From "The Book of the Tarpon" by A.W. DimockI'm addicted enough to fly fishing to enjoy reading about it, poring over catalogs to learn new flies, etc. and it's always rewarding when good writing intersects with it (not often enough). There's a sentiment throughout fly fishing literature that the fly fisher possesses a more nuanced appreciation of his/her natural surroundings and derives more from the experience than the heavy-browed bait fisherman machine-gunning for an obscene catch rate while clubbing the fish gasping at his feet. The former comes from a legitimate source: the real experience of the fly fisher noticing the river's conditions and hatches and responding to it throughout the day with the selection of fly, approach, water, cast, and drift. It is undoubtedly a more involved style of fishing and, while doing it, you notice many other things. I have witnessed incredible scenes while standing in a river: a coyote trotting on the bank without concern for me; deer gingerly picking their way across the stone streambed; an enormous beaver repeatedly swimming by; a bird deciding that M was its parent and trying to land on her head in the middle of the river; a cutthroat trout launching from an alpine lake to intercept a blue dragonfly. I've met plenty of pigs in lipstick holding fly rods who missed the point, the fish and everything but the price tag. I've also met bait/lure fishermen who have their own appreciative methods. So the debate about who appreciates what is moot when judged by angling style (the most important distinction is fish mortality rates). But I do know that most, if not all, of the appreciation comes after catching a fish. One fish, and the landscape or seascape opens up. Everything smells better. That first fish, that tug on the line and direct connection into unknown worlds, is the key to washing away all of the dissatisfaction, anger, unease or whatever you wanted to leave locked back in the truck. But you have to catch that one, and sometimes one is enough, for the world to unfurl its better ribbons. I've heard there's a specialized ward in psychiatric hospitals for people who just stand in rivers and mutter. The notion that a fly fisherman can fish all day, not catch anything and leave the water with a smug satisfaction is delusional. I have proof. Here is an early example as unqualified evidence and debunker.
A.W. Dimock, who had a very checkered career on Wall Street, spent months fishing Boca Grande in Florida and wrote "The Book of the Tarpon" in 1912. It is a classic with some of the best fishing photography I've ever seen by his son Julian (there is a scanned version online here). Dimock, who fished all styles from fly rod to harpoon, waxes eloquent in one chapter with this: "The pleasure of fishing is not in proportion to the score." I feel the enlightenment raining down from above and drift into reveries about the wavering, reticulated light patterns on riverbeds or the smell of the sea or watching, from high above on a cliff, a formation of brown trout magically holding still in the strong current of the Green River in Utah.
A few pages later, Dimock lists 334 tarpon caught in 52 days of fishing. The bastard even uses a chart - the universal format for keeping score. He probably admired the pulsating shades of the turtle grass (same color as my envy) between the time that tarpon 72 was released and 73 was spotted.
Go fish, go learn.
