Aervax
Fly fishing can be one of those Zen art forms. Meaning you can learn enough to catch a few fish within 2 or 3 hours practice, but it takes a life time to master. I have been tying flies, since I was 14. Here I am 37 years later and still learning new things every time I get on the water.
I loved the book Zen and the Art of Archery. It is the book I read in the wilds while sipping scotch and dragging on my contraband smuggled Cuban cigars. I know. I know. The quality coming out of Dominica and Central America can be as good or better these days, but illegal cigars just taste better to me. Someone must have done the same with a fly fishing book. If they haven't, maybe we should try to write it as a club with a percentage of royalties going toward OFF outings and gear for a youth fishing club.
Thoughts along this line prompt a Zen like memory of my 85 y.o. father and his diary entry about me teaching him how to catch German Brown Trout on a Rocky Mountain river on a hot summer moonless night 20 years ago. In the dark it is all about feel and is very nuanced. Feel of the weight of the line, combined with drag weight of the gentle current, all tied to the subtle change in tension when the trout slurps the fly in the dark. Time that with setting the hook and one has a complex equation to work out on every cast.
Dad is not a regular angler and was having a hard time sensing these subtleties. It is not easy to do. I had him close his eyes, so I could shine a flashlight on his line and describe the changes I was seeing, while he felt them. Still no catch'em.
As a last resort, I handed off the light and instructed him to watch the line while I fished with my eyes closed and described the line changes I was feeling, while he watched it happen. I landed and released 3 brown trout over the next 3 casts. My recollection of the event ends about there.
His diary entry says he refused the rod when I went to hand it back. He says he instructed me to keep going until I did not catch a fish, and that I went 13 consecutive casts landing 13 browns before not getting a bite. He eventually caught a few that night. My younger brother was a few feet away catching a bunch. It was 3:00 A.M. by the time we got my 65 y.o. father into bed. He was a professor and not the outdoor type. I doubt we could get him to fish most of the night long twice in a life time.
It is such a meaningful memory for all of us now. Remembering the emotion of feeling close, triumphant, and brotherly in our manly pursuit makes my eyes moist with reminiscence. I wish we had done more of it and made more memories together when he was healthy enough to go fishing with us.
Take your Dad or Mom fishing if she is the one. One day he or she won't be well enough to go, and it will be too late for you to make the best kind of memories together.
I loved the book Zen and the Art of Archery. It is the book I read in the wilds while sipping scotch and dragging on my contraband smuggled Cuban cigars. I know. I know. The quality coming out of Dominica and Central America can be as good or better these days, but illegal cigars just taste better to me. Someone must have done the same with a fly fishing book. If they haven't, maybe we should try to write it as a club with a percentage of royalties going toward OFF outings and gear for a youth fishing club.
Thoughts along this line prompt a Zen like memory of my 85 y.o. father and his diary entry about me teaching him how to catch German Brown Trout on a Rocky Mountain river on a hot summer moonless night 20 years ago. In the dark it is all about feel and is very nuanced. Feel of the weight of the line, combined with drag weight of the gentle current, all tied to the subtle change in tension when the trout slurps the fly in the dark. Time that with setting the hook and one has a complex equation to work out on every cast.
Dad is not a regular angler and was having a hard time sensing these subtleties. It is not easy to do. I had him close his eyes, so I could shine a flashlight on his line and describe the changes I was seeing, while he felt them. Still no catch'em.
As a last resort, I handed off the light and instructed him to watch the line while I fished with my eyes closed and described the line changes I was feeling, while he watched it happen. I landed and released 3 brown trout over the next 3 casts. My recollection of the event ends about there.
His diary entry says he refused the rod when I went to hand it back. He says he instructed me to keep going until I did not catch a fish, and that I went 13 consecutive casts landing 13 browns before not getting a bite. He eventually caught a few that night. My younger brother was a few feet away catching a bunch. It was 3:00 A.M. by the time we got my 65 y.o. father into bed. He was a professor and not the outdoor type. I doubt we could get him to fish most of the night long twice in a life time.
It is such a meaningful memory for all of us now. Remembering the emotion of feeling close, triumphant, and brotherly in our manly pursuit makes my eyes moist with reminiscence. I wish we had done more of it and made more memories together when he was healthy enough to go fishing with us.
Take your Dad or Mom fishing if she is the one. One day he or she won't be well enough to go, and it will be too late for you to make the best kind of memories together.
