Fly Fishing On Uncertain Terms

It doesn’t really matter what the arena is; The job,  fly fishing, sports, debating politics, teaching, or dealing with complicated moral  religious issues, I have often been perplexed by the certainty I see expressed in others. There seems to be little doubt.

I don’t know if I missed a seminar somewhere on positive thinking, self confidence or self esteem. Or, maybe it was a class on how to always know the absolute one way to live life and always catch fish.

When it comes to fly fishing (and for that matter many areas of life) it often feels as though it is a “toss up” whether I will catch the fish I am stalking. It also feels like a toss up if I am offering the right advice to a client I may be guiding or a friend I may be offering counsel.

Maybe it is an illusion, but often when I talk to others I get the feeling they sound so much more certain. . This seems to be particularly true if one is offering a service or selling a product of some kind. We seem to be getting the message that one better come across as certain or people will lose their confidence in you and what you are offering. But there is something that seems inauthentic about always being so confident.

Ironically, I find some comfort when I hear uncertainty in the voices of those I interact. In fact, I am far more comfortable and trusting being around people who are less certain. I get particularly uneasy when people confidently start pontificating what God’s will is.

In regard to faith, I think our uncertainty and our doubting can be an indication that our faith is more authentic and reverent. But, often, I guess I am not even certain of the value of my doubting.

During an evening church service, minister and friend Dave Shaw shared with us some thoughts about reverence. This theme of certainty and uncertainty and knowing or not knowing God’s will was at the core of the discussion. We seemed to share the idea that proper reverence of what God’s will might be has some level of uncertainty. And in a sense this admitting of uncertainty is reverence.

We ended the evening when Dave shared some words by Abraham Lincoln while he was struggling with some very tough religious moral issues of his day.

“They come to me and talk about God’s will …

Day after day, laymen and ministers , . .  

Defining me, God’s will…

But all of them are sure they know God’s will,

I am the only one who does not know it.

And yet if it is probably that God

Should, and so very clearly state His will

To Others, on a point of my own duty, It might be thought He would reveal it to me

Directly, more especially as I

So earnestly desire to know his will”

( Paraphrase by Stephen Vincent Benet in “John Brown’s Body”)

And those words strangely help me feel better about not being so confident in myself. 

Brutal Facts: Calling It Like It Is. Honesty In Guiding and Communities

Sometimes when you are fly fishing and you make a bad cast it is better to just call it what is. Something like, “Well, that’s not even close. That was terrible”. Or, sometimes with some sarcasm you might say, “Nice cast you only missed by 20 feet”. Then regroup and try again knowing the brutal fact of how badly you messed it up.

I remember years ago reading the quote from Jim Collins. He said, “First, we have to look at the brutal facts”. I like this idea.  There is something about direct brutal honesty in regard to where we are at that is “clean” and powerful. Call it like it is.  We can grow from such honesty.

Besides poking fun of myself when I make a bad cast or do something stupid in life, I even sometimes say such “brutal” things to my clients. “Now, what were you thinking when you slapped the line and fly on the water”? We laugh. Often such honesty is appreciated and trusted but of course like most things in life, discretion has to be used.  And jokingly casting such brutal facts is also a bit of an art similar to the art of delicately landing a dry fly above a trout in shallow clear water. 

I find that often in life instead of being honest and direct we dance around the truth. Consider the corporate work world. David Whyte in, “The Heart Aroused” describes how a friend working for a big corporation had to respond to a presentation by an important CEO. Everyone in the room had to cast a number from 0-10 on what they thought of the proposed plan. So, they went around the room. One by one, each person gave the proposal a ten even though everyone knew this project was a zero. His friend listened and considered the proposal.  In his heart he knew this plan would not work. It came time for him to cast his vote and like a little mouse he squeaked out, “ten”. 

We waste a lot of time squeaking like mice.

Often when it comes to our families and communities we don’t say what we really think. Many church communities are particularly good at pretending. The poet William Stafford calls such pretending cruel,

“Although we can fool each other we should consider” . . .

 “I consider it cruel and perhaps the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact”. 

We pretend we don’t see the fact. We know what occurs but we don’t recognize it as a brutal fact. Such pretending only makes for a rather cruel situation as we remain lost in the dark. The power of the individual and his possible role and contribution to the community is lost.

1984 Fly Fishing; How Good Was The Fishing On The South Platte's 'Dream Stream' ?

 In George Orwell’s “1984” novel describing a dystopian society the main character Winston Smith is fascinated with what the past was really like. In his society all historical records have been fabricated and altered so he does not know what is true and what is propaganda.  Yet, Winston has “some kind of ancestral memory” of life being different and through out the story he seeks to know the truth.

In the novel, Winston seeks out an older gentleman and says, “You are very much older that I am. You must have been a grown man before I was born. You can remember what it was like in the old days. People of my age don’t really know anything about those times. We can only read about them in books, and what it says in the books may not be true. I should like your opinion on that”. 

