I was recently blessed with a subscription to Angler’s Journal, a fishing publication, and came upon the following excerpt from an article by Cathy Newman from its Spring 2017 issue which spoke to me:
“I knew little about freshwater fishing; my experience was limited to a line dipped in the small, placid lakes of central Florida. This was Huck Finn-type fishing with a bamboo pole, a red and white plastic bobber and a worm dangled before a willing catfish. Fly-fishing in the swift current of a steam, I would learn, was different—and difficult. Norman Maclean, author of A River Runs Through It, has written that, ‘If you have never picked up a fly rod before, you will soon find it factually and theologically true that man by nature is a damn mess.’ Maclean is right and, as a minister, is well-qualified to comment on the theology part. Mastering the unfurling line of a double-haul, I discovered, really does put you in a state of grace.
“My first trout was a rainbow caught on a blue-winged olive on the Delaware River. When the rod bowed and the line lifted, my heart leaped higher than the fish. There was, I discovered, existential calm to be found in the rhythmic flicking of a wisp of feather and fur at a rising fish. A Trout Unlimited conservationist once explained to me that of all major sport fish, trout are the most demanding of pristine habitat. ‘When you have trouble in the environment,’ he said, ‘trout are the first to go. But when trout are where they ought to be, all is right with the world.’
“Standing in the cold pull of current in a steam, I felt that rightness.”
May the trout be with you, all (as will soon be the case)!!
RCR---<’///:><
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