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.