On Fishing —

Foreword & Part I

Foreword

The following collection of writings comes from time I spent out west the summer of 2024. They were all written in one sitting, late into the howling night, with a pen and paper, immediately after the events in Part III had taken place. This story handles a few things for me.

One, I haven’t written or sent out any periodicals in a few months, so an installment that is lengthier and comes in parts seems like a fair reparation. Two, I have never attempted a written story with installments. This was a unique experience where during the act of writing I could actually sense the beats adding momentum to the story arc; and so it became my first real stab at chapter work. Three, writing is so many things to me—release, practice, necessary, a work-out, helpful, exhausting, confusing, mysterious—not that I live in a state of indefinite and horrible torture with my own writing, but often my arrival post-task is a sense of “I’m glad I wrote” and not “I like this thing.” This one I like, and therefore cherish the experience of sharing this story.

Fair warning, it doesn’t take long for the action to begin, which is I think another reason for my wanting a foreword. About two hours west of Denver, CO is gorgeous country. Bowls with towns in them are speckled around in between huge spines of dramatic ranges named after tribes, explorers, universities, and physical phenomena. Access to the bounty of sparkling creeks, lakes and rivers makes it a nearly impossible place to leave.

I

Today I left. I woke up ten minutes too late and missed all the goodbyes but two. Cails was one of them in which I received a brand new full set of Rocky Mountain dry flies accompanied by the exact dry fly floatant powder I was going to buy. I pulled off property and went straight into climbing up to Meadows Creek Reservior where I goofily threw on the fly gear I had brought from home, feeling the embarrassment of a twiggy middle schooler stepping into the gym for the first time. I, with no conviction, passed by a pack of young boys eager to lay out their lines and see what the heavens had opened up in the waters overnight.

My weird bags clunked on the ground as I threw on a gifted hand-tied wooly bugger, read aloud the “Liturgy Before Fishing,” and started to throw some line. After a few minutes the boys hiked up past me and I had a little corner of the rock all to myself. A few more throws and it hit—my first ever rainbow trout west of The Mississippi—a real trout.

Having never held the attention of such a beast I danced sideways on the shore awkwardly rotating my reel. It was at this moment I saw it, and the asinine thought split my head open that I had caught a black shark? Or, some kind of lake sucker fish I had never seen before.

“Do you need a net?!” snapped mine open head straight shut. From not ten feet behind me a young boy and his dad shouted again “Do you need a net?!” “Yes” I expertly replied nearly stepping on the fish. Before I knew it the boy had his two-handed professional, P-52, matte black, double ought Night Crusader under the fish and was looking at me to follow my next stage direction.

[ Unhook the fish ]

I snapped a really bad photo, unhooked the fish, and to the horror of the boy and his father didn’t let it go right away. I wanted more pictures of my first catch out west.

See, back where I live in Tennessee all we do is pull them pigs straight outta the water and get to thumbin’ lips ‘til our hearts are content with the mightiest forced perspective photo a boy could want. But, this was no local bass, crappie, or creek-dwelling sunfish. This was a trout. And trout are horses; muscular athletes exemplifying health with every minute motion. It bucked in my hands as I tried to make small talk with the lads about how beautiful the fish up there were and what the rest of the day had in store for them. They, what I can only describe as, emotionally dry-heaved and waved goodbye, as I scrambled for my phone and the bronco nellied again. I saw the dad step to leave and then literally peek back over his shoulder like one would check on a toddler you had just told not to stick their hands into a vat of honey.

I decided then and there “Screw it, I’ll catch another one” and I let my “Lennie’s pocket mouse” free, all the while thinking to myself, “Don’t horses usually sprint off like lightning when they best a cowboy?”

My gut fell to my feet. I killed it.

Floating there upside down in this alpine lake was one of the prettiest fish I had ever seen, slain by an invader king who had just turned three.

I puppeteered the thing in every style but shadow, begging it with my bulging eyes to “Live! LIVE, DAMNIT!” I couldn’t bear to glance back at the lads, especially now with all this honey on my hands. I stayed eyes locked on the fish and in an unknown dyad between brilliance and destitution I bent it back and forth in my hands educating the animal on how to do its first primal instinct. The steer floated limply a ways out from my hands, managed a cockeyed maneuver, and then queerly swam back down to its proper home.

I would have fallen on my fly rod, if it was sharp enough, to save any of my future offspring from the shame I had just wrought. I wish I could say that I left right then, but, it took a few good snags, lost flies, and snapped tippet to conclude that my glorious work there was done and it was time to continue my journey.

To be Continued in Part II