
     As I get older nothing thrills as it once did.  Not that I have a lot of control in the matter.  Might be a case of my mind singing to my body, Baby Let Me Follow You Down.  Obviously in a different sense than the song from the '60s.
     I sorely miss the manic excitement of the days that once lead up to our Canadian departure.  The wondering of how it would all go down.  The longing for and fear of what the Four Mile Portage would be like, not to mention the canoe crossing of huge Reed Lake.  What would the fishing be like on lakes that could only be reached by plane or canoe?  And the thrill of doing it the hard way, the way it was done for centuries by people who did such things simply because that's the way life was and had always been.  All of that got my blood moving.  Still does a little but only in retrospect.
     For the moment it's white outside.  Not as much snow as predicted for either here or at the cabin.  Regardless, ice-out stumbles a couple of days farther into the future.  Nothing I can do about that except write.  Acceptance of reality seems to have balanced out my long held youthful excitement nicely.  I expect that's a good thing.  Or at least better than losing the thrill and wallowing in depression.
     For the moment there's flashabou to be tied onto some of the jigs I already have.  Maybe a few marabou feathers.  Don't know if that'll make them any better.  The big boys of walleye fishing say it will, especially in the bog stained water we'll be fishing in a few weeks.  Also the addition of a little sparkle and color adds a personal touch, not as good as making a lure from scratch but better than straight from the store.  So I'll put on a fishing hat, maybe some Mozart, tie a few jigs, and daydream.