Inertia.
A Trout Underground Essay ©2001 by Tom Chandler
Living
minutes away from a great trout river -- after living nowhere near
one for years -- tends to leave you a little giddy at first. At least
it should.
After
a decade or so of eddying around in the frantic,
hell-bent-for-leather Silicon Valley, I realized I was developing
some reflexes that weren't really helping me become a better fly
fisherman, much less a better person. It's not that people from
cities are bad, it's just that -- given the pace of your everyday
life -- your weekend fishing trips start to resemble covert military
raids instead of the recreation they're supposed to be. It's not a
character defect as much as a matter of inertia -- one day you're in
a knife fight with the marketing department over the color of the
logo, and the next you're out on the river trying pretty damned hard
to relax, catch some fish, and take in the impossible beauty. And all
on a deadline.
I've
participated in plenty of these raids myself; after a while you're
not sure who the enemy is -- the fish, the other fishermen, your
boss, or even yourself. Relaxing in that situation isn't exactly
impossible, but doing so is tough when you've gotta have fun, and
you've gotta do it before Sunday at 3:00 p.m. A fishing friend from
Los Angeles said on most trips he simply didn't have time to coast
down to a near stop -- the proper speed for trout fishing.
Having done that sort of thing myself for many years, it's now pretty easy to recognize the signs in others. Some people can't stop moving, even when confronted by Mossbrae Falls, something a normal person should sit down and stare at for hours. Some stride briskly between pools like they were moving from one meeting to another, and you'll often find them hunched over and nymphing right through wonderful dry fly water. Later, when you run into them at the bar in town, they admit that they don't actually much care for nymphing, but they do it because they need to catch some fish in a hurry.
As I said, it's understandable. Inertia. And in the bigger scheme of things, how you approach fly fishing isn't how you'll be judged at the Pearly Gates, despite what you read on the Internet. Still, while living on sheer inertia probably won't get you sent to hell when you die, things can seem a bit grim while you're still alive. At least they did to me.
So one day I left. I decided that life involves the same struggles as fishing a river -- to get where you wanted to be, you sometimes had to wade against the current.
Good-bye Bay Area.
I began looking for a new town to call home, and quickly realized that if you're searching for a place to live, it's best to find one that reflects your priorities. In my town, I can buy Quigley Cripples and space-age floatant in two different fly shops, but if I want a pillow, underwear, or an office stapler, I have to drive 12 miles north. Some have suggested this was proof of a failed perspective, but I think I got it about right.
Naturally, I didn't arrive in town in a state of grace, or immediately stop living at Silicon Valley speeds, but for anyone who's been to Dunsmuir, the differences between high-tech time and local time should be clear. And naturally, some of the less-obvious differences ended up becoming the most important. Only later would I come to realize the benefits of living where you could ride a bicycle for 70 miles without once stopping for a car -- or where the people at the post office, bank, and grocery store would know you by sight if not name. The river, needless to say, is rarely crowded.
Clearly, there's a lot to be said for living where the fishing guides handily outnumber the lawyers.
I moved into my new house one day before the fishing season began, a pretty auspicious time for someone who didn't know he was moving only a few months before. It's tempting to say I jumped out of bed on opening day and started the season with a song in my heart, but the truth is I was cranky, tired, road-burned, and spaced from moving. Still, in that situation, you do what's necessary. You go fishing.
I fished a lot those first few months, and in only a few cases did I catch myself campaigning against the trout like the old days. Often -- after spending an evening or a day on the water -- I'd stand at my truck and experience the same feeling my friend Wayne Eng had the first year he lived here. It was, he said, great fun, but he had the vague feeling that one day he'd have to go home, not fully comprehending that he already was.
Naturally, the people are as important as the fish, and when you combine the two, life gets downright interesting. One afternoon, Dave Roberts -- my redneck guide friend from Oregon who ties the prettiest dry flies you've ever seen -- stood beside me while a big rainbow dashed downriver and emptied my reel. As he watched the last few turns of fly line disappear, he said "Are you going to chase that fish, or just stand here with your thumb up your ass?"
Friends like that are hard to come by, but they're a lot more common on rivers than in boardrooms.
Dave's a paradox in that he'd like you to think he's a big, slow redneck, but he fishes cane rods and is happiest when he's casting tiny flies on the most technical, demanding water he can find. He works at night and fishes most days -- and when he's not fishing, he's tying some pretty astounding flies. If you met Dave in a bar you wouldn't guess all this, but that's another lesson I learned pretty quickly -- a lot of people up here are not what they appear to be. Bob Grace runs one of the two fly shops in town; he chews tobacco, wears a pair of worn boots and fishes ancient fiberglass fly rods, none of which point to the fact that he was formerly a pretty fair stockbroker -- and like myself, an escapee from the Bay Area.
Likewise, you sometimes run into Wayne Eng and swear he could be the lead actor from a Kung-Fu epic titled "The Flying Fists of Pain," but he's one of the most laid back fly fishing guides you're ever going to meet. And Myrna -- well, she's not shy about telling you when you're being an idiot, but she'd wade into a pack of wolves for a friend. Cindy -- who is Myrna's friend -- is a former corporate trainer who owns the Gandy Dancer Café and works a whole lot harder than most of the people I know in the Silicon Valley. Naturally, the food is great and the atmosphere is ideal if you're trying to wind down after too many hours at freeway speeds. Stop by when you're in town. And yes, that’s a plug.
Obviously, this is only a partial list of the characters, but a revealing one. I liked them all instantly.
Clearly Dunsmuir was a place I could call home, but the realization that things had fundamentally changed hit me the night I stumbled on a decent spinner fall high up the river. Uncharacteristically damp evening air had brought the spinners down to the water, and I had the right fly, long leader, slow cane rod -- everything in its proper place. I caught some nice fish on tough, flat water, and at dark Ihooked a 17" rainbow, a good fish for this river.
While I playedhim, it started to rain softly -- those big warm drops that hit you like miniature water balloons. I brought the fish to my feet, twisted the organza-winged spinner out of his mouth, sent him home, and just stood in the gathering darkness, getting wetter but no colder. It wasn't so much that this was the perfect moment -- though it was -- but rather the realization that I could do the same thing tomorrow if nature was in a cooperative mood
No car alarms. No stoplights. And most importantly, no deadlines.
It's not like the clouds have parted and I'm suddenly handsome or rich -- I still work a lot and I don't fish as much as I think I should, but for now anyway, the proper balances are close to being restored. I will admit to being a lot happier than I was, and that I'm a lot better fly fisherman too, if only because I get more chances to screw up. If you don’t get it right tonight, you get another chance tomorrow night.
Clearly, living within seconds of a great trout river creates its own pull -- some days it seems like pure guilt pushes you out the front door, 8' 5wt in hand. In the end, I guess that's proof that inertia operates here too. It still needs to be resisted now and then, but since that tug I feel is mostly the river, it's probably pulling in the right direction.
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