Second Chances At Rainbow Falls Private Fishing Club: Anglers Covey Guide Rendezvous

“Then I know there is room in me for a second huge and timeless life”. Rilke

I knew the big fish was there. It lay in a hole of Trout Creek right below the culverts.  I had tried to fish this hole before lunch and caught some nice trout but I saw nothing of the monster 26 inch rainbow. It was then time for the guides and friends of the shop to meet for lunch and share fish stories from the morning. As I ate some wonderful barbecued chicken I kept thinking about that fish. I thought, “Maybe give it a bit of rest and then when I return I will catch it off guard”.

I trashed my plate, grabbed my 2 wt rod that was rigged for nymphing, and headed up to the pool. My two weight rod would be a weak instrument if I hooked the fish but with the creek being quite small I thought I would have a fair chance of landing it.  Plus I did not want to take the time to rig my 5 weight rod as I got the feeling there was not going to be enough time. And there was not, because as I was walking up to the hole I noticed my friend and fellow guide David Caraghar headed up to the hole. He arrived first and I knew the code of honor was that he who gets to the hole first, fishes the hole.

I was curious about this fish though so I continued my walk to the hole.  I thought, maybe I can watch David have a shot at it. He knew the fish. I think we all did. David called him, Walter. When I approached David, I asked, “Going for that big fish”? He said yes, but then added, “I am not rigged yet, you fish for him.”

Perhaps I should have been a better gentleman and declined his offer. But I had this big fish on my brain so I accepted the challenge. I guess I justified my decision thinking as soon as he rigged up I would give him the hole.  I would only fish it for a few minutes.

So I started drifting an egg and a copper-john nymph through the hole. The water was a bit off color so we could not see down to the bottom where the big fish lay. I thought he would lie closer to the pipes where the water had more velocity and more protection but numerous drifts in this run only produced smaller fish. Where was Walter?

It was about this time that I noticed David was not rigging his rod.  I was so mesmerized by the thought of this big fish taking my fly that I had not noticed that David was not only allowing me to fish this hole but that he was sort of informally guiding me by telling me that the fish usually lay a bit lower in the slack water.  And it was also at about this time that our conversation shifted.

We were talking about faith and spirituality and life. We were quoting beautiful poetry to each other. We were talking about second chances in life even as David gave me a second chance at this big fish and it was then when I was hardly paying attention that the big fish struck the fly.

Being so engaged in our conversation I barely reacted enough to sink the hook into his jaw. The big fish was on and fighting. It was a strong fish but there was not much room for him to run so it was just a matter of time before he tired and David netted the 26 inch rainbow.

As we admired the fish and as I thought about our conversation,  I realized how I was generously given a second chance in life; not just for this fish but also in a much bigger way. I know David felt the same way about his life and I suppose our little dialogue was in a way, a celebration and a sharing of life. I think we also knew that if we talked to many of the other guys fishing on this day, we would find that they too, each in their own way,  were given second chances.

What would faith and life be without second chances?    

Fishing the Nooks and Crannies:Moving Out of the Mainstream Current, Pueblo's Arkansas River Tail-Water

 

Learning to fish the nooks and crannies can be an effective way to deal with the ultra selectivity that takes place on our popular tail-waters.  It seems that in our most popular Catch and Release tail-waters the fish get more and more selective as they are pounded daily by hundreds of good fly fishermen. This high level of selectivity has occurred on the tail-water sections of the Platte; Deckers, the Dream Stream, and 11 mile canyon.  However, the majority of fishermen fish the main obvious runs that hold large numbers of trout. At times, especially when we have no choice,  we need to move out of these main stream currents and fish the nooks and crannies.

By definition, nooks and crannies are places that are remote and where something can be hidden. In the case of fly fishing, nooks and crannies refers to those obscure little seam lines and pockets away from the main-stream runs that hold (hide) trout. Often times these little slots are not fished as heavily and therefore the fish can sometimes be more willing to take a fly.

