Pure Fly Fishing Joy: Release.

Slowly, the river caresses the streambed. All that is heard is the distant sound of civilization. Baetis duns float by, like sailboats, down the river and all around me. I am still and quiet as the trout begin to rise.
The day hadn’t always been this quiet, or pure, like a meditation but had evolved into that. Oddly enough, after enjoying the river for what it is and laying aside the false neccissity of technicality, I let go of my anger and frustration and simply walked upstream. I had lost two rigs and standing there in the river, finally heard, out loud that where I was was beautiful and for me not to enjoy that moment and perhaps all others would be a disgrace to my own life. And suddenly, as I said before, the trout began to rise.

Perhaps my true desires of fish readily breaking the surface, time and time again, in perfect trout rhythm had been released to the universe, and somehow, out of my gratitude, came the mass of rising fish. Who knows, the days leading up to this blanket hatch could have also contributed, biologically speaking. The flows had risen, the temperature of the water had hit that magic mark and a nice storm front had been running over us all day. Somehow those factors came together like the river, into one and allowed for one of the greatest days of fishing I can remember in my short life.

At a long distance I throw a fly to where a fish had risen. A parachute, extended body baetis dun pattern, with a tungsten bead head dropper, hanging, two feet below the surface. From forty feet, I see the parachute disappear- set. A fish on and shortly landed- nice brown. The Cache La Poudre River these days is mostly browns, save the occasional rainbow, cutbow or even a brook or a cutt up high. I released him and he swam to the bottom and away, cursing me for my fun. I wondered at times if trout actually wanted to be caught, that they enjoyed the dance and the interaction. Some say that fish are given too much credit, but I give them all the credit for being so kind as to take my creation of fly and feathers and in essence, believe in me.

I walk upstream and look up a long, wide riffle which is all the river has become at this point. It is very cloudy and cold- my hands have been wet for hours and tying a knot that normally is easy in twenty seconds takes three minutes and I have to start over a couple of times. That’s alright though because the fish are rising all around me and I can see some of their eyes as their noses break the surface to take the little, blue, gray and olive mayflies.

I have the fly and picked some up that morning, knowing that this time of year would bring hatches like these. Truly, I had never seen one this thick with the water littered with insects- it was amazing- each time I netted a trout, it was as if I were seining an insect rich river environment- the duns lay flat, with wings outspread in the black fibers of my wooden net. Then I move, walking slowly upstream, through the tailout of the riffle and into position, amidst a few dozen rising trout. I cast upstream but can’t see my fly amidst all the naturals for it is such a fine imitation. Only by guessing and luck do I find my hook in the mouths of trout. Rise rise, rise and silence- rise rise rise rise, rise and silence- cast upstream, through the proper area with no drag- rise, set, miss. Air out the fly, cast and feel the balance of your position in your feet, feel the line looping, tightly backwards, tossed forward in a loop and unrolling softly as the river carries it away. Watch, watch… rise and set, fish on. Bring him in quick so you can get him out quick- her soft little brown belly sideways in the net. Thank you. She slides through my soft grip into the water like a handful of gratitude, released to the stream.
I feel crazy laughter resonate from deep within my belly, should I laugh, by all means yes! Ha ha, my father looks over at me with a puzzled grin. “I just can’t believe we’re actually experiencing this hatch,” I say aloud and he agrees, re-directing energy back to his task. I cast forward and back over and over again, enjoying the feel of the line reaching the distance it needs to be for me to throw it to the risers upstream. Finally, I feel the proper weight and release forward upstream. The line settles and I gain control. Wait, strip strip strip strip, nose and gone, set, fish on. Again I feel the joy welling up with laughter deep inside softly whispering later in retrospect, I told you so. Bring him in the net, feel the weight of all those bugs he’s been eating, fat little bellied trout. Thank you, goodbye. Ah, the tippet is a bit shredded, re tie that section. My hands are so cold that I can barely feel them. Ha, funny, the price you pay to fish this day. I laugh at my weakened hands and will them to tie that blood knot between the two sections of fine tippet and finally to the fly. Apply some floatant, c’mon, take the time to make the presentation as good as you possibly can. If you’re not doing it your best and loving it, then you shouldn’t be doing it. Cast forward and back as the weight of the line loads the fast rod, feel the weight and watch the loops against the gray sky and white clouds, black and unrolling above the bank. Release the power of the rod upstream through the line to the fly as it releases perfectly before dropping, still, to the surface. Strip strip strip strip strip. Nothing. Cast again. Land. Strip- wham- he must have come from the right a nice rainbow and he’s all over. Fight against his turns. Keep him from jumping. Will him to the net. The tippet and knots are strong. Ah, relief, a nice bow in the net. Beautifully wild with dark spots and white with a sandy gray back and red stripe blazing down his side. Eyes too, dark and beautiful. Release him slowly into the water after showing father- nice fish he says, doesn’t feel as I do about this fish, but does about the one he’s catching.

