Injury Upon Injury: 

I have been injured in the past to the extent that I could not wrestle or run for weeks. Torn ligaments in my ankle, torn cartilage in my sternum, Plantar fascittis issues in my foot. These were injuries that left me sidelined. Being an exercise junkie it was very difficult to carry on without the endorphins in my system and in my brain. Very, very difficult.

However, I don't think I was ever injured to the point of not being able to fly fish. Until perhaps now. I currently have two bad hips. I can still bike, do gobs and gobs of pushups, but that is about all.  

There were however injuries to my soul where I felt spiritually paralyzed and did not want to fish or still worse, felt I could not fish. 

I have had a few friends speak of such injuries to the soul. My friend Mike and coauthor of this book spoke of a divorce that was so painful that he was unable to lift his rod up to cast.  No doubt getting out and at least making the attempt to fish and or hunt has helped him recover.

D.H. Lawrence spoke of such injury to his soul and how those wounds have made him ill and how they take a long long time to heal.

I'm not sure if I am currently injured due to some deep soul injury. When I was in high school and college, if I lost a match, I felt beat up and lost. I felt wounded to my soul. Or perhaps that was all in my imagination. Its difficult not to take such wounds and losses deeply and personally.

I do know that at age 61 plus I have bad hips, mainly from over running. I have had one complete replacement on my left side. Second replacement on the right hip is coming up in two months.  Oh, how I miss running. But how stupid of me to pound my body to death for all those years.

Besides running in some crazy races (ie. Pikes Peak) I mainly did half marathons along with a few full marathons. If I had an area of specialty it was to cut loose and fly down hill. I called it free speed. My favorite race was out in Buena Vista called the Autumn Color Change. They bused us part of the way up Cottonwood Pass, dropped us off and then we ran all the way down to the downtown intersection in Buena Vista, and then  down to a small park with a pond.If I got there early I looked for fish.  It was 13.1 miles of pounding down hill. Maybe that is why I do not have any cartilage left in my hip joints.

Did those fish I went after with my clients take a pounding like I have? I have had fish that my clients caught so wrapped up in leader, that their fins were wrapped so tightly to their bodies that they were un able to move; unable to wiggle even a little fin! 

The image of injured fish can keep me up at night. Along with images of hooks lodged in the gills and eyes of fish leaves me trembling with fear. There is currently an ongoing debate with in the fly fishing community, or at least among the sensitive ones,  considering if fish feel pain.  

I don't think the issue of pain is the issue or at least its not the whole issue. To me the question is more of do we want to treat our fish so badly?  There has to be another way; a way to lighten up?  

I have said it several times in this book, on my blog and elsewhere. We need another way, something "beyond" catch and release. It does not make sense that catch and release fly fishing means we are without limits. We cant keep pounding the fish without limits. We can't keep giving them injury upon injury.

  

 

Stuart Iittle On The River With Miss Aims:

Stuart Little was born looking like a tiny mouse.  I think we can assume he was a mouse living among humans searching for someone who was his size.

In his travels he meets a gentleman who owns a general store and the owner knows a young lady who is the same size as Stuart. A date of sorts is arranged for Stuart to meet Miss Harriet Aims. 

Stuart works on the plans for the date. He buys a small souvenir canoe at the five and dime store and spends the whole day in preparation rigging up an anchor, fishing rods, and paddles. For paddles he decided to use paper ice cream spoons.

The time arrives. Stuart meets Harriet and takes her down to the river to get the canoe hidden in the bushes.. But the canoe has been vandalized. Stuart is beside himself, running around screaming. The rods and lines were all tangled up.When one finally meets someone who is the same size one can imagine there is a lot riding on this date. Talk about the pressure.   

This reminds me of a fishing trip, perhaps a guide trip that has gone south before we even got started. Sometimes things happen on guide trips. Rods break, everything gets tangled up. Waders and shoes go missing. One time, I sank in such deep sticky mud that I pulled my foot out of my shoe. My shoe was gone.  

Another time we brought two extra rods and both got broken and ended up being short a rod.

People get upset, clients forget their fishing license. Often we have to back track and start all over. 

Sometimes as a guide I just feel like quitting before we even get on the river. Delays often mean we don't get in the water we want. So we have to move around and try to find the fish and in recent years this can be tough. 

Stuart is not handling this well. Stuart and Miss Aims are both looking at the fishing rods and lines. Stuart says "Look at that mess, I could never get that undone." 

I also have not always handled such situations well. 

Miss Aims makes the suggestion that they could just allow the lines to drag behind the canoe and pretend to fish. Well, Stuart would have none of this. He yells, "Look at that mess, I could never get that undone; I don't want to pretend I am fishing."

After a few other gracious suggestions from Miss Aims, Stuart cries out, "It just wouldn't be the same." Miss Aims does not understand, "The same as what"? 

"The same as the way it was going to be in my mind."   

Again, I can relate. Often I picture things in my mind and those pictures are like a perfect movie and if I cant have it that way then I don't want it at all. 

I remember, the night before one of my first guide trips my car was broken into and in their search for money they made a mess of things. Luckily, for me, none of my fishing gear was stolen or broken and I distinctly remember being able to utter those all too powerful words, 'Thank God';  However, I do remember feeling like Stuart.

It was not often but, sometimes in a wrestling match I would make a critical mistake in the first minute  and had to play catch up. One time I got penalized for a point or two. Another time I thought the ref blew the whistle calling us out of bounds but we were not. My opponent took advantage of the situation, shot in on me, and took me down. Again, I had to play catch up. 

Sometimes, on a guide trip, In the end I had to play financial catch up.  It was so windy one day that when I opened my truck door the wind caught it with such force that it bent back the hinges. 

Some "come backs" are psychological like the time on the very first cast my client hooked a big big fish. We chased it 200 yards down stream only to lose it in the last moments. We never hooked a fish again that day. I remember feeling tense when I was trying to net that fish. There was the feeling of knowing it was going to happen but I couldn't do anything about it. Sometimes ones worse fear cannot be avoided. Sometimes, or so it feels, one is better off to never have hooked or seen such a fish. 

Another time while pulling a rod out of the truck it got caught in my net and I thought I could just "un-wiggle" it out,  if, I just kept playing with it. I was wrong,(snap!). I was wrong by $900.

Sometimes one has to bounce back, psychologically, financially and emotionally but its tough.Sometimes we have to let go of that image of the way we pictured it going.

 

 

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