No matter what fish you pursue, an important element to your pleasure comes from the depth of your ability to anthropomorphize the quarry, raising him from the status of fish to that of an adversary; a role he cannot acknowledge nor ever attain.
Simply this means that the traits you admire in the fish are those you associate with man. Catch a bluegill on a fly and he will give you the scrappiest fight he can, using all the considerable leverage of his broad but small body to its best advantage. When you get him to the boat, he still has a "spit in your eye" attitude. He may remind you of a diminutive Yorkshire terrier tearing at your pants cuff in hopes of bringing you down, so he can savage you properly, or, perhaps, you see an image of the smallest kid in class whaling away fruitlessly at the school bully.
This ability to read emotions, skills, intentions, strategies, nobility, etc. into the acts of a trout -- an animal which, in the words of A.J. McClane is "not sufficiently evolved to burp" -- provides much of the grist for fishing writers and anglers through the ages. We want, nay we need, to believe that the old brown finning under the log in midstream is the height of sagacity, always thinking of ways to defeat us. To believe that he is only acting on instinct, not higher thought, removes much of the joy from our fishing. We know the truth, but we cannot, in this instance allow that harsh truth to intrude on our fishing, for to do so would diminish our enjoyment and dilute any sense of accomplishment.
Fishing is a sport to us. Like most sports we like to believe that the enjoyment is shared by others. Fishing may be peculiar among the blood sports in that the angler often thinks, or so our literature tells us, that the quarry, the fish, enjoys the game as well. We know, intellectually, this to be false; perhaps even a base falsehood, in that the fish is struggling for his life in fear of he knows not what and then suffocating in the air as we draw him from the water. But as we read it, the game smallmouth who put up such a fight in the fast water, straining the tippet for five minutes in rush after rush that drew your rodtip almost to the water -- when we bring him to hand and remove the fly, we see his anger, nay belligerence, determination, and cocky readiness to have another go. And we need to see this, more for our sake than his.
© 2006 Reed F. Curry
Comments
Thu, 04.12.2008 06:29
Re: the steelhead I may the wrong river, it may actually be the North Umpqua. Regardless I [...]
Wed, 03.12.2008 21:05
Yes, best of luck with your petition. Something like this was actually put into place on [...]
Mon, 17.11.2008 13:50
Nathan, Thanks, I appreciate the support. I am encouraged at present by the reception [...]
Mon, 17.11.2008 13:10
Reed, I think this is a wonderful idea, and I would support it if I lived in New [...]
Fri, 14.11.2008 10:26
tworod, Actually, those dyed yellow feathers are reflecting the UV. Interestingly, when [...]