Cletus sat at the top of the boat ramp waiting for the sun to come up. This time of year the sun came up later and he liked that. In a few months he would wake up at 4 to launch the boat at 5 and he enjoyed the extra sleep afforded by early spring. He sat with the windows down and let the cold seep into truck, watching the far bank of the river for the first glimpse of pink sunrise. In a few minutes he would see it creep through the tops of the trees. That first muted light would stir the things that were becoming green, he would smell them wake and he would know he would catch fish. Even more than the things becoming green he would smell the things becoming other colors, becoming colors that matched the sunrise. He enjoyed these things more than he would ever tell anyone because there are things a man doesn’t need to talk at bout.
A truck pulling a drift boat pulled in behind him, fly fisherman. An old man walked from the parking lot to the riverbank carrying a bucket and a Zebco. Cletus thought about the one who would catch one or two fish and take pictures and post them on the internet and the other who would fill up his bucket and go home. One who fished to fished to fill his ego and the other to fill his stomach. He thought about how he would catch fish and keep a few of them and put the rest back and that this made him somewhere between the two, a moderate, and he thought about how that was exactly what he wanted to be. This made him smile because one of the rarest things in life is being the thing you covet.