Going Fishing -Just Like the Birds

We’re going birding and fishing. Fly fishing to be precise. We’ll be gone for a week so there won’t be any new blog entries for a week. We’re bound for a place high in the Rocky Mountains and, if it has internet service, we don’t want to know about it. Up there it is important that the world not be too much with us. Up there all that is important is that birds and trout live in beautiful places.Fly fishing, according to one of our friends, is a blood sport. We don’t agree of course. We think of it as an ephemeral art form. That is a tribute to our denial skill. Although the fish seldom bleed I doubt they much enjoy the thrill of being caught. Plus we will release every one we catch, this being a “catch and release” river we will be fishing.

No. We prefer to think that the experience for a fish is like this. He is just floating there in a beautiful river doing what he does everyday of his life, eating bugs that float downstream into his mouth and avoiding predators from that alien world above where the sky is empty of water and usable air. Suddenly, one of the bugs bites him and won’t let go. After a few moments of attempting to get the bug to stop biting, the fish is suddenly lifted out of its world by a giant into an alien world where there is no water and no breathable air. This giant grabs the biting bug and makes it let go. Then the giant gently puts the fish back into its watery home and all is well again.

The fish has no way of knowing that the biting bug is attached to a line which is attached to a fishing rod which is attached to a large mammal who intentionally tried to catch the fish. All the fish knows is that the large mammal ended its pain.

See. We said that our denial skills are finely honed.

But we are not the only sentient beings who use artificial lures to catch fish. <a href=”“>Watch this Green Heron fish.

See you in a week.