Dry and redress the fly. It still looks good and is holding up… what a great fly. Cast again in the same fashion, feeling the rhythm of the river and watching the rhythm of the trout until its time to lay it out there. Nice cast, strip strip nose rise set fish on, distracted by dad- strip strip rise set- double- perfect. My hands are finally warm as we bring in the fish, look closely at their unique markings and release them back to the stream.

This day contained many fish and many casts, many knots and many tangles. It was the kind of day that removes all expectation from fishing and replaces it with joy and gratitude.

We are blessed to be able to do what we do.

Evolutions

As I look back to days spent on the river, many moments come to mind. They’re dreamlike and exist vividly in my memory for an instant and are gone again, not to return until they make themselves known again. With each day the river flows and I watch it somehow. Whether I fish it or not, whether I hear it rumble or rush over rocks, I hear its presence because it has become a part of me. In this way, my perception mirrors the evolution of the river. The river has become my mode for understanding life and as a result, its life and mine have become inextricably intertwined.
I get to the river as often as I can, think of it even more and try my hardest to find it in my dreams. The true magic of my mind becomes obvious to me when I find myself again, at the river’s edge, with a rod in my hand watching, as a pod of browns rises steadily to freshly hatched baetis duns, rolling down the surface of the water. At once, I feel connected to the natural cycles of the river, as if somehow I knew before that I’d be here, and knew to tie some particular fly that would work exactly as I needed it to. In part, this came from experiences, but I didn’t know that the water would be flowing at this rate, with this clarity, that the bugs would hatch at this time or with such prolificy. And here I am, knowing exactly how to handle this situation. There is no guessing involved- I almost don’t need to fish because I know exactly how I will catch fish here. The only guesswork perhaps, is the fish I will catch and what it will look like, remind me of, how it will take and fight, how it will swim away after I release it and what impression it will leave in my mind. This is my absolute joy. This is often my good luck.

Then I realize that I have been here before.

