Sharphooks
Well-Known Member
We all have our own Private Idaho, that place where we can go to and be completely alone so we can reflect and recharge and try and start all over again with a clean slate.
That’s part of going into the New Year: we want to scrub ourselves clean, get a new beginning----maybe get it just a little bit better the next time around.
What better place to do this then on a river?
I’ve had some stunning New Year's days on rivers: it seems over the years those days have been bitterly cold, but clean and fresh so at the end of it, I was left feeling like I'd been scrubbed raw and pink like a freshly washed baby…
My favorite line from Roderick Haig-Brown: ….”I fish so I can be near rivers….”
My second favorite line (paraphrased a bit):…..”Fishing is an attempt to create or recreate the ideal situation…”
Both of these lines were between my ears yesterday morning at the crack of dawn as I worked my way up into the canyon of my own Private Idaho.
After all those high waters I swear I felt as if I was setting foot on a river fresh out of a box, as if a young lad had unwrapped a Christmas present and out tumbled this river. He was hoping for a scooter. He offered me his river and went on to the next present.
I said thanks and lavished my good fortune---a river gifted to me on the first day of creation---child is father to the man and who was I? Oh, what a lucky man, indeed!
Not a footprint in sight, no garbage left by whoever didn't leave those prints, just a stunning piece of God’s real estate on the first day of creation doing the only thing it knew how: flowing to the sea.
When in a place like this, I am always thunderstruck, flattened, completely and utterly blown away, when I actually hook a fish. It seems I'm always left feeling as if I've already been given enough just being alive and walking on the river, and then all of a sudden, I get double gifted, because there I was stepping on the third rail, my rod convulsing in my frigid fingers, and before I could grasp what was going on, there on the beach, a glistening silver ingot fresh up from the Pacific on a boomer tide:
And the look of my dog: how did you pull that off? Good work, dude---a hatch job---groceries! Are you going to share?
So then the pressure was off---- I could truly relax because I had the double bonus: a day in a gorgeous canyon, and a nice fin-clipped fish that I could eat without any guilt. I was all alone with my new puppy getting good clean exercise and I had brought a camera to record this stunning day:
And then I was walking back out of the canyon, feeling like a million bucks. What a day! I stopped to take final stock of the river before it all ended and I was back at my truck.
There at the bottom end of the canyon was the stack of trees laying across the river. That was the spot I'd passed by at dawn. I didn't cast there on the way up because I didn't want to risk losing a fly in that logjam so early in the day. But now that I'd had that wonderful morning, and I was carrying a fish, I decided to make that kamikazi cast, the one in a million long shot---
I was shooting the moon. I knew how slim the chances were, but I would make that cast anyways....and then....what's all this????
The skin of water just above the logjam exploded and once again, my rod was convulsing in my hand like a living thing and the puppy was yelping and scampering around in tight circles and miracle of miracles, there before me, like an intricately fabricated theater set, a silver arc of meat in a twisted frenzy, hung by a thread from heaven, suspended over a throat of glorious water in a penumbra of shattered river and jagged bits of sun.
And just as fast it dropped back into the river and I was left thinking: maybe none of this really happened. But before I could even have that goofy thought, there it was again, halfway up into the next pool. And before I could work out the math of just how fast she had gotten there, she was back at the lip of the logjam doing end-over-end cartwheels.
Our hearts are pounding in our chests; we're weak behind the knees.
Our hands are shaking because there before us, at our feet, another miracle from the sea, laying next to the first one that was just so nice we really didn't need or deserve another one but we got it anyways---
And when we snap the shutter we already know the picture will be totally out of focus because we're so amped up on the gift of life and all it has to offer that focus just doesn't matter anymore---
It truly was OUR morning, it all really DID happen, it was nobody else's, it was all for us, and now we have this stunning memory to carry with us until the day we die:
Happy New Year to all of you---let's all hope for a safe and prosperous and peaceful new year for everyone of us!!
That’s part of going into the New Year: we want to scrub ourselves clean, get a new beginning----maybe get it just a little bit better the next time around.
What better place to do this then on a river?
I’ve had some stunning New Year's days on rivers: it seems over the years those days have been bitterly cold, but clean and fresh so at the end of it, I was left feeling like I'd been scrubbed raw and pink like a freshly washed baby…
My favorite line from Roderick Haig-Brown: ….”I fish so I can be near rivers….”
My second favorite line (paraphrased a bit):…..”Fishing is an attempt to create or recreate the ideal situation…”
Both of these lines were between my ears yesterday morning at the crack of dawn as I worked my way up into the canyon of my own Private Idaho.
After all those high waters I swear I felt as if I was setting foot on a river fresh out of a box, as if a young lad had unwrapped a Christmas present and out tumbled this river. He was hoping for a scooter. He offered me his river and went on to the next present.
I said thanks and lavished my good fortune---a river gifted to me on the first day of creation---child is father to the man and who was I? Oh, what a lucky man, indeed!
Not a footprint in sight, no garbage left by whoever didn't leave those prints, just a stunning piece of God’s real estate on the first day of creation doing the only thing it knew how: flowing to the sea.
When in a place like this, I am always thunderstruck, flattened, completely and utterly blown away, when I actually hook a fish. It seems I'm always left feeling as if I've already been given enough just being alive and walking on the river, and then all of a sudden, I get double gifted, because there I was stepping on the third rail, my rod convulsing in my frigid fingers, and before I could grasp what was going on, there on the beach, a glistening silver ingot fresh up from the Pacific on a boomer tide:
And the look of my dog: how did you pull that off? Good work, dude---a hatch job---groceries! Are you going to share?
So then the pressure was off---- I could truly relax because I had the double bonus: a day in a gorgeous canyon, and a nice fin-clipped fish that I could eat without any guilt. I was all alone with my new puppy getting good clean exercise and I had brought a camera to record this stunning day:
And then I was walking back out of the canyon, feeling like a million bucks. What a day! I stopped to take final stock of the river before it all ended and I was back at my truck.
There at the bottom end of the canyon was the stack of trees laying across the river. That was the spot I'd passed by at dawn. I didn't cast there on the way up because I didn't want to risk losing a fly in that logjam so early in the day. But now that I'd had that wonderful morning, and I was carrying a fish, I decided to make that kamikazi cast, the one in a million long shot---
I was shooting the moon. I knew how slim the chances were, but I would make that cast anyways....and then....what's all this????
The skin of water just above the logjam exploded and once again, my rod was convulsing in my hand like a living thing and the puppy was yelping and scampering around in tight circles and miracle of miracles, there before me, like an intricately fabricated theater set, a silver arc of meat in a twisted frenzy, hung by a thread from heaven, suspended over a throat of glorious water in a penumbra of shattered river and jagged bits of sun.
And just as fast it dropped back into the river and I was left thinking: maybe none of this really happened. But before I could even have that goofy thought, there it was again, halfway up into the next pool. And before I could work out the math of just how fast she had gotten there, she was back at the lip of the logjam doing end-over-end cartwheels.
Our hearts are pounding in our chests; we're weak behind the knees.
Our hands are shaking because there before us, at our feet, another miracle from the sea, laying next to the first one that was just so nice we really didn't need or deserve another one but we got it anyways---
And when we snap the shutter we already know the picture will be totally out of focus because we're so amped up on the gift of life and all it has to offer that focus just doesn't matter anymore---
It truly was OUR morning, it all really DID happen, it was nobody else's, it was all for us, and now we have this stunning memory to carry with us until the day we die:
Happy New Year to all of you---let's all hope for a safe and prosperous and peaceful new year for everyone of us!!
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