It’s Friday morning, a vacation day planned for me to get away from it all and spend some quality time on the water by myself. Recent impacts to the automotive industry had put me in the difficult position of ‘staff adjustments’ yesterday and I need some mental decompression time. I am excited of the fact that I recently won a beautiful Battenkill Mid Arbor reel and Orvis Wonderline from Flies and Fins and today is the day to hopefully christen the new reel with some fish. I checked the USGS website yesterday evening to find that the water levels are lower than they have been in weeks on the Swift river but still much higher than normal for this time of year. I head out and arrive to find that the entire river upstream of where I parked is free of other fisherman, likely due to the water being so high. In the areas where I’m normally in mid-thigh water I now find myself in water that is cresting the bottom of my chestpack and forcing me to stand sideways against the current to maintain my footing. After watching the surface water passing me for 10 minutes I finally see a single spinner go by and due to the lack of surface activity I decide to tie on a Hare’s Ear wet fly and begin to swing the current. After about 20-30 casts I had thoroughly covered the area and was thinking of switching to a heavily weighted dual-nymph rig when on my final strip retrieve I got an agressive strike and had a fish on. The fight was short and sweet and I netted, photographed, and released a small rainbow of about 13 inches. I stayed with the wet fly for another few casts and decided to change my setup and fish the seams and slower water. As I was setting up a dual nymph rig I hear a few loud splashes behind me and my heart rate increased with exitement as I looked behind me to see signs of where the fish were making all that noise. I soon realized that it was not fish but a family of Canada geese getting into the river from the shore just upstream from my location and they were headed right by me. Mom, Dad, and 5 ‘teenage’ gosselings were headed my way so I took the time to enjoy their presence and stopped what I was doing for a few minutes as they swam within 20 feet of me and continued upstream. I snapped a quick photo and was back to finishing my fly change.Fishing stayed slow with a couple of missed hits (could have been the shot hitting the bottom but I like to think they were fish) so I decide to change to an emerger and small nymph trailer. I looked down to my chestpack and noticed a large dragonfly upside down in the water passing me struggling to right himself. At this point I had to decide whether to allow him to be fish-food or to help him get out of the water. Fishing was slow so I scooped him out of the water with my net and placed him on my chestpack to dry off. He seemed perfectly content for the next hour or so as he dried off and he didn’t seem to mind me accessing the pack every now and then forcing him to move or adjust his position. I hooked into a second rainbow after a while and completely forgot about my new friend as I brought the fish to net, another rainbow of about 16 inches and full of vigor. I got my camera and tried to get a quick photo but the fish shook free of my loose grip and was back in his element as he quickly darted away from me. I noticed my dragonfly friend was still on my pack and decide to get a photo of him before he decided to leave. Brilliant blue and brown patterns on his tail made for a pretty nice photo. I gently pushed him away and he was off to hunt more insects.The sky was now a deep dark grey and I heard thunder rolling in the distance so I decided it was time to head out as I was carrying a graphite ‘lightning rod’ and didn’t feel like being in the paper this week.As I was hiking back to the vehicle I thought back to the day I had and realized that I truly enjoyed and interacted with nature, spent some quality time ‘not’ thinking about work, and caught some fish. The sky soon opened up and I had to stop and get my wading jacket on to avoid getting soaked. Driving home I realized that I have one of the best hobbies (passions) that a man could ask for. Some people are into yoga, others into meditation or acupuncture, but I can’t think of any other activity in which you can truly relax and let your worries slip away while at the same time getting so exited during a hook-up that you can feel your heartbeat in your chest. It’s easy to see why we are obsessed/passionate about this sport, I don’t think I’ll be making an appointment for acupuncture anytime soon.
flycaster,
that is one of the best things about fly fishing for me. when i am on the water … everything else just seems to disappear. the relaxation for me, does not necessarily result from a passive approach to fly fishing. for some people, i am sure that is the case – but for me, when i go fly fishing, i get so keyed in on what i am doing, to the point that time takes on a different dimension and all that i really and truly concerned with is what fly, wheres the fish, wonder if there is anything up there – down there – over there – at onother spot… so at the end of a fly fishing day — i find myself exhausted IN A GOOD WAY. it’s not the same type of exhaustion as anything else … its a good exhaustion.. my feet are sore, my legs and back are sore and my mind is tired from focusing on such essentianly meaningless things as what fly, where is the fish, what’s he eating?? etc…
the thing that i have found is this… sometimes, i get so wrapped up in the daily non-fishing related things … that, believe it or not, i actually have to force myself to go fly fishing sometimes .. living so close to fly fishing waters .. ever day around 3pm i get calls from various fly buddies ..”hey want to go take a few casts this evening after work?” many times, i have so much going on (as does everyone else in this fast past world we live in) and my first instinct is to say …”no dude, i can’t i got blah, blah, blah going on.” of course, those blah blah blah things matter a great deal … but somehow i have learned for myself that if i force myself to go it usually always puts things in a much better perspective… as soon as i show up on the striper flats, or a trout stream … all of the blah, blah, blah’s disappear for those few hours … when i get back home or to the office — i have a clearer perspective and the blah, blah, blah’s don’t seem as labor intensive and exhausting …. so, i appreciated your mentioning of the “real world” trials and tribulations that you face – and how fly fishing provides a much needed mental and physical break from those “real world” issues that never really go away. once one goes away – another takes its place — but just as that is true – so is the fact that the time on the water provides relief from the cycle of “real world” issues … ……. and, for me, that is probably the most important and valuable aspect of my fly fishing life.
great job and congrats. Ditto to all Jeremy’s comments, sometimes we just have to get away and usually that is only a mile or 2 down the street to be totally satisfied.