Philosophy of the Fly: The Gift

From the moment our heart beats, to the second that we depart from this life into the unknown, we are given a gift. It’s hard for man to comprehend how something so complex can be so simple and that our divine origin can seem so meaningless as the grains of sand seem to drop so slowly in front of us as we seek meaning in times of idleness. Some say that this gift is unwanted. They are thrown into the turbulence and never seem to find the calm. Their hearts beat without passion and they become blinded by the false illusions that drape over the stage of a mundane life. Material possessions fill their lives as they can only take part in the present world that surrounds them. They fail to see the beauty in everything that surrounds them, never fully understanding the brilliance of their own existence. The tiniest movement that the human body makes while conscious in the physical world is a divine miracle and one should never waste the opportunity to live in the most peaceful time in the history of mankind.

            By the grace of God, I was given a gift. The gift to see deeper meaning into my sometimes seemingly routine life and see the light that shines within the mysterious pain that shrouds a lifetime of living.  Into the new I emerged, a son that carried on my father’s pride. But nature desires balance and it will stop at nothing till it sits comfortably once it is disturbed. My father gave me the gift of life, but soon after my arrival, nature demanded balance and my father was asked to return to his beginning. A selfless man, my grandfather, moved north and stepped into the role my father left waiting for him. As I began to experience the world, the void that nature caused was perplexing. The most important figure a boy can have is his father, although my Grandfather acted as a surrogate, his wisdom could only reach so far. The insecurities and anxieties of a lonely child living in a busy city seemed to become overbearing at times. Looking for answers, I turned back to nature as an eager child. The root of my pain came back again to heal a wound that nature had inflicted upon me. Traveling into the woods and streams, I began to conquer the cyclical negativity that plagued my young mind. Soon my naïve eyes began to see the perfect imperfections that fill our lives. My grandfather saw my passion emerging while I was young boy and realized the impact that the outdoors was providing me. Unfortunately, he grew up in tough times where money was saved instead of spent adventuring. His knowledge of fishing and hunting was the bare minimum. He devoted his life to giving me the opportunities to live in the wonderful outside world that I yearned for. I would spend hours in the woods and in the water, investigating and studying every creation that crawled passed my feet. I craved to know more about how everything came to be and how it all fit together.

     As time moved foreword, my innocence began to weather and my metal began to rust. I was forced to leave the woods, my home, and embark upon the social construct we know as society. Nature speaks no words, everything that happens has a reason and life is fluid outside of man’s grasp. In society, Man speaks many words that destroy and poison those around them without meaning. The adjustment to the world that I had to integrate with was harsh and brash. Confusion filled my mind and my bond with my grandfather became weaker as I pursued the life of an average teenage boy. Life became less clear and I could not always see the light engulfed within the darkness.

Years passed by without effort and as I lived within the moment. Lessons I had learned in nature had faded and the shine of the material world had tightened down around my mind. Like many fools blinded by the flash of everything new, I forgot that life must always come to an end. My grandfather became sick in his old age. Time slipped by just as quickly as his fingers fell from mine as he breathed his final breath. The image of a man so full of life and happiness, shaking in fear of the unknown, as I, still not yet a man, held his hand. This event  has been burned into my mind for good reason. As he drifted off into his deepest slumber, the stillness of the moment awoke a sleeping presence that had lay dormant deep in the depths of my mind. A voice cried out in the wilderness and I was finally ready to answer it's haunting call.

            In my grandfather’s last few months, his memory began to deteriorate and emotions were stripped from him as the chemicals broke down his body. Conversations were hard to come by and his physical pain became emotional pain that hardened my heart. Yet in his pain, the one memory that reinvigorated him, was the when he took me to meet a fly fishing instructor one fall day when I was a small boy. Fly-fishing to a ten year old, seemed complex and frustrating. The passion for this art never blossomed for me like he had hoped. In those painful days, my grandfather recollected that memory and urged me to try my hand at this mysterious sport. He saw something deeper that I could not yet see.

            Days after his passing, the words he spoke urging me to find a passion in fly fishing danced in my mind. Everything was cold the day I went into the store to buy my first fly rod. The air, the ground, and my heart felt the painful touch of the bitterness that accompanies a dreary January day. Little did I know, I would walk out of that department store with not only a fly fishing rod, but also a new perspective on life that would bring warmth to my coldest January days, quite simply, a gift.