I got off to a late start yesterday morning so when I walked along the Arkansas tail water I quickly noticed the main runs were already holding one or several fishermen.  I then started looking for those nooks and Crannies that were not being fished.  I moved in between two sets of fisherman and noticed two submerged boulders in the midst of nondescript water.  My third cast produced a fish on a bead head pheasant tail.  I watched the guys above and below and they were not hooking up. When I hooked my second, third and fourth fish both groups started glancing my way. It is always a good feeling when one can go in between groups of fishermen in seemingly marginal water and start hooking fish.

For the next few hours I would move around looking for those in-between places.  I ended up hooking in to 14 fish with most of the fish coming from various nooks and crannies. My best flies were a size 18 bead head pheasant tail, apricot colored egg and a size 22 Cheesman emerger.   

As I have written previously on this blog I am learning to feel somewhat comfortable fishing (and living) in these in-between places. Spiritually, these in-between places are sacred and in fly fishing they can be exciting places to fish. As fly fishers we could all become more productive and skilled by learning to fish these places especially on those days when the river is crowed and only offering these edges.  Fishing the nooks and crannies requires more sensitivity, discernment and specificity to learn exactly where to cast in order to get the proper drift without hanging up. Often weight has to be adjusted if nymphing.

Fishing the nooks and crannies can be a lot more demanding than fishing the classic large runs of the main current. In some sense, fishing the mainstream runs can be quite mindless. Fishing the nooks and crannies requires planning, active problem solving and adjustments to be made on the spot.  These nooks and crannies cannot only be very rewarding but they will also make you a more versatile fly fisherman.   

So, the next time you get to the river late and you are forced to fish the nooks and crannies do not be disappointed. These in-between places can hold hidden surprises.  

"Half As Long" Authentic Dialogue

In A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean remembers being a young boy and trying to write an essay for his Father.  Every time he submitted it the Reverend Maclean would give it back to Norman for revision and say, “Half As Long”. Maybe this is why his best work, “A River Runs Through It” was only a 100 pages or so.

I tend to think many things should be half as long. There have been many speakers who I know could have said what they had to say in half the time or as I sometimes sarcastically say, “It could have been spoken in 5 minutes”. I would imagine there are fishing guides who explain way too much and talk and talk about how much they know about fly fishing, all the techniques, and bugs,  as the client stands there wondering  if he signed up for a lecture or a fishing trip. Ironically it is often educators of various sorts who should be the best at understanding attention spans and keeping their audiences engaged who often go on and on.  And then there have been many sermons I painfully endured and thought, “It could have been half as long”, or, spoken in perhaps 5 minutes, or,  perhaps not spoken at all.

I guess when it comes to preachers I often wonder if any of them, or if any of us (since in some sense we are all “preachers” of one kind or another), had nothing new to say, (or, if not something new but  maybe even if we were simply bored with saying the same things over and over),  if we could be honest enough to simply state this fact. Can we imagine a preacher getting up in front of the congregation on a Sunday morning and saying, “I am sorry, but I just don’t have anything to say this morning.”?  Or could a guide, when the fish are not biting simply shut up and not go on and on offering up explanations about why they are not catching fish? As Christians, as authentic human beings, as preachers and teachers and guides,  I often think we would be better off to say less.

In C.S. Lewis’s fantasy novel called “Perelandra”, there is a planet that has never experienced the fall. The “first” woman lives on this planet and knows nothing of sin, deception and double talk. A man from earth is sent to this planet. He and the woman talk. At one point she asks him a question of which he does not have an answer. Like many of us would do, he tries to answer the question anyway and the woman laughs. He asks her, “Why did you laugh at me”? She honestly responds, “I laughed because you had nothing to say about it and yet made the nothing up into words”.

Is that what we do sometimes when we have nothing to say about the Divine or about why we are not catching fish?  We take nothing and make the nothing up into words?

