A whole lifetime ago, before I started fly fishing, there was another life, in which I’d never held a fly rod. It was a good life, full of triumphs, rewards, and fun. While fishing, I’d sometimes watch fly fishermen casting, landing fish, releasing them, and began to notice the differences in them. Saw some lovely, floating casts, some flopping, water beating casts, (I would first imitate those in my early casting practice) some scowling faces, some beaming, gracious smiles. I wish I could thank those who smiled, cast beautifully, and inspired me.

As I began to fish, the frustration of being unable to elicit even a single strike was maddening. Of course, I learned to tie perfect wind knots, being an expert on tailing loops. I watched my Joan Wulff video endlessly. I waved my rod sections while I watched, I took a casting lesson from a certified casting instructor, whose infinite patience must have been heaven-sent. Then, slowly but surely, the line straightened out, and I could cast. At least 30 feet. That was improvement.

Then after months of fishless fishing, the day on the river with the Three Amigos (Infamous Fishing Buddies) opened the door. I could fly fish.

After that, began the steepest learning curve I’d ever imagined. Am still imagining, and it is interspersed with the most picturesque images one could ever conjure.

One day, on the Elk River, in Tennessee, with my friend from a local fly shop, I netted a very homely, three-inch, prehistoric looking fish. It’s triangular head and flat mouth, along with it’s mottled skin helped me describe it to another friend, who identified it as a sculpin.

Suddenly, I began to notice them everywhere. Then, someone else pointed out that muddler minnows and other such patterns would imitate them. Ok, well and fine. Then one day I was unhooking a very large brown trout from a deep hole in the Caney Fork River, when a four-inch long, partially digested sculpin slid from the fish’s mouth. “Now,” I thought, “THAT is a predator. A sixteen inch trout can swallow a four inch sculpin whole.” I promptly fished my only muddler until I lost it.

Then there was the afternoon, in thigh deep water, that I looked down, and there at my feet was a sculpin at least eight inches long. If the math was right, could there not be a thirty-two inch brown trout lurking nearby?

I’ve since seen sculpin leave the water, skittering across the surface sideways, as though momentum could keep them airborne. Often, a glance down has confirmed the reason for their departure from the river. The pursuit of such a meal has brought many trout within netting distance, until the predators came back to their senses and realized they had gotten too close to a human.

One day, out on the Caney with the Admiral and Rusty, I was working a deep pocket that dropped away from the faster current directly in front of me. I was mending line like crazy, trying to keep my drift in the pocket, and looked down to check my footing before shifting position in the waist deep water. An enormous head slid into view, about eight feet out in front of me. A long, protruding bill led a ten-inch wide head, which led a four-foot long body. First thought: Shark. No, be reasonable, not a shark, but that bill.....GAR!

Had I been able to perform the “leave the water and slide across the surface to safety” sculpin act, I’d have done it. As it was, I spoke freely of some biblical figures and their personal affairs, and backed away as quickly as the current and depth of water would allow. The Admiral and Rusty stared at me blankly as I backed away from a good fishing spot, spooling to beat the devil: what IF that thing latched on to my fly?

I described it to them when I got back to the boat, still wanting to be IN the boat, but willing myself to simply stand in ankle-deep water.

“Could it have been a spoonbill? It‘s a type of catfish...” Rusty offered. “Was the bill rounded or pointed?”

Well, yes, it was rounded. “OK, I guess that was what it was....but it was still big.”

Then I had another stupid thought....I turned to the Admiral....”Will they take a fly?”

Now the Admiral had already been through my fascination with hooking Buffalo Carp, and quickly came back with a resounding, “No, and if you somehow hook one, I’m not gonna help you land it. I’m not gonna be called a catfish guide”

Later that day, from the bow of the drift boat, I spotted another spoonbill, about three feet long. Quite a sight. Apparently, they come up the Caney via the Cumberland to spawn.

My little St. Croix rod is the nicest color of navy blue, with slightly lighter blue wraps. Though “Little Blue” looks black in overcast light, her true wrap color is damselfly blue in sunlight. And the damselflies have agreed. One afternoon on the Harpeth river. Chasing bass and gar, (see “Ever Have One of Those Rods?“) a persistent and obviously lonely damselfly tried in vain to get a date with “Little Blue”. Failing that, he decided to have his way with her while she was busy fishing. When she did not show any interest, he continued to circle, light upon her tip section, courting one of her wraps with all his insectly charms.

I have looked up from my fly line to watch mink cavorting on a far bank, slinking down narrow branches to sample water from their swaying platforms. They have noiselessly slid into water less that thirty feet from me, swimming to destinations they could have gone by land, rock or branch. And, while fishing, and at no other time in all my life of being outdoors, I have gotten to see beaver gliding across the river to their dens. Happy and at peace in their world, at ease with letting those of us who let them be share and observe.

The world is beautiful, and funny, and fascinating place with a fly rod in hand, isn’t it?