The Optimist: A Case for the Fly Fishing Life

Sometimes back then, fishing with Jasper up the Sulphur, I hit my limit. I mean it felt my heart might just burst. Bursting is different than breaking. Like there is no way to contain how beautiful. Not it either, not just beauty. Something about how I fit. This little bend of smooth stones, the leaning cliffs. The smell of spruce. The small cutthr

There’s a sense of sovereignty that comes from life on a mountain, a perception of privacy and isolation, even of dominion. In that vast space you can sail unaccompanied for hours, afloat on pine and brush and rock. It’s a tranquillity born of sheer immensity; it calms with its very magnitude, which renders the merely human of no consequence. Gene

It may not be wise or kind to ask the client to stand in a small canoe in the ocean and yank violently until the fish is landed. This is an invitation for snapped fishing lines, flipped boats, or injuries. We want to show the client how to land memories well and with as little unnecessary distress as possible. I want the client to activate some and

I’ve begun swimming most mornings, and I find it often shifts my mindset for the rest of the day. Swimmers talk about the concept of “water feel,” which is getting a grip in the water and pulling your body past that point instead of ripping your hand through the water, which moves you forward but is much less efficient, much less graceful.