If that is the case, and I often think it is, I sure do appreciate and prefer the words, “I just don’t know”.

Breaking Free From Our Father's Instruction: Casting/Stepping Into Liminality, Advanced Casting Techniques

In the movie, “A River Runs Through It”, there is a beautiful scene where Norman, Paul and their Father, are all fly fishing on the Big Black Feet River. We then watch as Paul wanders off somewhat and starts casting in a different direction with a different technique, and is catching fish. The narration reads, “Then I saw something remarkable. For the first time, Paul, broke free of our Father’s instruction into a rhythm all his own.”

I have been thinking a lot lately about fishing and living spiritually from the edge.  Some people such as Richard Rohr are calling this edge liminal space, a space in between and how it can be a blessed, sacred and prophetic place. It can be a place of death and rebirth and therefore a threshold of creativity.

In fly fishing as well as in our spiritual lives sometimes we can get stuck into one way of doing things. The initial instruction was perhaps the first and only instruction we received; it worked (we caught some fish), so we stuck to it.  But when we rely on this one way of casting for all situations we are going to eventually find our selves approaching a new threshold and an invitation to change and recreate. And this is when the fly fisher can begin to become an artist.

To move into a liminal space means we approach a new edge and consider going beyond the previous ways of doing things. It is a threshold. It is a door or a gate that we can move through.  It is Paul, going beyond his Fathers instruction and creating a new technique and approach to his casting. It is in this liminal space where Paul is free to explore the possibilities and is not tied down to convention and mainstream thought.

While I personally cannot lay claim to having created any special or new way of casting I can relate to trying to go beyond standard, conventional ways of casting. Like many experienced fly fishers, I have learned techniques and approaches from other fishermen and have rearranged them somewhat putting them together in different combinations for different situations. And sometimes a somewhat “new” style emerges. But I doubt this is something new under the sun. 

It seems like most of us learned how to drift a fly by quartering upstream and then mending or high sticking the line. This technique works, but eventually you get to the point where you find different ways of achieving a good drift, even a better drift, with the fly in order to fool big trout. For me personally, (again I did not create this technique),  I know when it comes to fooling the biggest and most wary fish on a river I rely on an “across and down” technique to provide the most natural “fly first” presentation. This is particularly true when dry fly fishing. The trick is to present the “fly first” to the fish so that when the fish is looking upstream and overhead all the fish sees is the fly and not the leader.

Now if you are a beginner and wondering how to achieve this type of a presentation I invite you to enter that place of liminality. It is a place of uncertainty and if you try this your casting may look unconventional to others (I call my own style of casting, “slop and flop”), but I encourage you to go out there and keep at it and experiment. Be ok with looking sloppy, at least at first. Casting down and across is sort of like doing things backwards, inverted and upside down all at the same time.  It is casting downstream when everyone else around you is casting upstream. It is doing an “about face” and looking in a different direction. It is deliberately stopping casts in mid air.  It may also involve casting where (to others),there is least likely a fish. It is casting to that tiny slot carved out by a narrow riffle when every one else is fishing a big obvious hole. When fishing in liminal space anything can happen. Sometimes the biggest fish is lying in that narrow slot, takes the fly and then comes exploding out the water. Who could have predicted it?

We know individuals who lived in this liminal space. Gandhi spoke from and in to a liminal space when he refused to submit to unjust laws imposed upon him, even as British guards had clubs and  beat him.  Gandhi speaking the truth in love with a gentle voice and from a place of liminality changed history. Martin Luther King’s words of “I have a dream” echoed in a liminal space and still do. Cervante’s Don Quixote still lives on in liminal space between fiction and nonfiction, fact and fantasy,  being at the same time both crazy and yet visionary, naïve and yet believing.  Jesus spoke to us from a liminal space when he said things like “The first shall be last and the last shall be first”;  “The greatest among you will be the servant of all”, or “He who loses his life shall find his life and he who finds his life shall lose it”, and “You must be born again”.  In liminal space, things seemed to be turned upside down and paradox is common, if not the norm.  

