It is possibly the single-most important element to the fly fisher’s emotive process. The moment before mayhem, the tick before the tug, the tock before the take. It’s the cliché calm before the storm, the heightened pulse rate penetrating every part of your body like a rolling thunder. It’s the lump in the back of your throat, the wobble in your knees, the shake in your fingers as the wind whistles through the trees. It’s like that moment before climax or even the thought of it, the twitch in your lip or the bead of sweat that lay upon it. It is that numbing deafness where the world around becomes silent, your breath exhaling directly into your ear canal. The inevitable pause before the pain kicks in, subdued outside, writhing within. It’s the sleepless night before an expedition, the five-hour walk. The soundtrack to your life plays in the background as you talk. Anticipation, is possibly why we even fly fish at all.