I recently found myself floating down the Yellowstone River for the sole purpose of catching trout. As each foot of fly line slid through the eyes of my rod, ultimately placing a flashy woolly bugger on the clear cold water, my mind thought mostly of one thing, and one thing only, catching the big one. It was more like a dream, possibly a very visual dream where one can see themselves fighting the creature of the deep.
It is so strange to be fishing, watching the fly zip through the water and actually sensing the flash of a giant trout. The strike is almost written in my memories, memories that may not even be true, or so distant it would seem impossible to recall but the vision is there as I fish.
It seems I fish with such intensity, or should I say focus, that all other aspects of my life disappear to the back of my aging mind. I watch the fly and want so badly to see the hit, to possibly see the fish, maybe to know its size and beauty. I want to be a part of that moment, that instant where there is contact with the prey.
This dream state is why many people go angling. We want to catch the big one. We want the fight. We want to have a memory, a story, an imprinted vision in our night dreams, a victory possibly of man over nature.
Yes, the big one is part of the dream, an aspiration one has which almost seems to be embedded in our very genetics. The hard pounding hit and the fight, like Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. The rising open mouth of the trout, maybe the huge gaping jaw of the musky that follows the lure to the boat and then crashes on the huge spinner, that is the dream. This vision for me never seems to go away for even after having numerous days of failure, I still have the burning desire to fish again, always just hoping beyond all hope this will be the time, the time of the huge tug and the victory of the fight.
It would seem that possibly this primal focus, this genetically embedded focus, is in me as a drive to provide food for my tribe or a mechanism to impress a female member of my tribe thus making me selectively cool. Still, this is the modern age and it might be possible that there is more to the story as a result of advanced learning and education.
While I may be a Neanderthal savage for fishing it would seem there are other beneficial possibilities that now go along with floating down the Yellowstone River or standing on the edge of Boulder Creek.
There is a saying by Thomas Huxley that goes like this, “To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.” Does this imply that even though we may have this urge to be a provider, buried deep in our genetics, our educations may have indeed taken us to a new point so that I, for one, no longer totally want the large fish as food, or to impress my wife, although I have tried that.
What it comes down to is, I have had to reassess my “Agenda of the Gene” as a friend Nate Hagens calls it. Yes, I have the primal desire, the dream of wanting the big one. I can’t seem to shake that. But I have gone beyond that at least some, realizing there is more than the agenda to just survive for I am a modern man---at least a portion of my brain says I am.
In an effort to go beyond the hunter/gatherer I am programmed to be, or shall we say hard wired to be, there is a need to explore what might be out there in the valley of the Yellowstone or up on Boulder Creek other than food and an impressively large fish?
While I cannot consume it as sustenance, there is unimaginable beauty, not just in the cold pure water but in the willows that bounce in the afternoon breeze, and the shadows on the many river-worn rocks that line the edges of the rivers. There is midsummer Wild Bergamot, Columbine, the obnoxious Knapweed in purple hues, Figworts, Spiderworts and a thousand other flowers all bent on holding ground. There are Fritillaries of many makes, Painted Ladies, an occasional Monarch and Sulfurs, maybe an Admiral or two, all fluttering about as butterflies will.
The Mule Deer sneak in and out of the thickets and bounce across the low ground while the antelope lounge on the hillsides watching out of glancing eyes. Everywhere there is beauty, none of it really needing to be consumed but only observed and seen maybe as paintings on nature’s wall.
Still, I cannot forget the fish but I found that they too are paintings to be observed. And resting there in my cupped hand a small West slope Cutthroat Trout is almost unimaginable in its design and grace, a magical species perfectly adapted to this steam. To just look and then release was a momentary prize, a really big one, the big one.
Some may think this rationalization is simply a way of covering up the fact I did not get a “big” one---but this is not true.
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