Deckers Emerging Into Spring

The South Platte River at Deckers is trying to emerge into Spring even under a gray sky. Midges are appearing and some fish are beginning to rise. The Blue wings have not appeared yet for the most part. But in the meantime, fishing small black beauties to the suspended fish is effective. When in doubt go smaller. And I hate to mention this but if they still refuse, try 7X tippet.

How many did we catch? Enough.

Father Daughter Bonding at Deckers Fly Fishing

One of the most rewarding guide trips for me is to help a father and daughter create fly fishing memories together. With the warm weather lately, the fishing has been great. Feels like summer. Fish are taking San Juan Worms and midges.

I Need To Change My Life: Fly Fishing A River Offers An Opportunity

The great German speaking poet, Rainer Maria Rilke concluded one of his poems with the statement, “I need to change my life.”  The line comes out of nowhere.  It is a powerful conclusion and a proclamation stating a frustration with life that emanates from the poets own inner being.   And it also strikes a chord deep inside my soul.

I wonder if this sense of wanting my life to change in some deep manner is simply a part of the existential human condition.  Is it normal to struggle with angst, meaninglessness and the feeling that life remains unfulfilled?  It seems to me that no matter what I obtain and no matter how much success I achieve there is still something elusive that remains just out of casting range of the rivers I fish.  There is always the fish that gets away.

My fly fishing world of river, rock and sky, provides a wonderful place for me to wrestle with these questions and the existential struggles of life. My guess is that there are many people out there who at least feel some of the frustration and want their life to change. However, I think many remain silent. After all, aren’t we supposed to be happy and fulfilled?  But suppose if we are not?

I prefer not to pretend and just go along and smile.  I, like the poet, want to make that proclamation, “I need to change my life.”  I want to change my life and take steps to make that happen, even if I do not know the first step. Perhaps, I can at least start by saying a firm no, to those paths I intuit as being a distraction.  

Forget therapy. Forget the pills. I don’t need a drink. Forget all the electronic connections I can make via the social media world. And I don’t need to go to church.

Sometimes, I just need to stand on the banks of a river and cast, even knowing that some fish will always elude me.

Change Your Life Through Fly-Fishing

Dream Stream: Remembering Our Youth

It was cold in South Park on the Dream Stream looking for big fish. Felt cold with each step as we walked along the fence down to the river. Or maybe it was not all that cold; But rather we were not that tough anymore.

We started talking about our younger days.  Jim at 79 recalled a picture of his youth. He told me how surprised he was at how muscular he appeared as though he did not recognize himself. He said, “I never knew how strong I was back then.”

We walk on. My old knee injury aching as I ponder.

I (about to turn 57) shared with Jim how when I look back over the past decades, sometimes I am not quite able to recognize myself.  I feel confused as to who I was at various stages of my life but not just physically; It was more.  How I thought, what I believed, how I related to others and how I acted. 

Who was that back then? Who was that younger man walking the Dream Stream with stronger strides and confident hope (and sometimes arrogance) of catching fish.

The wind picks up from the north and chills our fingertips even while wearing big ski mittens.  The cold wind bites through us and intimidates.  I am not feeling very confident of enduring the cold, let alone trying to make a good cast to a large finicky trout. 

Over the wind, Jim paraphrases a quote by Rohr, “You need to remember who you were before you became you.” Before I became me?  What was he talking about?  Jim and I have a way of talking about such deep things when we fish. 

Who was I before I became me?  Maybe I need to think of the young man I was in innocence before life and the world hardened me and wore me down. Who was I before I put on various masks, that have now grown old and brittle and fallen off.

We step into the chilly river with ice along the edges. We make some casts and drifts as I daydream back to my youth and a pond where I taught myself to fly fish.

As a child, I remember in solitude walking the pond and casting to large fish forever hopeful that a fish would take my fly.  Forever hopeful; in spite of being ignored for hours without a turn of a fish. I can almost remember the intensity of that hope as I watched the beautiful forms moving below the surface. The intense longings for not only the fish, but for love, meaning, and connection.  An intensity that told me I was alive.

A longing of such intensity that I now wonder, if such hope, like a prayer, can turn not only a fish, but also, even the heart of God.