By Ethan Hollifield
I think that anyone who has been happily plagued by the sickness that is fly-fishing has, at one point or another in their time as an angler, simply paused for a moment to stare at their own reflection in the water. A mirror image of one’s self that, for a brief period, allows us to find time to interrupt our obsession of fishing to simply let our minds wander. It’s in this moment that I’ve found myself able to face the difficulties that I often find myself entrapped by. I have to admit that our reflections are sometimes not easy to gaze at. We all have skeletons in our closet that are banging at the doors of our conscious to be released. The river and the trout that we long to chase don’t offer an escape for this. It wasn’t that long ago that I ran to the river in an attempt to prove the opposite for myself.
There are evils in life that we can’t avoid. A broken heart, a betrayal, and an uncertain future: these are harsh realities that we all have to face at some point. With my luck, on this particular occasion, I had to grip all three mentioned, at once. A seemingly perfect relationship that I thought would never fail, failed. So I ran to the only place I thought I could find an escape: the river, and the trout within. It was a bitterly cold day in November. A fitting setting for the mood I was in at the time. The first rush of ice-cold mountain water hit me through my waders as I gazed onto my favorite run on the entire river. As I rhythmically cast into the current, I tried to look back on the fond memories I had here and of the fish that I had fooled into taking a fly. The times of past success and happiness were pushed away quickly by my present anxieties. Eventually, this drove me to throw my rod on the gravel bank behind me and kick the waters surface out of utter frustration.
I sat there for a moment and watched as the rings scattered across the waters surface, which eventually settled into that of my own reflection. It was in this moment I realized the river was never meant to be an escape. Rather, the trout and the river offered me a chance for redemption. That redemption came in the form of a beautiful wild brown trout being fooled into taking a Parachute Adams off of the surface and finding itself being cradled into my own hands. I watched as the trout slowly swam off into the water and watched as it’s spotted body blended into the water only to find myself facing my own reflection again. The trout took with it the regret that my reflection held.
We all have skeletons in our closets that consistently bang on the doors of our conscience. I urge you, when you run to the river to escape, as I know many anglers do, to pause and simply watch your own reflection and ask yourself what brought you to the river in the first place. What demons are you running from instead of trying to face? The river is a wonderful place for our troubles be washed away.
Reflect on that.