Why Men Fish

“The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.”

–Babylonian proverb

Many think of fishing as a child’s sport. And it is a fine one. Casting a bobber and worm to sunfish on a Saturday afternoon is an American pastime, an experience every child should try, at least once. Fishing is more than child’s play, though. Fishing can be an adrenaline sport, but mostly fishing seduces you into falling into harmony with the water, and through it, to nature herself.

            Fly-fishing on a stream coursing over free stones is madness at first cast, then less so as you learn what’s happening in the turbid scene. Finally, when you master the line and insects hatching and the trout flitting in the seams of the current so well you move with waters and play fish like the moving stream itself, fishing becomes a simple romance again. This is why fishing is good for men, and always has been. There’s boyish delight, then deep problems to overcome, then a Zen experience as you fall in harmony with the natural world gurgling by your feet.

            If you learn just one pond, lake, or stream, really learn its processes, understand how the nymphs hatch into insects and move up and out of the water and fly free and how this makes the fish move as they feed, and what weather fronts and barometric pressure do to fish, and what happens when the water temperature is 58 or 68 degrees, and all the other pieces in the natural puzzle, if you learn just one place like that, you’ll know all places, a little. And you’ll begin to sense the depths of the ecosystem, and with that knowledge will come appreciation and harmony. And all that is something to guide a son or daughter through. Such fluid reality washes away bias and with it idealization and you realize just where we as humans fit into the natural system and know when it is okay to eat a fish and when it isn’t, because we should be rational men, not emotional things built on bias.

             When you’re in the middle of this learning curve and look up to see someone so perfect and knowledgeable they seem not to be as much fly-fishing as a natural part of the ecosystem, you’re drawn to that person.

            This happened to me some years back on a Wyoming river miles from the popular pools. I heard his line first. Wisp ... wisp ... his fly line traversed a seam in the current and then softly fell right on target—tight loops and a low arc; no wasted motion. The fly was up over and then back in the water. He was a master, as anyone who makes casting look so effortless must be. I wondered if he would be willing to teach me a little, just a little.

            After shadowing him for the better part of an hour, watching, barely fishing, I observed him roll the line in with his left hand and spin it back out with a light, smooth motion with his right. As if in a trance, he didn’t even glance at me. Just watching the seams, flitting his line into the next, biting off a fly, replacing it with a quick twist, he moved almost mechanically, but was too fluid to be a machine.

            I could have approached him, but fly-fishing etiquette required me not to cross a certain invisible line in the water. He was fishing the head of the pool; I had to wait.

            So I decided to be daring. I moved in below him and tried to mimic his motion. We were on the North Platte in early August. The evening turned shades of amber and birds sang from cottonwoods on the banks. I changed my posture … leaned in a little ... stood with my left foot facing the upstream current...tried to make my face look content, without a care in the world, like his.

            The master cast and so did I, he to the seam at the top, me to the same seam 60 feet below; his fly was inhaled by a fish, mine escaped their attention. At the risk of all humility lost, I pretended to play his fish. Rod at 45 degrees and shaking like a tree in a hurricane, he kept his wrist loose and let the fish run until he got him on the reel. Turning to let the rod tip follow the brown downstream, he looked right at me turning with my rod unbent and empty.

            I stepped out of the way as he played the fish down the hole.

            The master let the fat brown go like he was teaching it to swim, then sat on a rock with his legs splayed. I seized the opportunity.

            “Beautiful day on the river, huh?”

            He smiled, said, “You walked right by the fish.”

            “Huh?”

            “To the right of the boulder is a brute. I left him for you, but you walked right by him. Instead, you cast everywhere I did. Come on, let’s see if you can catch him.”

            The master opened his fly box. He was a minimalist. He pulled out a better stonefly than I’d tied on. Biting off my fly, he tied a new fly on with one quick improved clinch with knot. He barely had to snip the excess line.

            “There you see him? He’s 18, maybe 20 inches, a smart, old bugger. Your first cast means everything with a fish like that. Drag the fly by him and you’re done; he’ll sink and wait. You cast too much. False casts kill leaders and spook fish. Make a practice cast below him to get the distance, then drop the fly four feet above him. It needs to sink a foot.”

            My nerves fired as I felt the rod’s action. I cast and the line landed with a little splash.

            “Don’t force it,” said the master.

            I picked up the line, let it straighten, then threw it forward, pretending it was a false cast and hit the mark. The fly followed the seam my line stopped. I set the hook. The fish ran first upstream and then across. I followed him with my rod tip, letting him have line just as the master had done. He turned and went down. I forgot the world around existed. I move down the rocks with the current, keeping just enough pressure on the fish.

            He ran into a pool and around. My rod jittered and shook. The trout made another run, this one shorter. I was in waist deep, reeling fast. He was circling. He jumped one more time. Then he was in my net. I carefully let him go and turned around to thank the master, but he was gone. I stood there in the stream thinking, He’s even a master of exits.