Dream Stream: Sometimes a Man Needs to Keep Walking

Below is a revised re-post from two years ago when I learned the value of being willing to walk in search of big fish. It is that time of year already as some big fish are moving up out of 11 mile reservoir into the Dream Stream. Below are a few thoughts on the mindset of the big fish hunter.  A.S

Sometimes a man has to just keep walking. Such was the case when I found myself on the "Dream Stream" section of the South Platte River in South Park. I had to keep walking along the meanders on down toward 11 mile reservoir looking for a hole or run to fish in between the crowds. I carried 2 rods rigged and ready,  in case I found an opening; in case I spotted a big fish. However,  I never saw a big fish. I never found a good run. With the Platte flowing at a trickle of 50 cfs., I simply could not find good holding water not already occupied. Fly fishers were holding tight to whatever water they could find and were not budging.

At the inlet to 11 mile reservoir, I turned around, and started walking back up the river. I did see some small fish in marginal thin water, but I kept walking. I did not make a single cast.  I was not interested in casting to small fish. This is the dream stream, home to big trout and I had big fish on the brain. I was being as selective as big fish can sometimes act.  

When stalking big fish it helps to have this mindset of refusing to cast to smaller fish. It helps if you can be willing to catch nothing in hope of waiting for that one big fish. Why fool around with little fish and waste time? Better to keep walking. Better to keep searching. Keep waiting.

However, it takes a certain kind of nerve to be willing to report back to your friends that you caught nothing. It takes a certain kind of nerve to be ok within one's self not catching a fish. How much easier it is on the ego, at least to be able to say, "I got a few small ones."  Yet, this is what the big fish hunter must be willing to do. You have to be willing to "get skunked." And this too is part of the mind set of being a big fish hunter.

This is why it is better to go alone when fishing for big game. When you go with others, we often get wrapped up in the need to catch something as we forever try to measure up to one another.  We can become desperate and focus on catching something; anything, so we do not look bad. Have we not all felt this way while fishing in a group?  We start thinking, "I can't be the only one who did not catch a fish," and so, losing our focus, we start casting to small fish.   Better to stalk big fish alone, unconcerned about the demands of the ego that often takes us off course.

This is why it is better to not even tell anyone you are going. When your friends and family know you are fishing you then have to "give a report," of how the fishing went when you return.  In some sense that fishing report makes you not alone. While you fishing you are already writing the fishing report in your head, complete with excuses and distortions and that report will influence how you fish. On the other hand, to tell no one you have gone, is to truly fish alone and be free from their influence and the pressures we place upon ourselves and our egos.

This is why, on this particular day, I was free to  keep walking the Dream Stream.  I was alone and I had told no one. I was able to keep walking and willing to hold out for what I was truly seeking. If need be, I was willing to get skunked for that cause. I was willing to keep walking with knowing I might catch nothing. I was willing to not even make a single cast until I found a run that might hold one big fish.

It was after taking a two hour walk and when I was just about all the way back to the parking lot, that I noticed 3 gentlemen leaving the gauging station hole just below the county road bridge. I stepped in the tail out of the hole. Before casting, I thought about my long walk. I guess that was all I had done for the past two hours. I had gone for a nice walk along the Dream Stream looking for a fish that forever lives in my dreams.

No one was with me. No one knew I had even gone. I was free to not catch a fish. I did not have to report to anyone. I did not even have to make a single cast.

It was in that freedom that I made my first cast of the morning. It was in that deep, dark, and mysterious hole that the big Brown took the small red midge and I felt the pull of a great fish.

I found what I was looking for.  Sometimes a man has to just keep walking.