We fishermen, I think, are lucky. Our sport can take us back to the fundamentals, back to the shallow waters where we first wet our feet, back even to those primordial beginnings we so long for in our dreams. A day fishing that quiet brook meandering through that unspoiled meadow can, however momentarily, carry even the most befouled modern man back to the natural rhythms of life and death and to that Eden toward which, in our haste to leave it behind, too few of us have bothered to steal a backward glance.
— Paul Quinnett, Whatever Became of Fishing Man?, Pavlov’s Trout —
And that’s why I fish.
Not for the competition, not for the landing of lunkers, not to be able to prove that I somehow know what I’m doing when I land the biggest best fish in the waters I’m fishing.
I like to fish.
If it somehow gives me a moment of clarity after being beat down on a daily basis to survive, surviving in a world I neither like much nor feel like I fit in much, that’s a nice benefit.
If catching a little smallie and holding it in my hand, with the fish barely extending beyond the palm of my hand, brings me a hair closer to the natural rhythms of life and death and Eden, then I’ll take it.
If doing that on a small stream, surrounded by woods with trees arching over the water from one shore to the other, brings down my blood pressure and gives me a few more days of tolerating the unnatural world I live in, then I’ll take that as an extra added benefit.
What I would like to do, someday, is not only steal a backward glance at that Eden that is being left behind, but to turn, relax my shoulders a bit and start the hike back. Only, when I arrive, I want to stay there indefinitely.
Howard Levett
8 Dec 2012Ken you’ve said in a few paragraphs what I have been trying to say for three years. Well done.
Ken G
8 Dec 2012Took me longer to write that down than many of the others I’ve done Howard. Still not happy with some of the wording, maybe the next one.
The Impractical Fisherman
8 Dec 2012Can’t argue with that philosophy :D.
Ken G
9 Dec 2012I know enough city people that find it appalling. I can no longer go to downtown Chicago and utter the word beautiful. It’s just not, to me.
Kev
9 Dec 2012“What I would like to do, someday, is not only steal a backward glance at that Eden that is being left behind, but to turn, relax my shoulders a bit and start the hike back. Only, when I arrive, I want to stay there indefinitely.” I think most of us feel this way.
Ken G
9 Dec 2012In my world Kev, I would get to Eden, someone would give me a $10 an hour job, my rent would be $150 per month and every other bill would be structured accordingly. Wouldn’t have to kill myself to survive and there would be plenty of time left over to go fishing.
walt franklin
9 Dec 2012Ken,
See ya in that anglers’ Eden, brother!
Ken G
9 Dec 2012Some day Walt. I wish there were more creeks and streams like you wander around here. My wife would have to just write me off as missing.
Mark Lutz
9 Dec 2012I couldn’t agree more with many of your comments and observations.
Angling is one of the few things that I can honestly say contibute to my calmer being in the past few years. My wife simply does not understand she only sees the results. Out the door all uptight and crabby….back in the door with a bounce in my step whether I caught something or not. It’s all good!!
Ken G
9 Dec 2012That’s exactly it Mark. My wife chases me out the door when she sees me climbing the walls. I’m much more tolerable when I come back.
bob
9 Dec 2012Fishing allows me one truly great gift. It is among the greatest of gifts I have received over the years. It is a gift that – it would appear – cannot be taken away from me. It is a gift that is mine to have until I no longer can fish.
I need never look back nor long for any place or time as Fishing is the gift that gives me Eden each and every time I make a cast into water – right there, right then, wherever I am.
Ken G
9 Dec 2012Well put Bob.