My father is having to re tie his leader because we’d been nymphing with braided line and these are surface feeders. He has no tapered leaders so I give him the collected bunch of spools I carry with me to construct leaders as I need them. I have already constructed mine and have tied on a number eighteen no hackle baetis dun that I tied myself out of respect for the great designers of the past, with hopes that someday I might experience the brilliance of this particular fly design. I cast a few times, relishing the feeling of the rod loading in rhythm with the water, then release my cast forward as the fly lands a bit short of my target. I pick up the line slowly and progressively off of the water’s surface, making several more casts and feeling the rhythm come into one with the sound of the river and the rising fish. I drop the cast further upstream and watch. The sun trickles through the cottonwood trees, camouflaging the brown, foamy surface of the rolling river. A fish rises to my fly without hesitation and I set, he is on and the circle is nearly complete. I vainly look to see that my father is watching, knows I have a fish on and he does. The rod bends against my shoulder and I leverage the fish near me. He rolls and runs a few times before finally coming back to me where I net him, release the hook from his jaw  and slide him back to the brown depths of his hiding spot beneath a watery stump.
My father still ties his leader, but is coming close to being ready to cast to these fish. I greedily cast upstream again and hook another nice brown, this one slightly bigger than the last. He comes in quickly, I net him and release him to the river. The rhythm of the rises slows and they move upstream to the shallower aspect of the riffle. They continue. A nose is all that is seen and a dimple forms in the surface of the water and a dun disappears. I watch with fly in hand as my father finishes his rig and steps into the water. He makes a few  casts, gets good drifts, yet gets no response from the fish. I ask him what diameter tippet he is using and what fly. He tells me and I think his tippet is too large and his fly is generic, not posessing the many intracacies of a simply crafted imitative tie. I tell him to tie on some smaller diameter tippet and give him one of the no hackles. He walks to the bank and changes up. The fish continue to rise and I make another cast upstream. After a few rolls down the surface, a beautiful brownie takes it back to the bottom, I set and he is hooked, we’re connected and he doesn’t appreciate the relationship. My rod is strong graphite and transfers energy quickly, tugging at his slightest moment of rest. He comes in quickly and I net him, take the fly out and let him go. My father is nearly ready now with a rig he part way believes in.
I know there’s a big fish in this riffle because I caught him a few weeks back on a caddis larva bounced off the bottom. That’s why I came down here. I hadn’t caught him or heard of him for a while and wondered if he still existed in trout form or if someone had fooled him and hadn’t had the grace to forgive his mistake and release him, sore mouthed and smarter. I knew at that moment that the next cast would catch the biggest fish of the day, and if it was the biggest fish, would be the same bug gobbling, kipe jawed brown I had met before. I stood in the river as it rushed around my legs with my fly in hand and watched peacefully as the fish slowly rose to baetis duns. There was nothing left undone at that point and I knew that I’d be happier to have my dad catch that fish than to catch him myself. I stepped out of the river onto the bank.
He let out line and began to cast. The first few actually smacked the water a bit but were far right in the slack water and didn’t disturb anything. He was just loosening up his shoulder, I guess; waiting for the rod to load just right and to present his cast when that nice fish would be ready to eat his fly. He made a cast upstream to the head of the riffle- a long cast with the leader softly piling, leaving curls to allow for the fly to float unhampered. It floated naturally. I watched the little gray duck quill wings bob on the surface throughout the rays of light that shined across the stained river and in an instant, the little wings were gone. He set and the fish was on. My dad made sure I was watching and I was. He didn’t think it was that big because it wasn’t tearing downstream. But when he got it in close, for a second, the excitement in his voice was unmistakable. It was a big one. In fact, it was the biggest fish he had ever caught out of this river and he caught it on a dry fly, that his son had tied, in a hole that his son had caught fish in many days and minutes before. He caught that big fish in such a way because he had taught his son to fish, sharing what he loved and it came back to him. They both knew this and were equally grateful. I said I’d get a picture and landed the fish for him in my net, got the fly out and gave him a watery breath before handing him back. He raised the brute brown to the level of his chest and humbly smiled as the trout rested gently in his gentle hands- his long snout and dark vibrant eyes reflecting the joy of the moment. He lowered him slowly back to the water and let him suspend until he finally regained his bouyancy, strength and bearings- tailing his way down deep, to a nice hole where he’d recuperate for a while.
As the memory fades I can look back and something deep within me tries hard to hang on to that day, knowing that it is gone. I write about it now, hoping to find something new, to re live it. And by some great miracle it is alive in my memory and now is free on this page and always will be. In my mind, the trees still have scent and movement with the wind. The water still has a cold temperature and the rocks are dry and bare. The fish is large and unique. The man is happy. I am smiling behind the camera for so many reasons. Again, I feel my eyes well with tears as I say goodbye to this story. I know that day will never come again and somewhere deep I am grateful. I know with the depth of my joy and pride that I gave back to the man who gave me my art. And I am present with the understanding that all of life’s moments pass quickly. So I believe we should reach out, give, create and be free, remembering faithfully that nothing is ever really gone- it is preparing to return, in a different form.

The Road to Nakomis

The wind echoes love, happiness and joy.

