Our first foray into the water came at Rosemont Reservoir. On the way we picked up Vernon, a man with the presence and sagacity of a Native American chief. His years of experience have brought him to the conclusion that the proper way to approach the water is a three step process. First, examine your surroundings and appreciate the beauty of God’s creation. Second, read the water, examine the flow, and find the holes. Third, examine yourself, your intentions, and your place within God’s creation. Vernon taught me to respect the process and respect the fish. Under his tutelage I was able to hook my first fish, a beautiful 14-inch cutthroat trout. Perhaps it was beginners luck, but it gave me a small appreciation for the triumph of a successful day on the water.
My second experience with fishing would foreshadow much of what was to be my fate over the remainder of the summer. I bought an unlimited pass for the full year because I didn’t want to miss any of the action. I soon discovered, however, that my brief tast of action at Rosemont was not to be the norm. On a free Saturday morning, I decided to tag along with Chris and Grant up to Eleven Mile Canyon. While others slept, we scrambled down to the water’s edge and began trolling in earnest. My earnestness quickly evaporated with the mist in the morning sun, however, and I dropped my pole for a sketch pad and pencil. Although I may never be a great fisherman, I will always enjoy the process if only for the opportunity to commune with God in nature.
We would fish many more times over the summer and many times I would return to that sketch book and that same awe with the beauty of nature. What always brought me back to the fishing was the encouragement of the guides. Jeff Seltzner fancies himself a simple man, but when he’s put in front of a fly-tying station, he can create a nymph that could fool an entomologist. We were actually invited to take a riverside class in entomology and began learning about the intricacies of the lotic environment we were seeking to enter. One of my favorite guides, Ron Smith, is a gregarious social worker with a penchant for cigars and making comments that put the listener off balance. After comparing fishing to both hunting and sex, he final told me that, in order to catch a fish, one had to think like a fish and act like a fly. The beauty of fly fishing is this removal from self and empathy with the environment.
