Some things don't need to be touched

                                               

  “Left to right, 30 feet out.”  That’s usually when it starts for me.  My heart starts beating so loudly I swear the fish can hear it.  The blood rushes to my face and swallowing gets hard. It doesn’t matter though; my mouth went dry when I spotted the bugger so there’s nothing to swallow anyway. I try to concentrate on my breathing and making sure that the coils of line in my hands aren’t tangled since the last time I looked at them a half second ago.

  You can’t rush these things, that’s what I’ve been told. Somehow it’s hard to think about that when you have twenty plus pounds of beautiful golden Carp grubbing along the bottom just a short cast away from you.  This isn’t my first time and I’ve managed to get lucky and land a few big ones but the feeling never changes. That’s what keeps me coming back; it’s an intangible feeling a strange mixture of adrenaline and fear.

  I’m still keeping track of her as she moves along, Waiting for that moment when I can make a cast that won’t send her fleeing from the shallows for the safety of deeper water.  It’s already happened a couple times this morning so I’m aware of the game. The first time a pair of Mallards decided to land nearly on top of the fish I was stalking, leaving nothing but a cloud of mud where a happily tailing fish had been. The second time, well that was my fault. I had been so focused on my fish that I failed to notice the smaller male come along looking for love. When I made my cast he spooked at the movement or glare of the rod and took the bigger fish with him.

 My eyes scan the water quickly to make sure I don’t make that mistake again. No one else is around and I make a false cast to judge trajectory and distance, a second and I shoot some line on the forward cast plopping the fly two feet ahead and just to the right of her. She pauses for a moment and I think I’ve messed it up for sure. “Too damn close” I grumble to myself angrily. There isn’t enough time to beat myself up any more as she darts forward and slurps the fly. I can’t even set the hook before she does it herself bolting at the foreign object in her mouth.

  The little bit of extra line shoots through my fingers and then the guides putting her on the reel almost instantaneously.  “I wouldn’t touch that fish, the water here is really dirty”. I’m startled by the strangers voice behind me, I hadn’t even noticed them.  As I watch the backing melt off my reel I can’t help  but think that it doesn’t matter if I land her or not, I’ve already managed the most enjoyable part for me anyway. It’s the feeling of the cast , beating the shakes and the lump in my throat that really matter.

      For me it’s the things that you can’t touch that make fly fishing an addiction.