A Buddhist sage tells me, in a Facebook ad, that the fundamental fact of being ungrounded – living with the fear that there is no actual firm ground beneath our feet – is something we have to learn to live with. For instance, even this strong sense of self we cling to is unstable – just look at photographs – was that me the same me I am now?  ​ How do we get comfortable with questions that have no solid answers – even the most basic ones of who we are? Well, I like to go fishing. ​

On this day I am thinking of heading out to try and catch some bigger fish – there are sea run cut throats in the Snoqualmie. I have little experience with this kind of fishing but, I’ve been told to go to the golf course… there’s some places to wade there.

Getting in the car, everything ready, I feel that familiar elevation in mood, a great anticipation –however, I am suddenly aware that part of this familiar feeling is simply fear.

I turn the key and put my foot on the gas.
​
What if this whole thing doesn’t work out? ​

The golf course has tons of No Parking – No River Access – Violators will be Towed - signs – seeking to strike fear in hearts of the summer invaders who float the river. I accept that defeat and I drive down the road. I see a boat launch. It has a good beach.
​
What if I can’t cast well? What if I look silly in my waders? That circles around my psyche for a while until I simply look at the thought carefully – and come up with - What if?

I negotiate my way down the bank, find a spot, and begin to cast out into the seams in the current. What if I don’t catch any fish? What if I am using all the wrong flies? I change flies. My casts are long and I get confident. I change the fly again. I go further out in the river.

What if I fall? Will I be able to get back to the car? Will I be able to be rescued?

I decide this is a reasonable fear - I am not as young as I used to be. I become very careful. Concentrating  on each step I am looking at the river bed through the water and it is so  beautiful. I relax and my movements become  fluid. Being there is enough. I am enough.

 I cover all the likely places, but no fish. A man and his grandson come with spining rods. The boy gets his lure stuck on the bottom. I get in my car and move on. There will be another place upstream.

Here, where a stream intersects the big river, the confluence of the rivers is loud, but I still hear all the background noise – it is reflected down from  the overcast sky on this late September day and spreads about me like an energy field – everything is in motion - the air, the water, the sky, and my feelings and perceptions.  Seeing a likely place I walk in the water.

When things fall into place with the casting and the river my mind gets quiet – or quieter. Not that the fear is not here – it’s all there, but like money in a drawer that’s not mine I don’t pick it up.  I can be aware of my fears – I can act on those that seem sensible and just have the others about me like rocks beneath my feet. I become grounded on the ungrounded self who stands in the water and casts out again and again. Above me  the clouds wink over the sun.
​
Not knowing if any of the special flies in my box could work, I put on a big orange stimulator I am accustomed to using this time of year.

It works – a jump, a take,  I react with the set -  I have a fish – a big fish. ​ The rod bends transferring his motion to my hands. I feel him working  back and forth as I bring him to shore . I get out my phone and photograph him in the water, and then pose him so he looms large in my hand. Moving quickly,  I take just the one shot. He is a big fish, but it looks as though the trip upstream has been a bit hard on him. We have that in common – we are both older than we were and have traveled far.  I let him go. ​  ​

​I keep casting for a while, but the day is getting on and I feel content with my catch and thankful for this day. I am ready to go home.
​
The picture of him in the water comes out, but the one in my hand was not saved.

I find myself in the middle of the river. ​ it's late August - the water is low but there are some deep pockets,  more importantly, the water is moving pretty damn fast - very much pulled down hill - there is a definite slope here - by gravity - gravity which I am more or less defying  having taken my short self over large rocks to a precarious place where I am trying to stand on boulders with no flat foot holds, and I'm saying to my self - This had better be worth it. Balancing like a circus performer I make my cast into a fast and impossible pool - WHAM - a flashing silver cutthroat jumps right out of the river grabbing my #18 elk hair cadis just as it touches the surface - bam - it's supper trout - running  down stream pulling out line. Yeah, I call out loud  -  This is worth it.

