You've got to have soul

   I remember reading somewhere in a Stephen King book the character stating “you’ve got to have soul”. I don’t remember the name of the book or character off the top of my head but I’ll never forget that line.

   Fly fishing is the same way, at least for me it is. I was told recently that people wanted to see noyhing but how-to articles and blog posts. If that’s true then how do you explain the success of mags like The Drake and Fly Fish Journal? I like the occasional how-to but it seems as if we’re bombarded with them on a daily basis. How to tie a knot!  How to Catch a Trout! How to find that secret spot that no one else knows about except they all do now, because we just blew it up for you!  Fuck THAT!

 I’ve been struggling with my own fishing lately and now I know why. I let that “soul” go, let myself get too mechanical.  I got worried that someone was going to see me make a bad cast or trout set on some beastie.  I thought if I mechanically fished my way through that run or the trough along the beach that I wouldn’t miss any fish. I forgot that although the fish are what gets me there it’s the soul that I stay for. I’d watch Pelicans diving on bait thinking what a cool picture it would make if I caught that moment when they break through the meniscus. That one exact time when the water opens up and says “you’ve earned it”. What was I doing instead?  Mechanically working my way down the beach trying not to miss a section of bottom, cutting it apart like a grid. Cast, step, retrieve, step, repeat. Not in the fun way that Steelheaders seem so adept at but more like a bunch of robots at some car factory in Detroit. Buzzzz, whirrr, twist and snip.

 Well, fuck that. It’s not why I fish. I’m as competitive as the next guy, maybe even more so if you ask my friends but it’s not my only reason for fishing.  I fish because as a kid I could walk down the railroad tracks to old Mrs. Sills Bass pond and see Deer or Egrets or Ospreys and even catch some fish if conditions were right. I could sneak into the run down barn where they used to have their dairy and check out the old unfinished restoration of the Model T.  When the sunlight would hit that car and shine off the metal shavings that were on the floor it was magic. I’d sit in the dust and wonder how much time her husband had put into that car and if she left it there after he’d passed away hoping he’d come back to finish it.

I fish because there’s always something new to see and learn. What makes a Striped Bass go from the Chesapeake all the way north, sometimes as far as Maine and back again? How come the sunrise always seems that much more spectacular when you have a fly rod in your hands? I’ve never seen a marsh dawn over the bayou and I want to more than anything. I have seen the sun rise over Long Island Sound and seeing the swirls of Stripers and bluefish as they chase down sand eels in that eerie gray light of dawn though. That’s the kind of thing that gives it soul.

You’ve got to have soul, man