Fly Fishing Within the Kingdom: Who Am I?

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within. Perhaps we can think of this teaching as also meaning that when we allow the kingdom of God to manifest it self within us, that we are then living in the kingdom.

So, what would it be like to fly fish within the kingdom of God? What would I be like?  Who would I be?

While I know in many ways I would still be “me” I also tend to think I would be “more”. Over the years I have been vaguely aware that there is a more whole “me” somewhere. This is someone who is not injured, angry, impatient and jaded.

I often think of this “me” as the one who sometimes walks beside me, but I do not see. This is the one I most often forget and yet sometimes visit.  Some might call this “other” a spiritual twin, a child of God, the inner beloved, or the true divine self of God being within. This is the one who walks in the kingdom of God, and even now, on occasion, walks beside me.  

Words and names and places and time frames do not matter. 

I just know that when I allow this “other” to manifest within me that I find myself being more kind to other fly fishers on the river. I find myself being more patient and helpful. I make room for people on the river.  I walk where I would normally not walk to give a fly away. I share what I know with others. I am more forgiving of the mistakes and mishaps of others. I can better remain calm and silent when I or my client breaks a big fish off.  This is the one who remains thankful,  joyful and hopeful.  

Who is this? 

I usually can’t see him but sometimes I visit with him briefly.

I never got his name.

Yet it somehow helps me to know he is there. It helps me to know that “I” at least on occasion, can walk an extra mile, forgive gently, and remain quiet and calm. It helps me to know that this other one, this one that is both “me” and not me, sometimes walks in the kingdom of God as he should.

Soon, I hope to fish with him again and watch him. I think it is important that I can still see him on occasion. I hope I should never lose sight of him.

The poem by Juan Jimenez titled, “I Am Not I”, describes this “other” precisely:

    I am not I.

    I am this one

    walking beside me whom I do not see,

    whom at times I manage to visit,

    and whom at other times I forget;

    who remains calm and silent while I talk,

    and forgives, gently, when I hate,

    who walks where I am not,

    who will remain standing when I die.

More Trico Tricks for the South Platte River. I Can't Find the Fly!

I am re-posting  these trico tricks from  last summer for those of you who may  have just joined the dialogue on how to better fish trico dry flies.

Sometimes while fishing the Trico hatch I lose the fly. I just can’t find it on the water. But I catch a lot of fish by guessing. But it is not just guessing. I try to make somewhat logical guesses.  If you also lose your fly here are a few tricks.

A well known trick is to use a larger lead fly so that you can spot the bigger and more visible fly. Keep in mind that your second fly, which is smaller and more true to the size of the naturals (but often not visible), will be somewhere in the immediate area of the first fly. I tell my clients, “Ok, follow a pizza pie size piece of water around your first fly, drifting down;  if you see a rise anywhere inside that pizza, strike.”  Or, you can use the first fly like a strike indicator. If it dips under, strike.  But keep in mind, (and this is perhaps a lesser known trick), if your trick of using a larger fly stops working you might have to take it off and only use the smaller fly. Every year toward the end of summer I have noticed that these trout will wise up to the use of a large attractor fly. It literally can scare fish away in the same way that large strike indicators can. So when the fish get tough, I go smaller and use other tricks. 

If after you cast and you can’t find your fly on the water try to guess about where it is “supposed to land” and follow that “piece” of water down with your eyes. Zoom in on a group of bubbles and follow it down.  If you see a rise in that piece of water, then strike. I have had some success asking my clients to look for the leader in mid air before it lands on the water. It seems this helps them better know where to look. It also helps if you shorten your casts!!!!!!! I probably say it a thousand times a season, “Shorten up your cast. Find your fly."  

I have also noticed that when a fish takes the artificial fly from the surface, often the rise makes a “greater disturbance” than the other fish that are taking naturals. I think this might be because the fish senses the leader or the hook and they kind of panic a little bit and make a “greater disturbance”. I just know that often while guiding others (or even fishing myself) and I see this “greater disturbance” , a more dramatic rise, but we cannot actually see the fly,  I will yell, strike, and often a fish is on.

