Huxley’s Run

by Dr. Adipose Huxley

With September comes choice, too much choice sometimes. Beach fishing for coho? Out for some late run Chinook? Maybe some early chum? Steelhead in the rivers? It’s all there but the time. September is also back to school, ending the garden and preparing it for winter, cutting wood that summer fishing precluded.

So time enters the decision making process. First light comes later: last light comes earlier. Trips in deference to work and family commitments have to be cut short by hours. Pick your poison. I will, until September 15 (the end of the Tyee Club of British Columbia’s annual tournament), spend most evenings and some mornings there. But the magic of beach and river and sometimes the lake lingers. Too much choice is not kind.

All of this has to be done with delicacy and some courage. And not a little guilt. In fact I think guilt has ruined more fishing trips than bad weather, bad fishing, or broken equipment ever will. Fishing takes a clearness of mind. One can go to it weighed down with personal and professional problems and enjoy it fully because of the small pause it gives to worry.

But guilt? That is impossible to overcome, no matter the fishing. This is the guilt an angler feels when he or she knows perhaps he or she has gone fishing instead of to other responsibilities. It is the guilt he or she carries, burdensome on shoulders and mind, which brings with it and creates a dark cloud. The angler, ensconced in what should be a spiritually and physically cleansing exercise, is left in a morass of self-doubt.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have come. Maybe I should have cut the lawn. Maybe I should have chopped the wood. Maybe I should have, should have, should have…."

It's unfortunate. On guiltless days I have seen fishing partners transformed. I have seen them begin with grumbles. I have seen them begin with forays into their personal troubles, seeming to expunge specks of the rot that plagues day-to-day life. And I have seen the outcome; usually a refreshed and vibrant outlook whether the fishing was good or not.

And I have seen those who have come with the cloud. It is in their demeanor that shows the fishing experience is not having the spiritually diluting and accentuating affect it should. Their enthusiasm is challenged at best, their day ruined from the first cast. Even fishing of the most brilliant kind will only knock a small chink out of the armor with which they have been cast. The cloud returns, so encompassing that perhaps the fishing should not have happened at all because it was so tainted as to make it fruitless.

I don’t think there is a cure for doubt. If there is it comes from the understanding of significant others that the fishing is not merely a pastime in which a person dabbles. It's in the understanding that the angler, after each and every outing, will return a better person.
The angler will have experienced the wild river, the succulent ocean, the beach or lake and most of the hidden treasures that come with these things. The angler will have gone to another place, been another person, where bank accounts and job status have absolutely nothing to do with happiness. The angler will have lived a small portion of life so important and rich that life itself becomes exponentially more loved and cherished.

Christmas is not far away and I believe the ideal present would be a slip of paper that has the word "doubt" written upon it in capital letters. Present that to the angler you love prior to their next fishing. Then tear it up and let the bits of paper flutter into the wind, float carefree down a river, drop from your hand to a welcoming earth.

And then watch for the smile. It’ll be bigger when your angler returns.