Angie's fish

[Papasequoia]

Another gem found by midcurrent.com.

http://midcurrent.com/2011/11/22/slowing-down-to-learn/

http://www2.mcdowellnews.com/sports/2011/nov/16/1/not-what-i-used-be-ar-1615842/

Not what I used to be

By: Marty Queen | dqueen@mcdowellnews.com
Published: November 16, 2011

No matter how I rationalize it, I know it’s true: I’m not the man I used to be.

I realized it one afternoon last summer up on Newberry Creek, while clambering upstream across the hunched, moss-covered backs of giant boulders and furtively crawling through prisons of tangled rhododendron branches just to present a tiny fly to a wild trout that languidly patrolled a quiet pool no bigger than a bathtub, occasionally rising to nonchalantly sip an insect too small for me to see off the surface.

It was a trout that would, in all likelihood, fit nicely into a sardine can, and which would quickly be released after capture.

“Why am I doing this?” I wondered aloud as I sat on a log, washing the blood from a shinbone I barked against a rock on my ascent. It was then the epiphany fell upon me: I was doing it because it felt like the absolute right and natural thing to do.

It still felt right and natural a few moments later, even as I stood untangling my line from an overhanging limb. The juvenile brook trout had erupted on the offering and my hook-set was a split-second late, missing the fish’s mouth altogether and launching my line into the gnarled carcass of a tree that had fallen across the creek.

I could only smile and shake my head.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when trout fishing meant only one thing to me – trout. I measured my success and failure purely in terms of a full creel or heavy stringer. My goal was the same every time out – a limit, preferably of pan-sized fish, caught in the shortest possible amount of time. I killed, literally, thousands and thousands of trout.

I fished hard and fast and arrogantly. With my trusty spinning rod and an ample supply of bait, I approached each promising stretch of creek with a brazen *, and why not? I knew from experience if a given hole contained a trout, he’d be coming home with me as a dinner guest.

I was perfectly happy with that arrangement.

But somewhere along the way, when I wasn’t looking, things changed.

I’m sure the metamorphosis had something to do with switching from spin- to fly-fishing.

I quickly learned that to become proficient at it, as I had vowed to do, I had to slow down. Way down. I would no longer be able to tromp noisily from pool to pool, pausing occasionally to flip a backhanded cast through a thick veil of streamside vegetation and unceremoniously wrench an unsuspecting trout from the comfort of his living room.

Now, I had to pay attention to detail, planning each move in advance. Soon, I began to mentally picture how I would play a fish and where I’d try and land him before I even made a cast. It was a tedious and thoroughly exhausting type of fishing.

But it got easier, and as it did, a whole new world opened up to me, a by-product, it seemed, of the fly-fishing process.

Suddenly, there was wonder in things that had seemed before to be entirely pedestrian; a limbless tree branch that had fallen into the water and now somehow lay suspended delicately between two large rocks, one at the top and one at the bottom, of a small waterfall; a wayward stonefly nymph that wandered out from under his rock and now sat motionless on the toe of my wading boot; a school of shiners in their midsummer spawning color, a shade of red so pure and vibrant they seemed to glow.

The old me would have spared these sights only the briefest glance before soldiering on in relentless pursuit of a limit.
The man I had become saw each phenomenon for what it was – a miraculous fragment, an essential piece of nature’s marvelous tapestry, on display for a limited time, for these eyes alone.

To be sure, the old me caught more fish, but now, each one means so much more.

I have to think that’s a change for the better.

[WanderingBlues]

Yep. That about sums it up in fine fashion.

[lucfish]

Happened to me pretty much the same way except it was rainbows and bass.

[fflutterffly]

Papa I say this in all seriousness. When are you going to publish your book of short fly fishing stories. I'm putting in my order. I just published a 409 page book that my father and I wrote. I can't even begin to tell you the feelings I had holding it in my hands. The cost was very reasonable. Go forth and publish!

[Papasequoia]

Thanks, Ariel, but that wasn't written by me. I just found it on Midcurrent and copied it here. I am working on some stories of my own though.