hopper inspiration and minds to a simpler time... a wandering thought

When your small it's crayons. 97 million colors at your disposal and even one that was 'flesh' colored until the brass at Crayola realized that there were people running around out there in the world that weren't peach colored.

Just close your eyes and remember the experience of pushing those wax sticks over semi-gloss brown paper and never quite being able to get the shading perfect until it was too late, now your light-blue duck is just going to have to be a purple duck. Remember the crayon smell? I know you can.

Later in life after the safetys were removed from the scissors and the chairs grew metal legs we graduated to colored pencils. More color and shading control, the addition of wood and a sharp point capable of a higher degree of precision and drawing blood were a right of passage. The lines for coloring within were often lost, however, leaving the implement wielder to define their own boundaries, and often for the worst: For years the final product suffered as the creativity never seemed quite capable of overcoming the improper proportions of wildlife appendages...

...and nothing has changed, really. These days it's not strangely colored cats and dogs hung with magnets on the refrigerator door but bugs tied on lines sitting on water with a more distinct purpose. I am not saying that "muffy's" portrait was a waste of time, sweetie, the fact that it looks more like a Dali painting than an anatomy drawing does little to affect its potency in extracting smiles from mommy and daddy, however the fish seem to be a little more critical.

Anyways, the point I was somehow getting to is that I like foam. I like playing with foam. I like jumping in foam. I like tying flies with foam. There is something about the colors and texture that take me back to a more simpler time, when the only think I was worried about was what friends house I was going to ride my bike to, or what I was going to spend my $5 weekly allowance.

So when Mr. Dunn over at Third Coast Fly brought the Hopper Fishing Blog to my attention, I just became inspired. And being inspired in a wonderful feeling these days, even though I don't do a lot of hopper fishing on the rivers that don't exist around here.

This is what adult kindergarten looks like

-Alex who is a big kid now.