That first cast into the water overtook me. My inner being submerged like the fly I had cast and it was stripped out of the ice-cold water and born once again. My soul would slowly begin to heal and return to its innocence and appreciation of being, even though I was not aware at the time of my awakening. The part of me that was lost the day I said “goodbye” to my Grandfather began to fill quickly with a new love but like every new undertaking, frustration is the demise of any aspiration a man has when confidence is absent. I’d spend my first year, casting. Trying to develop and understand abstract concepts, which lay the fundamentals of the fly. Fishless days would hinder my progress, but the life that surrounded me while on the water, slowly repaired the broken pieces of my being. I would flip rocks in streams with youthful enthusiasm to learn of the secret life that lay hidden beneath the surging surface. All of the creatures around me painted my imagination and I slowly learned more about the hidden lessons in life: Patience.Persitance.Timing.Empathy.Respect.Love .

            It became clear to me that nature could teach a man much more about himself if he would let it. Before I began fly-fishing, I viewed the trout as an inferior life form compared to myself. We may be composed of the same organic material, but our evolutionary paths brought us to different levels of consciousness. This concept changed when my casts no longer could simply be defined by science. 

The cast became my art, outward expressions of the connection of the soul to the rod. Loops cannot collapse when the fisherman exists all the way to the fly he throws. The word “sport” faded into “art” and the fly I presented to the trout with the fullest ability became a “gift”. This gift once again provides meaning to a mysterious life. Every organism is meant to survive and reproduce, a paradoxical waste of existence. The gift we give to other life around us gives meaning, which creates passion, and then finally love.

As a dry fly drifts passed a trout’s nose and the anglers fly fools the trout, both events cause an unexpected event in both creatures’ monotonous lives. For a brief moment in time, a spiritual connection occurs that links the two together creating something deeper that changes the man and fish. The conscious of the two transcends one another, and for a brief second, the imbalance in nature is balanced. The man stands in water and the trout is held in the air, the ying and yang of this moment spins in harmonious accord before the two embark from one another. The angler respects his equal and releases the fish to swim back to nature, so the trout can provide the fisherman with future generations. The wild fish transforms into shades of beautiful colors as it spawns, producing a miracle in God’s eyes. Years later, the man returns to the same water, this time with a new gift, he hands the child the weathered rod and the child casts…

            It’s hard to imagine that almost four years have passed since I received this gift. I’ve spent thousands of hours on beautiful water and I’ve been able to squeeze in a decades of experience and knowledge in my short time fly-fishing. My Grandfather kept giving and I finally took notice after it was too late. He gave me a gift that gave me a beautiful perspective on life. The meaning I found within this amazing lifestyle is that no river is too far. Every new inch of water explored is one more opportunity to connect with the future children that I pray I someday have. To give them a gift and remain here with them as they seek my guidance in this wonderful story. And finally, to give back to my Grandfather and Father, a gift that gave them meaning.

 Purpose is all around you in life, take advantage of the living world and the opportunities it presents to you, as your brightest days will awaken from the darkest hours.

