I haven’t posted anything for a while because it’s “winter”
in Alabama. So fly rods have been broken down and stowed away for a couple of
months while I spend my outdoors’ time looking for deer and wood ducks.
However, I do have a pontificating post to add as I daydream
about redfish and tarpon. I am often asked why I love to fly fish so much. There
is never a simple or even single answer to a question dealing with an
obsession, but as I was recently looking over a few photographs from the fall, a
specific photograph of a South Carolina marsh and another of a Belize permit
flat made me aware, seemingly in an instant, of one of the driving factors in
my obsession.
Fly fishing in areas such as coastal salt marshes and turtle
grass flats are akin to being presented with a challenging riddle that requires
total concentration and awareness in the present. When one arrives on the edge
of marsh or flat, either on foot or on the bow of boat, the water often looks
empty. There may be an occasional ripple on a calm surface, but again, there
often aren’t any obvious signs of life.
There are of course those rare occasions (for me anyway) when you pull
up on a flat that is exploding with life – birds crashing the surface, and fish
and shrimp jumping. More often than not the water appears to be empty, at least
at fist glance.
 |
| Redfish Marsh in South Carolina |
Of course the flat or marsh isn’t empty, so the initial scan
over the water can be deceiving. It often takes me time to adjust both my
vision and concentration in order to focus on sometimes very subtle clues - a
slowly moving shadow, a brief glimpse of a tail, and wakes made by single fish
- that fish are indeed present. For me, few of these clues are immediately
apparent; its almost as if I have to reprogram my senses away from the human
world and onto the natural world. This is especially true on slow days when
clues are few and far between, and a buzzing cell phone or impending deadline
can easily make the mind wander away from the water off the bow.
And while my ultimate goal is to catch the fish I see, there
is also a reward in simply seeing a fish, particularly before the guide points
out the same fish. When I spot a fish first, I feel as though the guide and I
are on the same page, working in tandem, rather than me being completely
dependent on the guide’s better-trained eyes and senses. I imagine guides also
appreciate fishing with a client who has their senses invested in the moment,
who aren’t always waiting to be told where to cast.
When I’m on a flat or in a marsh, completely focused on the
water’s subtle clues, I often think about a line that Peter Matthiessen wrote
in The Snow Leopard, “When one pays attention to the present, there is
great pleasure in the awareness of small things…” For me, there is amazing
pleasure in spotting a tailing fish, a cruising stingray, or a motionless,
brightly colored sea star among the dull sea grass. The world would be a better
place if everyone had something in their life that allowed them to be truly
present – no phones, no deadlines, no obligations – true focus on the water off
the bow.
 |
| Permit Flat - Belize |
