Marvin Pincus is not the kind of guy to let spring slip through his fingers. Oh, when he was a young man, sure. But now, with the coming of spring to the world and autumn to his life, he’ll take every chance that comes along to grab life by both hands and spur it into a run.

That’s why Marvin was down on Miller’s Pond with his latest fly rod. It wasn’t really to catch fish, at least that’s what he kept telling himself. No, Marvin was there for the sake of science. You might call him an ichthyologist, however.

If he were just going fishing, you’d have to call him a fisherman. Hey, fishermen are everywhere. You can find a few lurking in any sporting goods store. But an ichthyologist? Why, that’s someone of a scientific mind who studies fish.

Now Marvin’s been kicking around some ideas on how to proceed with ichthyologizing through the cold days of late winter and the delicious early days of spring. All the time he was tying flies, he was thinking about it.

He thought about it while tying the salmon streamers in January. He pondered deeply during the dreaming up of dry flies in February. He thought he’d had it worked out in early March while tying miniscule emergers, but he was wrong.

So he developed The Plan.

He’d been reading about how some of the great discoveries in history had come about quite by accident, and he thought he’d follow that particular scientific line of thinking. If he wasn’t sure what icthyological breakthrough he was looking for, he’d just go fishing and let it find him.

Besides, the trout will be starting their evening rise in just about 15 minutes.

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