Submerged

It all started out with a fly, the last one I had of a nymph pattern that seemed to be the only thing working on that particular day. The fly was lobbed into a small seam that was protected by a set of fairly mean rapids, my sighter dipped and I set into a deep snag. The kind of snag that no matter what you do it's not coming out. So I proceeded to do what any angler facing the loss of his last productive fly would do, I went in. As I navigated towards the boulder that supposedly ate up my fly, I realized it was actually caught on something lodged against it that appeared to be a bright blue. I reached down into the water to the point where only my neck and head were above the surface in attempt to free the hook, all this yielded was a wet arm. Taking a different approach I slid my boot under the mysterious blue item and gave it a swift kick towards the surface. Up comes a whitewater kayak paddle, attached to it my last SOS nymph. I unhooked my nymph and with a laugh I threw the paddle on the shore and continued to fish. As I worked my way out of the water, I stepped over the paddle, which revealed to me some faint writing in sharpie marker that had been severely faded from it's time spent under the water. On it read a name I couldn't quite make out and some numbers, which after some intense studying I realized was a phone number. I can recall thinking to myself "If I lost my fly box or rod I'd probably appreciate someone returning it", so I scooped up the awkwardly weighted paddle and struggled upstream with it. When I reached cell phone coverage on my drive home I dialed my closest interpretation of the numbers written on the paddle and got a lady on the other end that was ecstatic I had found her missing paddle. We set a meeting place and the paddle was returned. While talking with the kind older woman I came to learn she recently took up kayaking to escape some troubles in life, so she was very happy to have the paddle back, which I also learned cost around $300 (fly fishing isn't the only bank breaker). On the following weekend I made a return trip to the same stream since the fishing was so good (this time with more SOS) and while working over a section just around a mile upstream from where I found the paddle, I eerily saw another flash of blue submerged at the bottom of a fairly deep tailout. Putting my boot trick back into play, I kick up a clean looking high end wading staff. I checked for a name and number and even searched the stream for another angler who may have lost it. With no one in the vicinity I thought it'd be a welcome new addition to my gear, since I was still on the mend from an accident and could use the extra bit of help wading the tough waters that I frequent anyways. So I strapped it to my vest and proceeded upstream. As the summer progressed it helped me tread through the bigger tailwaters I fish during warmer weather and especially into Autumn when I suffered a pretty significant ankle injury while deer hunting. It had become a staple in my outdoor gear and I came to regret everything I said about them being "for old guys and purist." This winter I needed it more than ever. I had a fishing trip planned that I refused to cancel due to a blizzard. About two feet of snow blanketed the valley the day before. It was nearly impossible to navigate, but I managed and that staff was a critical piece needed to poke through the snow for an extra point of contact. I slid my way down into a canyon I have been meaning to explore. Doing my best impression of a sled, I barreled to the bottom of the sleep hillside and landed on my feet at the edge of the stream. It was nearly impossible to navigate due to the high snow banks, but I found a good fish in a deep run that was willing to eat a big meal, which kind of made the trip. On my attempt to leave I quickly learned that sliding down a steep incline in deep powdery snow was far easier than climbing back up it. I was seemingly trapped. I'd climb almost to the top and back down I'd tumble. In a last ditch effort I dug the wading staff deep into the snow and lodged it against a hidden object, just as I was propelling myself to the top and onto flat ground I slipped, lost my footing, and back into the canyon I went. At Some point during the flopping around, I caught a glimpse of the river and saw the blue end of the wading staff materialize into the deep icy water. In a fit of rage I did my best whitetail deer impression and ran straight up the cliff at a slight parallel angle and finally hit the flat of the trail at the top with a great leap. I high stepped my way back to the car and set the GPS to home. Trudging through snow of that proportion all day takes everything you have. Id argue it to be some of the best cardio and leg work outs possible. I surprisingly had that post gym satisfaction one gets after a vigorous workout. It was at that moment that I realized what had just happened to me. The wading staff that was a crutch to me in tough times was no longer needed by me and it was neither found nor lost by some coincidence. As I pictured in my mind an aging angler slowly working his way up through that dark canyon, snagging his line on a mysterious blue item on the bottom of the stream, and reaching down to see what it is, a smile overtakes me. Great life lessons were learned on that long snowy road home. Everything you do comes back around, things enter and leave your life at precisely the right moments and wading staffs aren't for just old guys and purist.

The Constant

    Cold water rushes past bruised knees and a heavy mind is washed away for a mere moment. A split second is all that is needed to be renewed in a lifetime full of hurt. The man kneels along the shallows, covered in grit and mud while his clothes are soaked by the frigid stream. He sacrifices his own comfort to release an animal, safely, that has been releasing him his entire life. The beautiful creature swims back into the wild, a place where the man's heart also dwells, constantly adventuring and yearning to see what lies beyond the next bend in the hallowed waters. For a second the man is lost in the wilderness, but soon returns to himself. The bitter cold should burn and stiffen his flesh but the fire burning inside him burns hotter as the winds of his spirit breathe to him anew. Kneeling in the mud, he whispers a prayer to his Creator, making sure to appreciate the most simplistic and complex blessing that is known as: Life. 

            How does a “sport” transcend the physical act of catching fish with a fly into a mystical art form that makes science and faith dance together in harmonious accord? Once an angler commits himself to fly fishing, he changes. A metamorphosis occurs, just as the mayfly crawls out of it's shuck. The angler’s consciousness develops, through time, into an esoteric entity. The mosaic layering of his thoughts are placed by the mixture of knowledge he must obtain to achieve his end goal: catching the trout. He collects facts and experience then blends them with hope that the variables of the day will fall into place to allow him to hook into the yellow bellied beast, he so desires. He spends years, wrapping thread and feather onto a hook, knowing the exact lay of where the materials must go. Yet, with every movement of his bobbin, he puts something intangible into the fly; his heart. The altruistic value he places into his craft symbolizes the impact that fly fishing has upon his existence.

