With every season comes a renewed desire to explore new water. Somewhere I’ve never been, somewhere I’ve never fished. It might be a whole new river, maybe even just a new section. It’s sometimes a wilderness lake, many kilometres walk from any road, allowing for plenty of pondering as you re-trace the paths of the hardened high-country folk of yesteryear. It has also consisted of scrubby creeks that travel right under a national highway, with trout gulping beetles as the overpass shudders with each passing log truck. I manage to tick a few of these off my long list each year, but with every new tick comes another dozen added to the list. It’s going to take some time but I’m quite content that some day, many years ahead, that very list will have a fair old dent in it.