Why do I fish?

I came relatively late to fishing. I was 18 when my uncle first put a fly rod in my hand and took me down to the River Itchen in Winchester, England. This famous river is the home of dry fly fishing and a place where the rules only allow upstream casts with a floating fly to trout picking insects off the surface.

 

My overwhelming memory of that day is the driving summer rain and wind, whipping my face and turning the river from gin-clear into a thick brown soup. I was also new to fly casting, so spent most of that morning with the fly line and leader tied in knots around my head. When my fly did hit the water, the raindrops sank it almost straight away.

 

By lunchtime I was soaked through and enthusiasm was failing, but a good pub lunch with some pints helped. That afternoon, the outlook did seem brighter: the rain was easing off and I was burning with the need to catch a fish.

 

I flogged the water all afternoon and near the end of the day found a shallow side channel, where a few small trout and grayling were willing to bite my bedraggled fly, including this beautiful brown trout, which I will always remember.

 

I didn’t know it at the time, but that day would help set the course for the next nine years and almost certainly the rest of my life.

 

I grew up on the coast, in and around boats, shrimping, crabbing and catching minnows with little nets. Every school and personal project drew me to the ocean – I built a boat, designed an underwater robot and applied to study marine biology at university. I even chose Southampton for the fishing nearby!

 

It was the first time I had a bit of money, time and a new-found passion to explore. Slowly, frustratingly, I developed my skills, learning from every friend and resource I could. “... All good things – trout as well as eternal salvation – come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.” – Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It.

 

There is a common path to the life of an angler: first you go fishing to catch a fish – any fish will do. Next, when you can catch a fish, you go to catch many fish, filling limits. Then when catching many is no longer a challenge, you try for the big ones, the real trophy fish. This usually means different methods, covering water and being willing to catch nothing all day or all week just for that one big bite. This is a low odds game that takes a particular mindset and is as much a mental challenge as a physical one, each cast another roll of the dice, hoping it falls in your favour.

 

After trophy fish, people tend to go towards catching a particular fish in a particular way, and a particular place. Such as tiny wild trout in mountain streams, or fishing with their grandfather’s split cane rod and a dry fly. I know someone who even cuts off his fly hooks at the bend. For him it is enough to trick a trout into rising to the artificial fly – hooking and landing it would spoil that perfect moment.

 

Atlantic salmon and sea trout are both big and particular; you remember every single one. I was lucky enough to be introduced to them in Norway, and went back every year and across Scandinavia for many years. They are magnificent migratory fish that are so temperamental they can drive you mad but keep you coming back for more. Chasing them has taken me to remote and beautiful places, and helped me to make lifelong friends. A warm summer evening, the anticipation building as you put on waders and walk down to the pool. Sitting on the bank with coffee, whiskey and chocolate, waiting for the light to fade as the splashes of leaping sea trout echo back off the rocks. Then later, the sudden jolt like a slap in the face as a fish takes your fly at 2 a.m. – that completes the experience.

 

I’ve also been soaked through, fallen in, broken rods, broken down car, broken everything. I’ve been stranded down dirt roads.

 

I’ve slept in airports and in bushes. I’ve been held back from being washed over a waterfall. I’ve had days turn into weeks of fishing all day and night for no bites. But it can all change in an instant.

 

So, I ask myself, why do I fish? Why do I do what I do? Why must I do it?

 

The answer I’ve found is for the connection to nature, to these wild and beautiful animals in wild places that would otherwise go completely unknown. Through fishing you come to know their habits, their lives and characters in their ecosystem, throughout the seasons. Every place, species, population and individual is unique and fascinating.

 

So, with this answer do I still need to catch fish? Well, yes, of course – as often as possible. And there is still a time for all of these stages of “any, many, big and particular,” but increasingly there are other ways to interact such as through swimming with the fish.

 

More and more I find myself putting my wetsuit, mask and snorkel on to swim with them, to be a guest in their element and see them as they truly are. I think I’ve learned as much or more about them and their behaviour through this as catching fish.

 

There are the small trout and salmon in the small tumbling streams which are extremely aggressive, constantly jostling each other to be the first to intercept anything that looks like food. They are always fighting for prime position, lightning fast, tiny sharks in their own kingdom. Then there are the salmon, big, shy and wary in their schools, effortlessly holding position, kings of the river they left just a few years ago.

 

So, I come to realize that I need it, to be a part of the natural world, to try to know and understand the secret lives happening all around us and occasionally be a part of that life, both with a rod and a mask, if only for a moment.