Sainte Terre

Memories of fishing lakes and streams pulse like the last light of a dying star. Neither brilliant nor faded, they contribute to the entire sky-scape of adolescence. So, it was a sad moment when, last summer, I threw out jars of moldy salmon eggs, knotted leaders, rusted hooks and lures that had occupied my tackle box for years. The irony is that it was one of the most prolific summers of catching fish that I can remember. But it was so monotonous, and the aggravation that came with mangled line and goopy, smelly bait could hardly be considered time-well-spent, despite the large trout that sizzled over a backcountry fire. The activity lost its luster and was easily left as a monument of adolescent bliss.

But the ennui of bait-fishing was underscored by a couple factors. On a hiking/fishing trip that yielded no fish and plenty of expletives, I told the person I went with that I was going to quit fishing and just bring my chess set next time. I assume he didn’t want to lose his hiking partner which is why he told me about his brief experience fly-fishing. He said it engaged him more than simply throwing bait to dumb trout. I listened as he explained its technical aspects and the lore and cultural roots this form of angling has in Europe and America. This was two days before I left for a wedding in Alaska, and he gave me the challenge of reading A River Runs Through It by the next time we saw each other. So, I bought the book and began reading it on the plane.

Though I’d never seen the movie, I’d seen its DVD cover in stores. The soft light and fuzzy borders, the mist whirling off of a curling line as a man and boy wade in crystal waters deterred me from renting, and much less reading it. These types of images, in any situation, are a recipe for disappointment. The building of icons and idols deviate from the essence of the original thing, and I could only imagine that the movie not only veered from the book, but from the truth of fly-fishing. Notwithstanding, I started reading it based on my friend’s literary merits hoping that it was as haunting as he made it sound.

I learned that the story was hardly about the sport. Instead, it reminded me of Henry Van Dyke’s prose about fishing the Catskills and other Northeastern streams with a rod, where fishing was merely a conduit that connects man with Nature and ultimately with other men. As I read, my attention was riveted to the obsession and importance of origins, of geneses, and how water has been the element that most affected the surface of the earth. It sustains life more than food; it is the essence of all life sustaining nutrients. The fact that the book follows the life of two expert fly-fishermen is only a detail. It led me to consider the contemplative and nature-attentive quality of fly-fishing.

I told my friend Caleb, who visits me frequently from the Northwest to hike and fish Colorado, that he read it as well. He did. And later he expressed that if he were to take fishing seriously it would have to be with a fly rod in his hand. Then another friend, with whom I hadn’t spoken in a while, told me that he had just converted and raved about how he never goes home without a fish in his cooler. My environment was changing, and I too considered making the move.

Then, when Caleb emailed me that he had just bought an Orvis outfit this spring, I made the decision. It was half out of fraternal rivalry and half out of a romantic infatuation with the idea, and purchased my own outfit -two elements for a quick lived hobby. Yet, unlike many hobbies I pick up (brewing beer, photography, hiking gear…) that are fueled by like motives, this one offered something else to the tapestry of experience, namely the activity of engaging my natural environment on a physical and academic level. Geeking-out is a passion of mine; and if the object of geeking-out is oriented with the outdoors, then I am suckered into it even more vigorously.

When my wife and I read A River Runs Through It again this spring on a backpacking trip into the Rockies, I ruminated the content again. And again I interpreted that what Norman Maclean is saying is that the fullest life comes with an intimate understanding and interaction with the world and people around us. The way his father talks about rain falling on mud and making rocks, the rocks that compose the floor of the freestone river that they fished. This river was the adhesive that bonded the three men together, and not only tells Montana’s geographical and geological story, but whispers the family’s own story. And the connection between angler and environment is captured in this phrase: I also became the river by knowing how it was made. He explains the glacial cuts and the massive ice dam that broke several millennia ago, spreading minerals into what are now the fertile plains of Idaho, eastern Oregon and Washington, and in the process gouging canyons where trout filled rivers flow.

It was also in the way that he approached a river. As a novice bait-fisherman I gooped bait onto a hook and dropped it in a current or tossed it into the surface of a lake with enough split shot to sink the mess quickly, just to get it out of my sight. I sat until the pole twitched, and sometimes I would go for a walk or fall asleep where after an hour I would reel in a catatonic and suffocating fish, stiff with the ides of rigor mortis. But Maclean describes how he scoured the area looking for riffles, pools, current seams and different obstructions where he instinctively knew the fish would be sitting. The most important aspect was not putting any fly in the water, but putting the right one in. Rocks must be turned over to observe insects, the head must lower to the ground and the eyes must engage the mind with the life all about. There is a connection made between angler and Nature that I hardly experienced in bait fishing. It was this connection that I yearned for.

And I also wanted something that engaged my mind on that level where the faculties are forced to hone the bodies coordination and dexterity. I think this is why I love surfing and skateboarding. The mind and body work in unison and quickly, mastering a move that, when done precisely, is simply beautiful. And so I longed for a new physical art. An art whose sole purpose is to deceive a fish, thus becoming a battle of wits between two animals. The fly is an appendage of myself through a tippet, a leader and a rod, and to mimic it I must know that particular fly’s species, life and habits as well as the fish’s to such an extent that it all becomes one motion, one single activity. The prospect of this challenge beckoned me from the stagnant waters of bait fishing.

I researched for days before I bought the rod. I watched tutorial videos and read about gear and the technical properties of the sport in order to equip myself with the proper items for the region I live in. As I did this, the land changed shape and little things like a fly on my arm became a focal point of my attention. It felt like marriage, in a way. It was a dedicated commitment to learning, and with this commitment came new experiences; some exciting, and some, like tying knots, are excruciatingly frustrating and eventually moves upon my character and reveals how weak and fragile I really am. But I’m in it for the long haul, because like marriage, I have invested myself and plenty of other resources into it.

The outfit wasn’t complete without Izaak Walton’s A Compleat Angler. Both Maclean and Van Dyke quote him and reference him as a minister does his favorite passages for each situation life tosses at us. The book and rod traveled together and arrived while my wife and I were on a hiking trip. When we arrived, the rod case was sitting on our porch with the book atop; and I felt the coolness of dawn and that there was a new birth in the evolution of my time out-of-doors.