Back in 1954 there was a young man who learned to fly fish. He began as a young boy and learned from his father and brother. They had split cane bamboo rods from the Bay of Tonkin and  fished with flies they had tied themselves. This meant that if you could tie and you could fish then you’d be catching, but if your skills weren’t up to par, then you might be a bit frustrated and sore that your fellows could. This air of competition drove the boy. He believed that it was the source of his accomplishment- a long cast to a rising fish, a rise and a set, a fight and a release was proving equality to his father and brother. He had not yet realized that all people are equal, regardless of how they fish and how many fish they catch. But, he would slowly learn that competition was a brief flight and that the depth of personal soul satisfaction was a soaring journey.
Being the youngest of the men in the family, the young fly fisherman had to be very astute and aware when fishing the stream. He was relatively small and had not yet learned to use the spirit of the river to empower his soul and inspire his gifts. He pushed and screamed at greatness by becoming increasingly tenacious in his battles with the river and its trout.His battles were mostly fought with himself though and he spent many minutes tying knots, untying knots and undoing knots he tied in trees. By a river, prolonged silences of deep concentration unlock mysteries of the self- the fluidity that ineluctably is intertwined as the current, flowing as the soul.
As the young boy’s will carried him deeper into the riparian environment, pursuing a quarry of brown, rainbow and brook trout, his sense of immersion cut deep like the fast water through the rocky canyon. When he fished, he no longer existed as a fisherman with a rod casting a line into the water, but as one with the river, like a moveable rock, momentarily anchored to the streambed, fully connected through his awareness to the pulse and rhythm of the flowing water. His rod and line became extensions of his being- his very soul was refreshed with the change of the water as it flowed against his body. The river was his love. He was loyal to it and it kept him honest, consistently skunking him and rewarding his committment with a tight line to a fish. The greatest gift that the river would give was a mysteriously wild and profound nature- always flowing, effortlessley carrying life through the land and sustaining the abundant existence of trout- the wonderful fish that loved to take a fly dressed with hair from the deer and elk and feathers from the pheasant, rooster and duck. It was a wonderful and perfectly balanced world that the young boy had found and he cherished it to the very center of his core.
He grew up as most in the town; attending public schools, playing sports and drinking beer with his friends- getting glimpses of who he was becoming. During his adolescence, his dreams of the river faded from consciousness and moved into an unknown realm of his being where they seemed silent but actually, were as close to the fore of his mind as his breathing. He went to college in another town, traveled abroad, dated strange women and spent many hours pursuing the roar of his silence. He hiked in mountains near his home- named after bears. Many a day he would walk through the forest, sensing but not seeing, great mountain predators like the cougar, bear and coyote. His movements were reflected in the sense and presence of their movements. These moments of deja vu were what he sought and he could always sense their low  and distant growl. As when we seek something, we seek to see a reflection of ourselves- an internal illumnination of the self that resonates freedom. So too, the young man searched for the wildness and freedom that he sensed in the roar of the river and the quaking of the pines- lightning crashing at dusk or a black bear who sat peacefully on a hill in the trees, basking in the morning sun.
Silently, like a distant thunderstorm the river rocked and rolled through his dreams, lulling him through bad times and showing him the choices to be made in his life. The wilderness and the river became his voice of confidence and he modeled his sense of self after the principles that he sensed. Its natural principals were constant and pure. Water and gravity were its laws and it flowed free. From this basis, it grew like a rain soaked, sun drenched plant, expanding lusciuosly in all directions, beautifully blooming and rejuvinating with the seasons. It also supported and enhanced life in all forms. He began to believe that this was the nature of all life.
After he graduated there wasn’t much for him in terms of a job, as a humanities major. He studied literary theory mostly with shades of english, philosophy, sociology and psychology along with a breath of anthropology. He could easily have become an insurance salesman. He decided through many interviews in suits and ties with computers by his side that he needed to be outdoors. He could feel the river running wildly through him.
Returning home, he made a long road trip to Las Vegas and then on to the eastern interior of the California National Parks. He drove and drove, refining himself or what he had believed to be himself out of existence. He had his dog along and everything that he owned. He had told himself and his family that if he found a place that he liked enough, that he would stay there. It turned out that what he really needed was to run far away from what he felt he was becoming- a bland apparition of what he had dreamed of as a child. He had sensed the infinite and endlessley possible nature of life. And ever since, somewhere deep inside of him, grew a voice of ultimate freedom, through immersion and eventual atonement with nature. In those California hills he broke through his imagined bonds and dreamed of unbridaled brilliance. And it was in the adventure that he released what he was afraid of and in this release he saw the harmonious light of the natural world reflected in himself. He drove down through the valley with his dog hanging his head out of the window- rain clouds passed in and out of the sun light. He was singing and yelling, laughing and crying while the sun shone with all of its glory into his eyes. It was as if he had been asleep the entire time and only by taking this journey could he once again find the freedom to consciously channel the power in the universe. He had once again captured his vision. It was then that he began to miss his family. So he raced home. It seemed he was always running to something unknown or running home.