            A trout is a small organism with basic survival needs that can be explained through scientific observation. Yet thousands of hours have been shared by anglers with the trout, while trying to bridge the divide between the two. An angler with a lifetime of experience on the water, still always seems to find a trout that he cannot catch. The variable that disrupts our comfort is always present. As humans, we record our life through numbers. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years are coveted by our minds, yet hold no meaning to the trout. The energy spent trying to decipher the codex of the fish, remains a beautiful mystery that one can only define through text.

            As nymphs begin to hatch, fish begin to migrate towards the fast, shallow riffles to fill their stomachs full of active bugs that help them sustain their energy. A less knowledgeable angler may simply wade through these areas without realizing what is right below his feet. The seasoned angler acknowledges the time frame and relies on his experience to dictate where he predicts the fish to hold. He then simply hopes that the fish will cooperate with him, as he goes to make his cast. This accumulation of time on the water has taught the veteran angler many things. Observations have layered his mind with truths and philosophies of life that not only pertain to the trout, but the inner introspection of the self. The complexity and simplicity of this art form intertwines and sometimes may skew the true reality of why he stands in cold water waiting for a fish he has caught countless times before. Is it an addiction to the unknown of the adventure he partakes in? Or the conditioned response to increased brain chemicals with the act of landing a trout? A scientific answer will only strip the beauty of what is sacred to the angler and will only dull the colors that illustrate the art.

            Fly fishing, is not the sport of catching trout with a fly. It is something much deeper, yet hides in plain sight; like trout feeding in the riffles. It may take an angler a lifetime to understand what unseen forces drive him constantly back to the water. The art form starts as a hobby, then transitions to a passion.Finally, it merges with the angler, becoming an incorporeal component of one’s identity. This existential process is the maturation of the angler's mind. The trout, although also a living creature of flesh, is of a lower consciousness compared to man, yet man needs the trout. Essentially, the trout is the angler’s proxy in finding meaning to his own life. The endless pursuit over a lifetime is not to simply catch the trout, it is to fill one’s life with memories and happiness while strengthening the soul with values that nature can only teach. Science and faith come together in the angler’s mind, to anticipate the unseen forces that cause anomalies within his life that teach him how to persevere when conditions change.

            In a universe full of uncertainty, the one true Constant an angler has is,
the water. 





                                 -Mike Emanuele

Contrast

Black, pitch black, a dim white light accompanied by some noise. Fumbling around in the dark house trying not to disturb anyone at 4 am on this cold January morning. A dull silver truck awakens with a subtle rumble, miles and miles of grey and black. A red light in the distance reminds me that I need some fuel for the upcoming day of cold, back to miles of grey. At some point in the darkness a dim light is on the horizon, not accompanied by the sun, it's been days, weeks, maybe coming up on a month since I saw the sun. Today is no different. It exposes dark blue mountainsides and the somber grey tones of the Pennsylvania winter. Hours later the dull silver truck pulls up into a gloomy old town, dark even on the brightest of days. The town was likely once a booming town, thriving on mines and the large factory that sits nearby, but now like most of Pennsylvania it's faded to darkness. The door swings open, bitter cold, layers and layers of boring earth toned clothing goes on. Footsteps over coal colored slags of rock lead to the stream, no signs of life are present. The water a boring navy blue, the streamside a dead brown, the forest surrounding it grey, the sky dark. Hours pass with no sign of anything alive. White, blankets of it lays the few colors present to sleep under its cover. A white piece of cork floats through the water, barely discernible to the human eye from the foam bubbles floating beside it. An abrupt stop accompanied by a swift reaction, an explosion takes place. Colors that appear not to belong in this grey realm. Yellow that's as blinding as the sun, radiant red, golden brown, a hint of purple resembling that of a precious gem, flashes of an incredible blue, splash through the flat boring water, bleeding through it's lame colored canvas like a being from another dimension. It hits my ice blue eyes and for a small split moment brightens up the depressing landscape of a Pennsylvania Winter. After a moment of spirit raising admiration the colors slowly fade into the black as quickly as they've materialized out of it. Darkness overtakes the deep valley and miles of grey follow.