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)