Learn to use a parachute and reach mend cast. I will not take the time here to explain these casts but I am sure you can look them up on the internet. Both of these casts basically involve pulling the leader back at the last second allowing the fly and leader to slowly float down to the surface. With such a landing it is actually quite easy to see the end of your leader and your fly and where it is going to land and therefore it is easier to spot.

If you learn to use these reach mend and parachute casts, not only will you be better able to spot your fly but you will better be able to see how you are achieving a nearly perfect drift so the fish sees the FLY FIRST and not the leader because the leader will be upstream of the fly. These “FLY FIRST” presentations are by far my most effective casts. It is the best trick that I know.

Great Dry Fly Fishing at Deckers; Tricos, PMD's

Dry fly fishing is usually a more challenging way to fish, or, at least on the South Platte River where the fish sip in tiny insects in the 18-24 hook size range. Folks who have been fishing the river like myself for decades often develop little tricks to help them.  My clients and I  found great dry fly fishing today at Deckers on Trico's and PMD's.  The fish were still rising at 2:15 pm when we left. It is a beautiful thing to see a fish rise to a dry fly.

More Trico Tricks for the South Platte River: Using Peripheral Vision

In my last post I briefly touched on the need for the fly fisher to rest the rising fish in a run for a few minutes by simply casting to other fish in the immediate area. This seems to be effective because it allows the fish to get back into their rhythm of feeding on the natural tricos. And so when you cast to the other fish and or come back to the original fish you can sometimes trick them into taking your artificial Trico by catching them "off guard". So, the short rest period allows the fish to eat natural after natural. I picture the fish almost thinking, "Yum, yum, yum;..... Yum, yum, yum", with each rise. By allowing  the fish to feed, you are sort of lulling it to sleep. The fish will slip out of that  hypersensitive state of awareness of possible danger from all your casting. 

I think one of the best ways to do this is to try to see the bigger picture while fishing. I  try to use my peripheral vision to pick up other  fish that are rising outside of the main run I might be fishing. Out of the corner of my eye, I might catch a glimpse of a surface disturbance upstream or downstream or across or somewhat behind me. I may even hear a gulp. I try to pay attention to these cues and cast to these other fish for a few minutes before going back to the main run.. 

Beginner fly fishers sometimes have a difficult time paying attention to the big picture as they can get so focused on a limited piece of water. I guess we could say it is quite easy to be “short sighted”.  It can be difficult to see the “other” fish in the area because one can be so focused on a few fish in one drift line. Try to remember even a seemingly “small” section of river is quite large and can hold many fish in all kinds of unlikely places.

Use all of your vision. Look around. Even while you have one eye on the drift of your trico try to have another eye looking around for other rising fish.  The river you are fishing, the world, and certainly life is all quite large. There are more fish than the immediate run you are fishing.

 I think of a line of poetry from William Blake, “If the windows of our perception were cleansed everything would appear as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern”.

Maybe it is similar to trying to “see” God looking through the narrow chinks of our caverns. It is far too limited and short-sighted.

Trico Tricks For Wary Trout on The South Platte River

“I may be old and I may not be as strong, but I know many tricks”, said Santiago, the ‘old man’ who hooked the giant marlin in “The Old Man and the Sea”.

It is Trico time again on the South Platte River. Large trout can be seen every morning sipping on Trico spinners. Here are some of the tricks that have helped me. (I have also posted these last summer).

