becoming an addict

Becoming an addict. 8 years ago, as I neared the end of my first year of college, my wonderful girlfriend at the time (now wife) presented me with an envelope.  Tucked neatly inside, under crisp white folds of a letter, was a gift card.  One half-day float trip on the Elk River, fly-fishing.  “Hmmm”, I thought to myself. I recollected thoughts of the guy in a hunting magazine I had seen recently in an ad for Copenhagen.  He was neatly caught in the act of casting his fly rod. Underneath the brightly colored line sat a wide brimmed hat covering a well-dressed gentleman, below the hat a recently stubbled face was charmingly set against the backdrop of the Rockies, a photo generating insecurities I imagine similar to those of a teenage girl looking at vogue.  From this introduction, my perception of fly-fishing goes as follows: you wave a rod around, look cool, and catch a fish, magic.  Sounds like something Harry Potter could achieve, minus looking cool.  Sign me up.  Surely, with-in a half days float I will be the candidate for the next Copenhagen ad, or so I thought.  

We set out early the morning of the trip to meet our guide, who sat patiently by his truck, drift boat in tow, ready for the hour drive up Monteagle Mountain for some early summer fly-fishing.  The weather was warm, soon to be hot, but for now cool enough that it wasn’t uncomfortable. Once we arrived and dealt with the strange what do we do now feeling?  My friend and I helped unload the boat, I remember thinking this isn’t what I envisioned as a drift boat. We grabbed some rods, gear, and, of course, food.  We hopped in the boat and the guide pulled out two of the longest rods I had ever seen and asked the embarrassing question.  “Have you ever cast a fly rod?”

  “No,” we said. 

Immediately I was intimidated.

Our lack of experience was something I thought we would have gotten out of the way on the ride up but we were to busy blasting an Old Crow Medicine Show album.  While the music didn’t let us get the familiars out of the way, it definitely set the mood.  He then began “trying” to instruct my friend and I how to cast.  After my first cast I realized, no Copenhagen ads for me.  We practiced until we could get the line just far enough to drift a couple pools and not get stuck in the willows lining the bank behind us.  We pulled up anchor and drifted down to a pool familiar to the guide.  We casted and mended up stream, a couple awkward casts later, “bam!” I thought a freight train had grabbed my line.  I lifted the rod up as instructed excited and panicked all at once.  “Strip,” he yelled, sounding like a drunk in a gentlemen’s club.  

“Strip the line in.”  

I begin stripping in the line and a few seconds later I had my first rainbow in hand with a zebra midge tucked neatly in his lip.  The most beautiful thing I had ever seen. 

 

The first fish I caught on the fly is what I imagine the first hit of a hard drug must be like.  Your excited and nervous at once, the thrill of the moment is all consuming and you think, “I’m alive!”  At once I never had a desire to fish with a regular tackle again.  I never felt so connected to anything.  While I could hardly cast and really didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing, and most of the time still don’t.  I understood the value of tying the fly, the craftsmanship. The artfulness of the cast, something my cast was and continues to be absent of. The experience was visceral. It felt real in a way that was noticeable, even to a novice.  The beautiful surroundings, the flow of water, it was transcendent in a way.  

 

As we continued on, we caught a lot of small rainbows.  A friend of mine caught my ear.  The awareness of that day is still fresh in my memory.  Most people take photos of fish as proof and we did that day. The guide promised to email them but I presume he forgot, as did I, but I was hooked and didn’t need photos to relieve the pricelessness of that day.  As we took out the boat still buzzing from this life changing experience, I thought this is where truth is found, while I am not sure what truth means, if anyone ever finds truth they must be in a trout stream.  

 

While I fish when I can, work and such, when I do get to fly-fish I relive the moment of that first fish on the fly all over again, it creeps down in my veins like the roots of the willows and washes me clean like flat stones on the bank in high water. Whether catching little shell crackers and brim near my house, or big sow browns, as things to be addicted to go, I’ll take this one.