It was upon his return that he finally began to understand the true power of the river and its capacity for connection with the infinite nature of the universe. He spent so much time there, listening and breathing, fishing and catching, releasing and understanding the true nature of his existence and life as he saw it reflected in the nature of things. He worked in a fishing shop and attracted people to him who also loved the river and felt a connection with him because he knew how they felt. People came to him for stories and advice and left with serenity and gratitude for what they had heard, whispered by the water and the wind, into their ears as they moved on the river.
As he drove up the river one day he heard a song in his head: “Lord take me fishin, to the river, to the mountains, I will listen to your rhythm and I’ll hear your sweet goodbye…. Lord take me fishin, the only place I feel at home, to the water, the rushing water, I will hear your sweet hello.” The river had become his mode for expression. It was how he was able to connect with his entire life- for the river was an undercurrent through everything. Throughout all of the problems with his family or of his self, he could become a molecule of water and float through his past, present or future, knowing that his being would never end.
As the great Norman Maclean wrote, “all things merge into one and a river runs through it.” This line had become the boy’s secret belief for so long and he tried so hard to evolve it beyond its meaning. He tried to sense further than he perceived Maclean to have written because he felt that he could hear more deeply and express more perfectly, what he had sensed on the river. He was trying to write ‘perfection,’ that in writing the word, like Maclean, it was transformed from what it was. He heard the river tell him to listen to himself- for another’s greatness is not one’s own. So he trusted, letting go of everything, even the river itself.
Mystic and magical experiences are such that they cannot be consciously predicted. They come on like a head rush and are so vividly present and engulfing that one forgets if they are awake or if they are dreaming. There is a nauseaus vibration, darkening of the vision and a feeling of ultimate release. Standing there, casting his rod with the water rushing around him he would hear the words of some inaudible language, whispering the secrets of eternity. He listened so deeply that he became the river.
Being away from the river didn’t mean much any more. There was an unexplainable force that was always present with him wherever he went that was the river and it flowed like a breath through his subconscious mind and actions. It was as if everything that he sensed was filtered through the river and was cleansed or at least seemed to be purified to the young man so that when it arrived on the surface once again, he would see it for exactly what it was. This method of existence carried the young man through many times of tragedy and love. He realized that the depth of one’s character is only as deep as his or her understanding of his or her own infinite nature. He knew that water, like his soul was ever flowing and ever changing and without recognition, would remain this way. And in this way, the boy become one with his life. The river within him had come to a slow and long riffle where the rocks seemed predictable but where all life in the river began and ended. The boy flowed naturally through this time in his life. He lived with no foresight, except for the absolute faith that the channel of his soul was cut and he was the current as it was his soul, rushing in and out of consciousness, flowing further into an ever evolving field of transformation and awareness.
The boy was fishing one day. As he walked up the river’s edge he heard a wind rushing through the tops of the trees. It whispered something different. He was delighted at the beautiful sound of the wind as it was only audible because of the leaves brushing against one another- the leaves grew on the tree because of the water in the nearby river, and he was wholly astonished, amazed and eternally grateful for simply knowing this. His dog was with him that day. The brown and white springer spaniel traveled with him on all his trips, seeking the expanse of things. They made each other happy and loved each other unconditionally. Their souls were knowingly one.
The boy was fishing that day because he was able to and frequently took the opportunity to do so. Already having caught a few fish, he and the dog walked up the stream. He carried his rod in his right hand. The dog ran through the woods and back to the river, making noises of excitement and encouraging the boy to go further. The wind blew through the trees and there were faint clouds that moved with the winds above the mountains. The river rushed gently in its perfectly carved natural path- currents flowing water in and out, around and above each other. Slowly and naturally, there was a deep and powerful inaudible whisper, as that which is inhaled and released itself once again. The boy and the dog were gone. They became the earth, the wind and the river- always together because the nature of their departure was a transformation of their energy. Their love for the river and each other brought them in tune with the frequency of eternity. Recognizing their love for everything, the earth brought them into herself.
No one mourned their departure because it was intuitively understood. They were not missed because they were not gone. They were only gone to those who hadn’t known them- there was no loss and the thunderous dimensions of that which is beyond knowing continued to whisper to those who listened. The love of the boy  and his dog filled the air that passed in the wind through the canyon where they had fished. And each time someone came to listen, hearing past themselves to the roaring of the river and the quaking of the trees, they heard joy and they heard love because that was what the world whispered.

The End

August 7, 2007
Fort Collins, Colorado

A Fly Fishing, Hunting and Outdoor Journal

This site will be my on-line journal regarding time spent in the river and in the woods and mountains. The majority of the content will be centered upon fly fishing. I’ll divide up forums for particular discussions like fly design, locations, techniques and current information as it comes to me. There will also be a section for stories. I hope that whoever reads anything on this site gains something positive from it and their awareness of the natural environment expands enough that they’ll be compelled to a life of conservation. Best of luck.