In regard to the Christian church I wonder if Christians can do this “about face” and live in liminal space? I am becoming more and more convinced that we must do this exactly and find a way to do it respectfully. We need to move out of our comfort zones to the edge. But like any great spiritual truth, it is the way of paradox and it will not make sense. It will not be easy. Expect to be lost first before you find your way.  “That place among the rocks, is it a cave or winding path. The edge is what I have” (Roethke).

But this is a place of opportunity. Richard Rohr says it this way, “When you live on the edge, you are in a very auspicious position. You are free from its central seductions, but also free to hear its core message in very new and creative ways. When you are at the center of something, you usually confuse the essentials with the non-essentials, and get tied down by trivia, loyalty tests, and job security. Not much truth can happen there.”  

Look for those large trout on the edge. Turn around. Cast across and down, fly first, so the trout only sees the fly.  And then “hold on”, or, I mean “let go”. Rather, do both.

You are in liminal space.

"I Only Need Three More Years Before I Start Thinking Like A Fish" Making the Most of the Time/Responding to the Call

In “A River Runs Through It," ,after Paul lands a magnificent fish, Norman Maclean remembered his brother repeating the phrase, “All I need is three more years to think like a fish.” In fact, Paul said it twice and Norman remembered being “Surprised at the repetition.” Norman also recalls wondering if the river somehow must have told him that “we would receive no such gift.”

Events tumbled very quickly at this point in the story like the hard cascading river these men fished. Norman writes in the very next line, “For when the police sergeant early next May wakened me before day break, I rose and asked no questions. We drove down the length of the Big Blackfoot River. . . To tell my father and mother that my brother had been beaten to death by the butt of a revolver and his body dumped in an alley.”

I just recently spoke with my friend who, like myself, is a man at midlife. It was one of those rare soulful conversations that some times men engaged in while they fiddle with their tools. He said, “Anthony, I made up my mind that I am going to fish this spring. I am not going to spend every weekend at Home Depot and fixing things.” And we spoke about all the factors that can stop a man from going fishing.

I left our conversation thinking, “Some men still hear a “call” to live life,” (and to fish).

Do I need to state the obvious in regard to life being a gift and how we need to make the most of our time and that we don’t know how much time each one of us will be granted?

There are many sad stories of men at midlife who say, “All I need is 3 more years before I retire”….or,  “All I need is 3 more years before I have enough money saved,” or “All I need is 3 more hours to finish this project and then I will go fish,” and how sometimes, and tragically no such gift is received.

Make what you want out of this little story. All I know is for me, the call to fish is somehow a symbolic representation of the greater call to life itself.

Jesus once said, “I am the way, the truth, and the Life,” and in so many words said to “Drop everything.”   I think he knew what he was saying and sometimes even I begin to understand what that might mean.

Pueblo's Arkansas River Tailwater: Parting With Winter

“Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.”  Rilke

March is a strange transitional month for me. I have the option to ski or fish and both can be wonderful.  This past weekend my wife and I had plans to head west to Breckenridge and carve tellemark turns on the slopes but I then felt the urge to part with winter and fly fish.  My wife also has an ache for winter to be over. So, instead, I suggested we head south to visit the Arkansas River below Pueblo dam which has emerged in recent years as  a quality tail-water. My wife would run along the trail and then sit in the sun and read while I fished. We would both be ahead of winter, as though it were already behind us.  

We woke up to a thin layer of snow on our deck in Manitou Springs and headed south through clouds and fog and spitting snow. I tried to reassure my wife that it would be warm sun bathing weather in Pueblo. She was not convinced and neither was I, but as we headed farther south the clouds eventually started to separate as we slowly parted with winter.

