** NOTE ** This article was originally published to Hatch Magazine in 2016. It is republished here, and it's one of my favorites It was a slow morning in fast water. It was a small fish day on a big fish river. It was a disappointment by noon, but fate was about to...
Today's story is a favorite from a few years back. You can find it here: I've lived, and I've left some good things here . . . that is enough Enjoy the day. Domenick Swentosky T R O U T B I T T E N domenick@troutbitten.com [the_ad...
The flow of the river followed the curve of the valley wall. A huge, flat, vertical sheet of rock provided a bumper, as the streamflow deflected against the limestone karst. Then it dramatically changed directions. While the river we’d been fishing had been flowing...
Sawyer and I were fishing the seventeen year Cicada hatch of 2008. It was a wonderfully consistent summer with cooler than average temperatures and higher than average river flows. Add with the occasional thunderstorm that tinted the water and kept trout active, and...
Every angler goes fishing to get away from things — and most times that means getting away from people too. So whether they be friends or strangers on the water, going around the bend and walking off gives you back what you were probably looking for in the first place . . .
Hundreds of times Aiden has snagged the bottom, pulled the rod back, and either asked me if that was a fish or has told me flatly, “I think that was a fish.” This time, he finally experienced the certainty that a couple of good head shakes from a trout will give you . . .
While all five senses blend together into the rich, unmatched experience of fishing through woods and water, only two are necessary for catching trout — sight and feel. These two senses combine to tell us a story about each drift. Some of our tactics require both, while others require just one. But take away both sight and feel, and the angler is lost . . .
He didn’t fish. He hunted. Wandering over wooded mountains, and whispering through the wheat fields, I followed my grandfather into a broken forest. We climbed over long oaks, and we scaled fallen hemlock trunks to reach the other side of a small stream. My footsteps fell into his. He walked slowly — much slower than a boy’s patience could match. And when my eagerness overtook me, Grandfather turned to force my pause. He leaned in and granted me this wisdom: “Slowly, child. Life’s secrets are in these trees.”
He was gone before my sons were born.
And now, when I enter these forests, these forgotten tramps, miles away from industry and deep inside shaded canyons, the wet moss absorbs my footfalls and silences the mental rush of an average life. These muted and hushed moments are given for remembering . . .
Patience and persistence — in some ways they are opposites. Patience is waiting for something to happen. And persistence is making something happen.
And all you need is a full day spent with a persistent fisherman to know that your patience isn’t really getting anything done.
Over time, patience has been pinned to fishing, as if the two go hand in hand. And I think that’s a mistake. It’s an attached stigma that doesn’t fit — not for Troutbitten anglers, anyway. So once again, it’s apparent that words themselves change the way we think about things. Words and meanings change how we do things. New anglers are taught that fishing is a quiet, patient sport. And so they wait. And they are content when nothing happens.
. . When I hooked him, I felt a tremendous release of emotion. Satisfaction merged with adrenaline. My yearning for such a moment finally came to a close as the big wild brown trout slid onto the bank. I killed the trout with a sharp rap at the top of its skull, because that’s what I did back then. I knelt by the river to wet my creel, and when I placed the dead trout in the nylon bag, the full length of its tail stuck out from the top.
. . . Then I began to shake. The closing of anticipation washed over me. The fruition of learning and wondering for so many years left me in awe of the moment I’d waited for. I trembled as I sat back on my heels. With two knees in the mud of a favorite trout stream, I watched the water pass before me. I breathed. I thought about nothing and everything all at once. I felt calm inside even as I stared down at my wet, shaking hands.
. . .When a gust of wind pushed through the forest, I stirred. Finally my lengthy revery was passed, and I stood tall with my lungs full of a strong wind. Then I walked back to camp . . .