Perspective
Last week, a good friend, The Plover, and I dropped in on one of the local rivers for an evening float, Spey rods and dinners on board. The idea was to dust off our casts, see if we could cross paths with one of the summer steelhead currently migrating up the Willamette system, and enjoy the end to the day while on the water.
It seems that we always surprise ourselves with the beauty of these floats that are so close to home. In most stretches, there are sections away from development where, if you were to be blindfolded and dropped off in the middle of it, you wouldn’t guess that you were so close a town, let alone Track Town. ‘Town floats’ always come with great convenience but not always great scenery; fortunately for us, there are several within a 15-minute drive from our houses that have both. Of course, the fishing isn’t always on or great but, is it anywhere?
The stretch in question has a lot of gravel bar runs and the high water over the winter and spring had moved things around — quite a bit, in some places. So we reacquainted ourselves with each bend, riffle, run, hole, and bucket, trying to gauge the swing-ability, depth, and quality of each as we floated into or over or through them. Some we decided not to fish, some we did, and a few we maybe wished we had.
But my friend knew of a run in the second half of the float that he undoubtedly wanted to fish. The run is on a right-hand bend in the river and is best fished from river-left; the high bank side. It’s big enough that we could split it up, so I gave him the top half and munched on some food and watched, on anchor in The Plover, while he made his way slowly down the piece of water. Eventually, after seeing him look my way and nod, I pulled the anchor and slowly floated down to him.
I hopped in where he left off and continued downstream, my swings slowly coming into the bank below me. By the time I’d lengthened out enough to start stepping my way down the run, I noticed that my friend had scrambled up the high bank, his head bobbing in and out of sight amongst the high grasses and bushes. Between my casts, I watched him reappear here and there, facing this way and that way, clearly investigating a variety of things or perhaps just investigating, in general.
Then I saw him pop up, phone in hand, to take some photos or videos. He later sent me the video above. Clearly, he had a much different perspective than I did but it goes beyond our respective physical or literal points-of-views.
The video is a great summation of my friend’s approach to angling, wherein the fishing and the fish are but one of some greater number of things happening and worth investigating and paying attention to. Like the flowers, and the birds, what’s on top of the high bank, and what you can see from there.
Admittedly, I am wont to ‘fly fishing blinders’ when I’m on the water and even in leading up to time on the water. I am often focused on the fish or the bugs or the conditions or the timing or the logistics and forget about everything else until I’ve gotten my fix of the latter, have been reminded that I can’t control any of that, or have finally reminded myself that those aren’t the only reasons I’m out there. It’s not uncommon for my bird book or my binoculars or my pen and notebook, though placed in the boat carefully before the trip, to go untouched, and I regret this.
Yes, I suppose the fish are primarily why I pick up my rod over and over again; or at least the reason why I ever did pick a rod up in the first place. But I know I still would, should an invitation to go fishing with a good friend come my way, even if it was on a fish-less piece of water.
So for me, this video and my good friend who took it, are prime and necessary reminders to seek, foster, and embrace variations in my perspective, both physically and mentally. I know this and haven’t forgotten but I still need these reminders from time to time.
Thankfully, I have a good friend who reminds me.