When we arrived at the Pueblo Nature Center my wife went running along the river on the trail system. I geared up and fished just behind the nature center and was quickly in to a good number of  fish right from the start. I ended up landing a dozen feisty rainbows mainly in the 14 inch range, with a few larger fish up to 18 inches. I pulled the hook out of two that were 20 inches. I fished a 2 fly nymphing system with an apricot egg on top and a size 18 bead head pheasant tail as the dropper. As the morning progressed I changed the dropper to various small emergers such as size 22, RS2’s,  and Cheeseman emergers and all these caught fish. 

My wife met up with me and sat in the sun reading on the nature center deck and enjoyed a brief reprieve from winter while I fished a little more. The fish and the sun would come and go but overall it was an enjoyable parting from winter.

Next week,  I don’t know if we will head back south or west. I have options.    

Fishing the Edges and Living the Edges: South Platte River Fly Fishing Guide Speaks From the Edge

“The sky puts on the darkening blue coat

held for it by a row of ancient trees,

You watch: and the land grows distant in your sight;

One journeying to heaven, one that falls;

And leave you, not at home in either one”                                                             

                                              Rilke

When I look back at my own life story I realize there are some recurring themes. One of these themes is the feeling of always being on the outside of some edge not quite belonging. Over the years I have tried to make spiritual sense of this feeling. As the poetic lines above figuratively suggest there is often a feeling that part of my life journeys toward heaven and another part falls to Earth, yet I am not sure I belong to either.

In looking back when I was a kid and first learned to fly fish I realize how from the beginning I was living on the ‘outside’ of the mainstream social current. I was lingering on an edge. It was here where I crossed over an edge and entered into the realm of nature, where I taught myself to fly fish. Once I moved out of the main current, I passed through a threshold; a short trail through the woods that led me to a pond. For several years I remained on the ‘outside’ of the mainstream social current perhaps belonging more at the pond than anywhere else. But even as I learned to fly fish more changes would occur, and then it was time for another threshold to pass through.

The next edge came during my high school years. Once again, the mainstream social current would not work for me or appeal to me. In New Jersey, there was a lot of drug abuse back in the late 70’s, yet, I knew with conviction that the drug culture was where I would not dwell.  Once again, I separated myself and lived on a different edge of trying to become a state champion wrestler. As a consequence I trained long hours away from the mainstream current, training morning and night, running  for miles and miles, lifting weights,  and drilling moves and wrestling daily. I trained virtually every day, often twice a day,  all year, for most of my high school years and then in the college years to come, I would remain on this outer edge chasing after holy grails.  

I tend to be very skeptical, (and of even myself), when claims are made of how God causes certain things to happen. Yet, as sure as I can be of anything on this earth, I do believe that God did bring some people in my life that would change me. In my high school years I met some wonderful young men including my best friend Marty who was a Christian and often spoke to me about the Bible. It was in the Bible where I read about Jesus, a man who lived an extraordinary life to say the least, and who lived on the edge. I identified with him as a man who was most often outside the mainstream current even as he tried to bring people to a new way of life. But I sadly learned, “They esteemed him not”.

While fly fishing over the last several decades I learned there were parallels between my personal spiritual life and fly fishing rivers. And once again the theme of edges would present itself. I had learned the secret of fly fishing the edges in a river. I learned to pay attention to seam lines where two different currents border each other. Often a seam line forms from currents merging with two different speeds or depths. I learned how fish love to spend time on these edges because it is the best of both worlds to a trout. I learned that casting to these edges had to be accurate (within inches) and required persistence.  

During these decades of my adult life I would continue to feel on an edge of sorts never quite belonging to the various groups of people I became a part of; organizations, work places and even churches. I do not mean to belittle the meaningful individual relationships I have made over the years. I truly value these friendships. But overall, when it came to “systems” of people I most often did not feel at home. I still often feel this way.

