If my hypothesis is true, that we anglers and hunters eventually evolve into hopeless romantics who thrive as much on anticipation as we do on actually practicing our sports, then all of us can relax and enjoy August. For during August, a month created to punish outdoorsmen for their sins, we can anticipate.

And those of us who have seen more sunrises afield and more misty mornings on the water than we can recall know how to nourish anticipation.

We know both the character of anticipation and its rewards. Thus we nurture it during August to sustain us until rising fish dimple the cool waters and wild wings stir the autumn air.

Here is what we do. We take the laces from the boots and we clean them and scrub shoe grease into the stiff leather, ostensibly to enliven and protect the boots, but in reality to recall that climb through the blowdowns that led us to the bugling bull elk and to project that memory to a day in the fall upcoming.



Bass and bucks



We flick the big spinners on the buzzbaits to be sure they don’t bind when we drag them past the milfoil beds that lie in mosaic patterns on dark October water. We replace the broken rivet in the knife sheath and sharpen the knife so that in our minds we can see again the buck with the big antlers lying in the straw. We remember the steam rising from its clean flesh while we pared away its skin as have our ancestors since the beginning. And we mentally, spiritually, project the scene to a future November.

We fluff the goose down sleeping bag and hang it outside in the hot sun to freshen. The night we slipped deep inside it just below timberline and listened to yodeling coyotes comes happily to mind and we dream of returning there. We strip the line from the reel and replace it with a heavier one. It just might be the line that must hold our biggest bass, and we want to be ready when colored leaves float above his lair.

We open the boxes of shotshells and sort the red ones and green ones and yellow ones and inventory the sixes and eights. Then we clean up a hundred red empties and load them with pungent powder, shiny primers, pale plastic wads and a heavy dipper of shot.



More dreaming



As we work we hear again the tinkle of white oak acorn bits sifting through the foliage of early fall. We examine a finished shotshell and wonder if there is anything that embodies the phenomenon of anticipation as much as this plastic case filled with shot and gun powder and an ignition primer, just waiting; Waiting for the moment that we too await.

And then we clean the guns, whether they need it or not. Each one takes us back to days, to moments, that we see in days and moments ahead. How we want to relive the four seconds when the big ten pointer flew through the thick timber, his hooves splashing floodwater from the swamp floor and his tumble at the shot ending with his great antlers impaled in the ground.

And how we want to once more see the big rooster ringneck pheasant fold and fall softly into the yellow grass and lie there in a kaleidoscope of color. There is only one way, save for the re-runs of our memory, that we can own such cherished moments again. And that is if we find them in the days of our future. And this we hope to do. We anticipate. It’s what we do in the August heat.