The Fisher story by James Castwell
Fisher
"A fine day it is Fisher."
"It is, Mentor, it truly is."
"See across the Fisher, how the trout takes the tiny fly from the surface so gently."
"Let me sit here beside you Mentor, so that I may observe also."
"Yes, Fisher, please join me here on this log and keen thy senses to the brook before us, and the melodrama unfolding.?
"Mentor, why do we sit so? Why do we not apply our talents to the task at hand? Tell me why, after so long a journey you and I are constrained to this site. Why we are not about the business at foot. The wily adversary awaits and frolics merrily before our very eyes. Why do we abide?"
"Fisher? Do you observe the accuracy of the rise? I mean the exact angle at which the trout does approach the surface? The same angle, time after time, at which he intercepts the quarry? Do you watch intently after he opens his mouth and as the stream flows through his gills, with it drops his quest? Never changing; never altering his learned and proven technique. Do you, Fisher, strive to know him? To know the deep inside feelings and thoughts that propel him to shun experimentation; and yet stop him from making movements that would be physically inefficient? Why does he constantly do so, Fisher?"
"Mentor, why do you tantalize me so? As we sit here on this fine morning the gently breeze does bend the willow and betray to the trout below the insect which has been harbored there upon. I watch as one following another drifts to the whimsy of the gentle moving surface, only to be consumed in its very act of being born?"
"Tell me, Fisher, why do you prattle on so? There exists before us a scenario such as most mortals are unaware. Most would be ill equipped to comprehend; yet you Fisher, why do you fall victim to the commonest of all temptations?"
"Prey explain, my venerable Mentor, wherein my loss occurs? Do I not perceive that the trout do rise about us in seemingly reckless abandon? Do I not appreciate the minutiae upon which he does take his pleasure? Am I not equally a sportsman with no intent to do him harm, other than perhaps tiring him a bit before his return to the brook? Have not we come this day to take our sport to these fine fish?"
"My worthy young accomplice, I would rather ask, what is it in you that overcomes your inner instincts and blinds the whole of yourself; only to admit the narrow channel of instant gratification to arise? Why, tell me if you would, do you engage in this genteel recreation??
"How is it, my wise Mentor, that these many seasons past you have imbued me with the knowledge of the prey? The line and pole and winch? Why have you, indeed, spent the long hour at the tying table and the stream side if not to equip me with that which you wished to bestow? Have I not been a prudent student? Have I not listened to your sage words about the habits and habitats, about the rise, the take, the turn, and the return?"
You ask me now why I do this? It is a subject we never addressed. It is a question, for although I feel appropriately prepared, I am floundering for an answer. I would have thought that mine was to come, to cast, to catch, to capture and to continue. To count the rises, the releases, the presence of a picture which I am obviously unprepared to appreciate, let alone participate. Mentor, tell me if you will, why it is that I do this? I thought I knew, but in my thinking, I realize now that I thought not. Not at all about that which I am about to do.?
My young Fisher, the reasons for which you do what it is you do are only inside of you. To see and know how the insect hatches from its egg, to live in its liquid home, to fight the currents, to avoid it captors, to forsake the safety of its home and rise triumphantly to the shimmering surface above, to escape the confines of its grotesque, engulfing shell and burst full blown upon the other side of its world; to sail off to wild new adventures as the fluid of life fills its wings. Its only mission, to fly, to find a mate, to reproduce.
And yet another scene is to develop. For as we watch a trout has his own survival in mind and the insect would play a significant role in this.
For it is a watery dinner table in which the trout does live. Constantly moving, whirling about; bringing dinner from in front and death from above. Ever watchful need he be lest he fall prey of his own undoing. As oft as he has observed and indeed captured his food had he made even one mistake it could have perhaps proved fatal. To take his existence easily as it presented it?self in front of him is always his first choice. To rise to the edge of the vision-hole above him has never been totally satisfying. The risk of being observed from above is constantly present; and yet the quarry is different, better, something inside his soul pulls him to attempt the triangulation and the rise. Observe, there he does rise. Tilting at precisely the exact angle to intercept the fledgling morsel adrift upon the fluid edge of his world.
Listen to me now, Fisher. Have you yet noticed how when the flies of May do have their mating dance they always fly in the direction from which comes the current? Have you, perchance, seen but not really observed? Think, now Fisher. Why is it?"
"Mentor, I have seen, and you are truly correct. I have not fairly observed. They do fly against the flow, but why?"
"It may not have always been so, but the ones that did not do thus did not remain here. They ended up down stream. The flies with an inclination to fly against the current deposited their offspring above this point and in the turning of time they emerged here for us to observe. A cycle of sorts. And so it is, Fisher that the insects have their own world, their own cycle, their own live, and times, and troubles. As do the trout.
You and I sit here about to disrupt the events. We will, perhaps in our wading disturb and send tumbling about tine and ungrown life to the whimsy of the stream. The possibility exists that we will even kill some. As for the trout, what will be his fate? If he should rise and at the ever last instant realize his mistake and turn about, will be not remember the occasion? Will this not change him? Are we not all a product of our environment and its experiences? What if he does not turn in time? Then what, Fisher?"
"Oh, Mentor, I fear that we, rather I, will have done a great injustice to the fish. To fight him violently, to have his mind explode in terror as he is dragged about for my pleasure. To cause him to undergo great physical exertion and even to die and agonizing death of suffocation out of his normal element. This is a terrible thing I do! We, you and I, must do this no more. Are we not compassionate gentlemen? Are we barbarians? No, less than that. Are we not worthy to even sit here and enjoy the marvel which we observe? Tell me, my Mentor, whey we do not cease this at once?"
"My dear Fisher, in the great scheme of live there is gain and loss. There is pain and pleasure. There is winning and there is losing. That it troubles you is a sign that the mantle of adulthood is settling about your shoulders. With age and learning comes wisdom. With wisdom comes an appreciation of the environment which does include both the flora and fauna. Be not hasty to embrace every new thought in its entirety. Rather evaluate and merge your ideas that you may come to a true understanding of yourself. With that understanding comes character. Fly fishing for trout does that.
Come, son, it is time for us to enjoy the life which has been spread before us. See there, a rise!?
Signed: James Castwell 45/500
As typed by Larry ---sagefisher---