So, now - how to I get there to release him?  Carefully.  I made it and He was okay.  Sometimes I end up holding my phone in my teeth after taking a photo so I can get the fish off the hook.  Actually, I do that a lot.​

I had decided to go back to the Taylor River.  

But this time go upstream -- at least I could see what I was getting into. At least I thought so. The air was hot and still - the remains of recent forest fire smoke from Canada made it seem hushed.

 The weird thing about walking on this collection of huge rocks is you begin to wonder just where the ground is -- there is no ground in the usual sense just this huge porous pile of boulders and bowling ball size rocks.  I'm not really walking - it's balancing and moving forward by zigs and zags - like walking on a log over a river or  a balance beam - only in all directions - there is no straight or even clear path. But, I can see where I want to be.  I contemplate where to step, finding a likely spot. I move the right foot , re-balance - plant my hiking pole in a place that does not move - figure out where to put my  left foot - move the rod into the right hand with the pole, use my left hand for stability on a large rock beside me - move my left foot, re-balance. And so it goes. It's an edgy way to travel.  

None the less, there were lots of sizable (for this area of clear water) fish. The pace of getting place to place was snail time, but once I was in position - the fishing was rapid fire.  There was a lot of first cast fish in deep pockets. wow.

A strange contrast in  time occurs because what my mind holds on to and expands is the catching not the climbing.  In my mental matrix I am off clock time and into experiential time. And, the catching, while  brief,  reverberates through me and expands... Creating tangible edges in time and I become  a little unstuck. 

The first four fish - I didn't land them. ​I saw them - shimmering  sliver and the flashing of orange-red gills - I saw them through the fast moving shallow water. I felt them pull and tussle. I saw them get close only to disappear.  I didn't get to touch them. I didn't see their bright and lively eyes. But I had them on my line, didn't I? I began to think about the seen but not held fish, so tantalizing but unrealized.  Like a flash of an idea, an insight, something not quite finished - but still it's  something that can ignite the senses, the  imagination, and the heart. Yes, we fish to use all the parts of our brains, logical, emotional and felt senses. Probably why fishing is so damn compelling. ​ Probably why I  keep going out year after year....

me by the top of the bridge where you get in - low but wide water this time of year - pretty easy to get around.

 I was casting across the river trying to reach across where it was wide - standing in fast moving but shallow water - as far out as I could wade comfortably - and it was actually a little farther than that - but still having to make long casts with the five weight across the current to get to the edges- near the far bank, under a tree, by a depression - getting just enough of a float -- and then, I had one - I felt the fish pull - I saw it get close - but pulling the line  in - up river and across the wide fast water on the #16 barbless fly - each time,  the  fish set themselves free.

That's the point, though isn't it?  I reassured myself - it is catch and release, after all... But did they count as caught? Is an idea unacted on still a  worth while idea?

Yes, I think it is , but it's not the same as an idea realized. after walking upstream where the water was deeper and not as wide, I caught and  landed four fish. They were holding in very fast water but they didn't have to be hauled across a wide expanse. Maybe that says something about insight and distance and realization.... I'll see what the river says next time.

I'd seen someone walk downstream here last fall and I thought, oh, yeah - there is no doubt   a magical place and all you have to do is follow the path downstream ... Well after climbing up, down, and over rocks and over, around, and under fallen trees and getting stuck in the bushes - I'm really too old and too short for this - and it was about 90 degrees --- I thought, sheesh, The Taylor River kicks my ass. So I went back up picking my way upstream from where I was through the boulders for the next two hours (after spending an hour and a half getting kicked (maybe that guy I saw was related to Legolas...) I slowly worked my way up the boulders and found that there were  holding spots where the river was just a little deeper - pools dug out by faster water above - and using a very small deer hair fly I started getting  fish - all native cut-throats. Lost count. On my way out, after pin pointing the last two fish in tight spots (pleased with self here) - I thought - of course this river kicks my ass - we're in the thick of the Cascade Mountains - this is not an easy environment in which to prosper - yet these (okay small)  native cut-throats thrive.

