Irish Tea and Soft Hackles

Make the current become your friend,
as while you fish you mend your line.
And in your blessings count the wind,
a signature of God's design.
j m

Solitary Fishing

As the sun slowly disappears over the western range, the tingling of loneliness touches you with a cold finger in the pit of your stomach. As evening quietly slips in, the look of the stream transforms before you in the last few minutes of daylight. Others have left. The entire world seems your domain, leaving you with no wish to control your surroundings, just participate in their splendor.

A doe silently moves across the stream, occasionally glancing your way, but realizing that you’re no threat to her privacy. The splash of the occasional rising fish is heightened as nature raises her volume with the recession of day. Descriptive words fail. At this moment, you feel at ease with yourself and the world about you.

This is why I fish!

Having good friends as fishing companions is one of the truly great blessings that we share in our sport. I’m lucky enough to have several people with whom I can comfortably spend a day on the water, but there are those special few with whom the sharing of the moment makes it lasting.

These are the friends who share the secret holes and the secret flies. Their successes and failures are intermingled with your own accomplishments. With such people, you relate fishing stories with zeal and excitement, knowing they share in your emotions. Or at least they make you think they do! That’s why they’re so special!

This is why I fish!

I remember the fish that first took a fly I placed on the water. It was on an elk hair caddis. But truthfully, I can't remember the first fish caught on a fly that I tied, maybe because that feeling still occurs when I catch a fish on a newly developed fly or when I experience a first catch on a new river.

What I like about fly fishing is that it can range from a sport that requires very little thought to one that is quite cerebral in nature. The fisherman can control that, depending on his desired depth of mental achievement for the moment. We never completely master the sport. There is always more to learn.

This is why I fish!

thoughts by Johnny McJunkins. email: jmcjunki@texarkanacollege.edu

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