River Songs: Moments of Wild Wonder in Fly Fishing

Rainbow trout don’t have a care in the world. They’re eager to eat, jump in the air, and come to hand. Not brown trout. They’re finicky and judgmental, they brood.

Without natural science, we may also miss great beauty and understanding. In Unweaving the Rainbow (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998), Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins writes: After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must clo

The clear river flows, slides, splashes and rolls downstream rushing between rocks that funnel the water into narrow passages curling into quiet eddies that reflect sky, clouds, and brilliant sun. On a pale spring day the silver-sided fish swim upstream fulfilling their assignment to perpetuate their lives. Look carefully. See how the current somet

Eiseley’s essay about this experience is called “The Flow of the River.” In it, he’s not only describing the Platte; he’s describing how he felt he was merging with the river. He recounts a sort of open awareness of the connections between all creatures, all nature. He wasn’t swimming in the river. He wasn’t investigating the river. He was accompan

The goal isn’t just getting to a calm, quiet pool, but learning about the makeup of the water itself as it goes from choppy to still, from cloudy to crystal-clear.