It is only recently that I am finally feeling more at home living on the edge. In many ways,  I still do not  feel engaged in the mainstream current.  Nor do I feel a part of the mainstream Christian current and at the same time I feel disconnected from secular institutions and causes.  Once again, I am somewhere, ”inbetween”,  part of me journeying to heaven, part of me that falls.

I do not feel like I am on the inside of either world  but perhaps as Richard Rohr states it, I am,  “On  the edge of the inside”. To Rohr this edge is a holy, sacred place, a “thin place”.  He describes it as a prophetic place, not a rebellious or antisocial one. Hearing such a perspective helps me and makes me appreciate those wonderful connections that I do have.

I am also learning that this place on the edge is a place where I can be very discerning and see things as they should be seen, with out bias. If the mainstream current is not feeding me or paying me or sustaining me emotionally, then truth does not have to be compromised.

For me, it seems that if I experience God at all, it is on this edge. This edge is where Jesus walked and where his spirit dwells even now. As a poet said, “The edge is what I have”. (Roetheke)

If you find your self on this edge, I invite you to dialogue with me on this blog or at suragea1@aol.com

Shallow Fly Fishing: Adding Weight and Moving Into Depth of Soul: Insights From Christian Fly Fishing Guide

“My soul has grown deep like rivers” William Carlos Williams

During the early 80’s when I ventured up into Cheesman Canyon for the first time I learned rather quickly that the best way to entice those big rainbows that were in the bottom of those deep boulder formed pools was by deep water nymphing. When in doubt, and not getting strikes, I added more and more weight getting the fly deeper and deeper. Often that adjustment was what was needed to get the fish to take the fly. Years later,  I also learned this was the trick on waters such as the Taylor River where lazy monster rainbows gorged on mysis shrimp would lay low in deep runs and not move up even several inches for a fly. I had to go deep.  I also remember adding weight to leaches and wooly buggers while streamer fishing on the Platte above and below Spinney during the annual spring spawning run and then for Browns in the Fall in the Tomahawk section and then more recently in 11 Mile Canyon’s deep plunge pools. And even last weekend while fishing the Arkansas below Pueblo Dam, I had to add more weight. Getting down and going deep seemed to be the way.

It takes a bit of courage at first, particularly for the novice, to go deeper while fly fishing because it can be intimidating. There is the immediate problem of the awkwardness of trying to cast a lot of weight and to do so in a way where one does not make a mess of things. There can be a greater potential for getting snagged on rocks in the bottom of the river. There is also the deep water itself which can make things confusing as it is difficult to see what is going on down there in the darker waters. And sometimes there are all these swirling undercurrents and that makes the presentation of the fly somewhat unpredictable as you try to discern where your fly is located. Finally, trying to spot the fish down deep in the darker water can be tough as you wonder; “Is that a giant rainbow or a log or a rock? I think I saw it move”.

This strategy of going deeper while fly fishing reminds me of the more important need for us to also go deeper spiritually from the surface of things in our personal lives.  We are often not comfortable looking down to the inner depths of our souls. We tend to stay away from these deeper waters.

At the same time, unfortunately, we live in a shallow culture that does not encourage depth of soul. If anything the culture is mostly geared toward the young, immature, and the superficial. Shallowness sells.  And sadly, often the Christian church conforms to the shallow culture with simplistic thinking, lack of depth of feeling, superficial living, and parroting worn out cliches’.  

It seems that in our fast paced culture generally we have an inability to deeply ponder much of anything. And of course we know men in general are not very good at expressing their deeper feelings. Ask a man what he feels and often you will get that dumbfounded stare.

But fly fishing can be good for men. It is on the river where sometimes we have the hope of moving below the surface. While fly fishing we are participating. We are playing. We are thinking. We are feeling and perhaps moving out from numbness. We are artists, creating, problem solving and hoping for a tug from below the surface.

And as we fish deeper who knows what will come up from the depths. There are some huge rainbows lying deep down and ancient feelings mysteriously from another realm that continue to stir in the depths of our hearts.