As much as I hate to admit it, I am now one  of those older gentlemen who remembers what the fishing was like back in “1984”, or, if not specifically1984, then at least during  the 80’s and 90’s . And like Winston I too am seeking the opinion of others who may remember.

I can say with relative certainty that I have not seen the 'dream stream' as good as it was in those early years. Every run and riffle had dozens of large fish rising to tricos, caddis, PMD’s and midges. During the trico hatches it seemed as though the whole river was covered with hundreds and hundreds of rises. I don’t think I am distorting the past. I am sad as I remember. And I wonder what went wrong.   

As I lament the “good old days” for the dream stream I also think about what I can learn from this loss. Perhaps the most important issue is to know that there are no guarantees in regard to any high quality trout fishery. Just because a fishery is catch and release does not mean it will last forever. Tremendous pressure is placed upon our high quality waters.  While I do believe catch and release is our present day best solution and strategy for helping maintain a high quality fishery it is not the perfect solution. In my opinion more is needed to relieve the fishing pressure from the masses of fly fishers who hook and handle fish every day on such a river as the dream stream.

What can we do?  I think the first thing we need to do is to remember and lament what we lost.  Like Winston in 1984,  I ask older folks what they remember. What do you remember about the dream stream?  Then and only then can we figure out a way to bring it back.

Twenty Minutes

William Butler Yates describes in prose how for twenty minutes he felt overwhelming happiness. He felt it in his body while on the street he gazed;

My body of a sudden blazed;

And twenty minutes more or less

It seemed so great my happiness.

The poet waits 50 plus years to feel such happiness and apparently it came out of almost nowhere. It was while sitting alone in a crowded shop with an empty cup and open book and looking down the street.

“My fiftieth year had come and gone

I sat a solitary man,

In a crowded London shop,

An open book and empty cup

On the marble table top.”

The happiness was of such a great intensity that his “body blazed” and gave him the awareness that he could now bless others. There was something different about this happiness experienced. It was more than merely, “having fun” or merely “being happy” or being grateful or even being joyful. He felt blessed to the point that he then wanted to bless others.

Perhaps it is most interesting  that he describes this blaze of awareness taking place for only “Twenty minutes”. I immediately want to ask, “Huh. That’s it?  For twenty minutes”? You waited 50 years for twenty minutes of happiness?

“Why only twenty minutes”?  

And to complicate matters even more, I don’t think the poet means twenty minutes a day or a week or a month or even a year. I think in regard to a  blaze of happiness that can  then be a true blessing to others he means twenty minutes for his life time.

So, now as a reader you may want to ask, “Are you saying that we are only granted twenty minutes of happiness in our life time”?

To which I would have to answer, “Perhaps; Or, at least perhaps  for this type of happiness.”

When I honestly examine my own life of 50 plus years (as my fiftieth year has also come and gone), I would have to agree with the poet. It has been about twenty minutes of feeling that blaze.

There have been those moments of blaze, sometimes when  I have taught a young person to catch a trout for the first time and it was a blessing for both of us.  Twenty minutes. 

Unexplainable Common Ground On the South Platte River

“Do you fold your pizza”,  my client Jerry asked me as he was trying to get a good drift with his tiny dry fly?  He had spent a good part of his life in N.Y.   I had just let him know that I grew up in New Jersey and how I sometimes missed good pizza. So we talked about thin crust N.Y style pizza in contrast to doughy pizza.

We immediately had common ground.

I found the question a bit humorous. Here we were with his son standing in the middle of the South Platte River in Eleven Mile Canyon, trico mayflies and BWO’s  were all over the river, and fish were rising everywhere.   We were trying to tackle one of the most artistic and technical aspects of fly fishing: The presentation of the dry fly; a delicate task that demands all of our engagement and skill.  And he asks me if I fold my pizza.

I thought of the questions many of my beginner clients of the past ask me during such a hatch. Questions such as;  “So, how long do these mayflies live”?   Or, “How do the fish see such small flies”?  Or, “How am I suppose to see the fly”. Or, “How can you even see that thing to tie it on”? Or, time and time again, I hear, “I drifted the fly right over the fish why did he ignore it”?

Just then his son Robert yelled up from down stream that he had another one on. And he did, a nice Brown that was peeling out line and heading downstream over boulders.

Some where in the middle of this discussion on pizza Jerry caught a nice fish on a black and white parachute trico, and then another and another. And Robert got several more. Somewhere in between netting fish,  we also found out that we shared a common faith.

More common ground:  We shared in the common experience of how to delicately lay a tiny dry fly over a trout with a down and across ‘reach mend” cast and watch the fish rise. Surely, this is one of the marvels of fly fishing and requires a hope that is not so explainable.

The marvel of catching a rainbow or brown trout on a tiny dry fly is one of those things that simply cannot be explained. It has to be experienced in the same way that a perfect slice of pizza has to be folded.

Finally, I just told Jerry, “Of course I fold my pizza”.  

Don’t ask me to explain.

Funny how some times the simple things bond us and makes me feel “back home” or perhaps already  in the “home to come.”