Reader Alert! My mind is “drifting” all over the place as I attempt to write the Drift this evening. A damp, grey weekend, being in between book club books, and not fishing for over a month (!) have all combined to produce a writing state I am calling “Uninspired.” So, I went to my fishing journal to find Inspiration.
Before you start dreaming of a pristine, well-organized, faithfully-kept fishing journal, tastefully decorated with artsy sketches of streamside flora and fauna, let me introduce you to my fishing journal. I started it in 2012 to record water temperatures, weather conditions, numbers of fish caught, flies that caught said numbers of fish, and other notes that I felt would be appropriate for an aspiring fly angler. Things didn’t end up quite where they began. I quickly discovered that recording water temperatures and weather conditions were a lot easier than catching trout. Instead of catching trout, I recorded things like how many flies I lost, or how much tippet I had gone through. It was probably a good thing that early on I had decided my journal would record facts and not feelings. Otherwise, the feelings expressed in my first few years of fly angling would have needed an expanded version of the English language, and probably would have caused a Marine Corps Drill Sergeant to blush. Instead of catching fish, I recorded the different spring wild flowers I had seen and the variety of migrating warblers I had encountered. One time, I waded underneath a willow bush that overhung a stream I was fishing in and watched a whole flock of warblers work their way through the bushes upstream. The warblers went right through the bush I was hiding under! I noticed that raccoons, deer and foxes didn’t seem as scared of me when I was in the middle of the stream, half submerged in my waders. I wanted to record caught fish in my journal so badly, that I started recording refusals and misses with as much rigor and detail as I would have recorded caught fish had I caught them.
Then I started meeting people on the stream. Trout anglers, of all types, and some of the nicest people I had met anywhere. They were from all walks of life, all ages, occupations and, I’m sure, of all political parties and religious beliefs. The one thing they all had in common was a great love, almost a reverence, for the outdoors and the streams they fished. They noticed the spring wildflowers and migrating warblers, too. They lost flies in trees and bushes, too. They didn’t all catch fish every time they went out and the word “skunked” appeared in their journals, too. (Maybe just not as often as it appeared in mine.) They didn’t have it all figured out, but they loved the outdoors, they loved angling for trout, and they made it OK for me to be out there losing flies, counting refusals, trying to figure out how on earth to catch fish, because that was exactly what they were doing, too.
These people didn’t just make me feel OK with where I was at in my angling journey; they enriched my life. They have become acquaintances, mentors and fellow conservation volunteers. A few have become close friends —which brings my “drifting” to a happy end.
This Thanksgiving, one of the things I am most grateful for is all of the farmers, land owners, conservation volunteers, trout anglers and just plain nice people, who have become a part of my life through fly angling. Thank you. Thank you all. — Scott Wagner