One of the most simplistic tricks, (but most effective and overlooked), while dry fly fishing the famous South Platte Trico Mayfly hatch is to simply cast somewhere else. I have watched fly fishers cast again and again over the same fish in the same exact drift line hoping the fish will eventually take the fly. I do know that determination and persistence will often pay off but I have found that if I simply take a few steps,  cast to a different fish and a different feeding lane that I sometimes pick up a fish right away. Or even if I do not pick up a fish by casting in a different spot I often will get a rise when I cast back to the original feeding lane. I call this “fishing in circles” and “resting the fish” or “finding a fish that wants to play”.   When I think about it logically this approach makes some sense. If I can turn around to cast to fish behind me or just somewhere else,  then  the original fish I was trying to catch will quickly began to set up and feed more heavily without me disturbing them. They quickly get in a rhythm of their own with out sensing me,  the fly fisher throwing line on top of them, poking them with hooks, etc. Even just resting fish for a minute or two allows them to gulp down hundreds of bugs unmolested. And then when I do come back to them and cast over them I find them more eager to take my fly. They are less wary having enjoyed eating hundreds of “real” bugs. When I am guiding others and we come back to the original run of fish, I will often say to my client, “Ok, they are off guard now, make your first cast count. Expect a rise on the first cast. Don’t tell the fish you are here again by making a bad cast”.  Over the last several days (and decades) I have given this advice to my clients and it has been effective.

I am not sure if there is some parallel that can be made to real life. Maybe it is as simple as knowing that when you find yourself doing the same thing over and over and it is not working, try something different. Or even if what you are doing is working, “examine” it, and try something new anyway. You might discover some new insight.

The Return of Deckers: South Platte River

There are just a lot of nice fish in the South Platte River right now feeding on trico mayflies. The fish may not be as numerous as in past decades  (before the fire) but they seem to be larger and stronger than ever.  Deckers is coming back !

Most Amazing Day At Deckers South Platte River

What describes a fishing day as amazing?  Certainly it seems to be something more than the number or size of fish caught.  “Some-thing” more amazing than us and our abilities and expectations, must define the day. Some times guides such as my self are slow to learn this truth.

Today I took a couple out to Deckers that had never trout fished before.  They certainly did not know anything of how the river was before the big fire or during earlier decades. I remembered those former amazing days even as we fished. Those memories flowed down the river and gave way to a new day.

This couple found this day to be most amazing as they hooked beautiful rainbows and browns. One Brown catapulted out of the river 8 times before surrendering to the net.  One deep bodied rainbow went 18-19 inches. These were amazing battles from amazing fish that made my clients chase fish down river.

A morning of multiple landings and break offs and pullouts of good fish. 

After each fish was landed this fine couple said “thank you”.  I mean, they said those words out loud. They deeply appreciated the beauty of each fish, the amazing sky and the river. They kept saying, “This place is beautiful; this place is amazing. Thank you”.

And then I too, who am a bit slow to be grateful realized it had indeed been a most amazing day. This fine couple with grateful hearts had made it so and I shared it with them.  

I too could say thank you. Thank You.

“I thank you God for this most amazing day, for leaping greenly spirits of trees, for a true blue dream of sky above; for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is, yes”.

e.e. Cummings  

What's Working On the South Platte RIver?

When folks ask me what’s working while fly fishing in our difficult and ultra selective trout waters of the South Platte River I often respond by saying, “Nothing and everything”.

And this is often the truth. Or, so it seems. A certain fly might catch a fish or two and then it no longer works. I try a different fly and it might work for another fish but that is all. I then change back to the first fly or another of the dozens and dozens of flies I carry with me and it may or may not work. Hence, “Nothing and everything works”.

Besides trying to figure out what works while fly fishing I also often speak, talk or write about there being something spiritual about fly fishing. Folks will ask me to explain and in a sense ask, “What works that makes fly fishing spiritual”?  When I am really pushed to explain what it is exactly that I find to be spiritual or Christian about fly fishing I also respond with the same, “Nothing and everything”.

And this too often seems to be the truth.

At times finding Christ in nothing and yet at other times in the rocks, water, fish and sky. Everything.

And at times finding Christ in the eyes and faces of men peering into the currents in search of trout.  

“Christ- for Christ plays in ten thousand places;

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the father through the features of men’s faces;”

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89)