not blogs, but poetry

[stevehalupka]

do any of you write in poetic/over-romantic form about throwing flies?

if so and your sack hangs low, please, post some...

I don't want to read the typical, "A dense fog blanketed the limestone rich run that I found myself submerged in water up to my ankles, gazing in the distance for a faint rise with red eyes from the jack the night before. Trico greased, cigar lit, and a cue from a fly fisherman's sixth sense was timed with perfection as i set point into a subtle slurp with perfection, leaving the bamboo now 35 years old to the test"... kind of crap, but if that's all you got it, post it up!

I get sick of reading typical tr's.

 

[Tups]

You mean like this?:

"Over the hill to Henryville" was oft the fisherman's cry
to catch a 14-incher on the artificial fly.

Not my work, but it's been stuck in my head for decades.

 

[troutbert]

stevehalupka wrote:
do any of you write in poetic/over-romantic form about throwing flies?

if so and your sack hangs low, please, post some...

I don't want to read the typical, "A dense fog blanketed the limestone rich run that I found myself submerged in water up to my ankles, gazing in the distance for a faint rise with red eyes from the jack the night before. Trico greased, cigar lit, and a cue from a fly fisherman's sixth sense was timed with perfection as i set point into a subtle slurp with perfection, leaving the bamboo now 35 years old to the test"... kind of crap, but if that's all you got it, post it up!

I get sick of reading typical tr's.

You go first!

(What does tr's mean?)

 

[gfen]

troutbert wrote:
(What does tr's mean?)

Its Cool Kid for "trip report."

 

[stevehalupka]

bert,

is that your real name? share your stuff w. us man?

 

[Acristickid]

Here is my entry:

The cool of the morning blankets the earth in a gentle calm. Birds seem to flutter with more momentum as the muted light of the sun grows increasingly more intense. Last night's gnats and mosquitoes have gathered in the mesh of the tent as they sense a fear of not be able to escape from their buffet. Thoughts of my own collect in a corner as I shake off the sleep. I rise from the nylon barrier that protects me from the night to what I hope will be another glorious day of fishing.

Shafts of bright light pour through the trees reassuring me that the heavy cold of damp waders will soon abate. Things seem easy, everything explained and in its place. Do they know that I am here or that I am pursuing them? Strange for the human to ask many rhetorical questions when the adversary asks none. Each day has subtle changes that create a different approach, like stream side spider web gathering flotsam to be learned and understood. What will I know and how will I know it? What is to be done with it?

Will the understanding be imparted by standing and yet at the same time wandering as the cold volume surrounds me creating ripples and wakes? Is this as much evidence I have an effect as creating the illusion of food by feathers and wire?

Is the success in the pursuit measured by meeting,seeing,touching and then releasing the spotted and striped beauties? Perhaps it could be the mere fact of trying that matters and is recognized. Suppose each has it's has it's own melody and hymn that cannot be fully explained even though there is an internal understanding. It is my hope that this is true for us.

How can it be that we project emotions of disappointment and failure when it is the unattached wild trout that calls the shots? Should it not be them with feelings and fears of a near miss or worse yet an impalement? Is it we that are really fishing or is it the fish as they are firmly the deciders? Thoughts draw short as more beauties emerge, some more willing than others.

Proceeding through the afternoon thoughts become more dulled as fatigue and hunger begin to overcome. Logs become as familiar and welcome as a recliner. Crushed grapes and nuts spread onto a loaf slide slowly out of it's plastic shell and into my hand. My mouth moves up and down on this concoction as my eyes stare off in rest. Bees buzz, birds fly and the ants continue to crawl as I am fixed stationary on my log.

The hot and bright burning ball slumps slowly, carefully along its course. Each minute brings almost undetectable change as I stand in the watery alive soul of day. Light shows the rainbows contained with the droplets of water that bead off the rod. It is up to recognize as these artist monments have always been there waiting. Shade begins to stretch as it requires the light to make many detours around trunks and branches.

Long shadows come again that stir movements of creatures preparing for change that comes with the unknowing of night. Shadows fade as darkness creeps in and around the water. The pulse of the stream seems to quicken, the insects emerge and take flight as inhibitions of the day fade in the low light. Life manifests itself at the end of a plastic line, it is to be enjoyed, admired and seen again another day.

The body starts to dry and warm as fire breathes with life. The smoke rises up through the broken branches of trees close by as it searches its escape. The contented angler rests and rejoices knowing he has learned the day, though no words can be used to explain. The greatest gift is to learn the day and for it to come again.

 

[troutbert]

Steve,

Since you are hankering to read some stuff about fishing that goes beyond how to and where to and online TRs.

Go to your public library, and ask for this book:

"Vanishing Trout", by Charles Lose.

They are unlikely to have it, but you can get it through inter-library loan, for free.

It doesn't get much better than that, IMHO.

 

[rrt]

Well, Steve, since we're recommending books now, I think you might enjoy the following: Robert Traver's Trout Madness and Trout Magic, Charles K. Fox"s This Wonderful World of Trout, most Gierach books, Lose's The Vanishing Trout, and Dave Ames's A Good Life Wasted. Most of these ought to be in your local library, but figuring that you're Internet savvy, you might be able to find most or all of them online. If you can find a Dana Lamb book somehow that isn't priced outrageously, that might be just what you're looking for: I've read only a little of his stuff, but he is truly poetic.
(I'm not entering as the acristickid did: I'm not very poetic at all.)

 

[wsender]

Mid summer dry flies
Make for finicky brown trout
Light tippet, small flies.

 

[skybay]

have you ever try to publish anything?