The area kicks the fishes asses as well - they are not big, but they are tough competitors. It's seriously difficult  place to make a living! This is not some gentle stream here - this is run off of snow pack over recently uplifted, glacially tumbled, and seismically jolted  rock - water is literally running down steep drops in altitude.
I look at pictures of bigger fish, in nice smooth rivers - then I look at this place - and I think - yeah, I am in the Cascades. Fishing is about the figuring out your  environment, being where you are and being there authentically. Hard to say just what I am seeking - but the path of looking is rewarding. in this treasure hunt the size of the prize is not the weight of the fish.
I am blessed to live here.

It's a long walk all the way down this river to where I can't get beyond - can't get beyond due to the fact it's usually late by now - and still a long way back to the car - and there are some pretty huge boulders that don't move one season to the next and that I'd have to climb around or over or go through the brush... But just before this, upriver,  the water is forced into a narrow channel that is fast and tricky. I find that if I can land a fly in that nice spot - just on the other side of fast water where a trout might be holding - sometimes I can get a larger than Snoqualmie norm fish. The cast has to be quick and accurate - and you get only a very few chances - the fly has to hit the river and sit for an instant just dangling off a bit of slack in the tippet  - that's all the time there is - before it is yanked suddenly downstream by the fly line  -  yet sometimes that time - that instant - can be enough - it can be expansive. See the gallery below for the fish and where he came from.

​My experience is late afternoon to early evening is the best - and the wonderful thing about summers here are the extra long days. 

And the best place to be on a hot afternoon is standing ankle deep in the river.

Also inspiration for a painting...  see the painting blog here for the image 

OK, some days fishing is perfect - it's late July, the water is low, the sun is hot (over 80) and the fish are jumping to grab flies on the surface just where you think they'll be... well most of the time. I've been fishing this part of the river for over 20 years and there are times like these - not every year. But some years. I got a lot of fish in three hours - and I am back in the magic zone - an open door to a dimension of perfection that opens some years on this section of the river I consider my own. ​Although 'they' stopped planting trout in the late 1970's (as I understand it) rainbows and even brook trout still remain. I got four tiny brook trout. All in all I got some nice fish as well as a lot of little guys. Did not get a snap of the nicest one since I was standing in pretty fast water and didn't want to chance dropping my phone and more importantly hurting the fish. The phones theses days amaze - I remember carrying a little plastic coated disposable film camera - can it have been that long ago?

Late in the afternoon - shadow self portrait. I am planning to be here as much as possible in the time I have.  ​New rod was fantastic - point and shoot.

One more thought -- As I was traveling - carefully downriver - It was thinking - this is a pretty convoluted walk and maybe just above my skill level now that I'm over 60.  I end up thinking I simply need to keep going here as long as I can. Just keep moving - carefully. It seemed like I was 40 for twenty years and now, well, I'm not.

Also getting back to my car there were some sketchy guys hanging out by the bridge where I'd parked. They wanted to know where my fish were. I said - I put them back in the river. I didn't change out of my boots - just put the rod in the car, took off my vest and took off. Huh. There are times when it is odd to be just out in the wild world totally on my own. But … again, what if I stop going out or let stuff really bug me? There are times, I confess, I do not stop here due to creepy men in the area... oh well.  I usually find another place to go. However, there are more and more people....

But I will say there are times when being an older babe in the woods feels right to me - and that is a feeling I want to keep. I'll keep dodging.

 - Decided to try out my six weight -- just what was the Sage rod I got -- could it be 15 years ago -- like?  It casts fine - it's pretty stiff compared to the 4 weight and the 5 weight -- but it's a six!! Maybe i'll update that one as well, but not just now. Need to let the bank account settle back from the recent purchase of the Winston 4 wt.

When I was shopping for the for the 4 weight,  I said to Pete from the fly shop, 'Don't laugh at my casting." he replied, "you are so funny - you cast fine. I'd say about 80% of the people who buy rods can't cast at all!" then he slapped the line around to demonstrate. It was odd the Winston felt just right and the Sage rods, well, they had a Sage feel to them. I guess that's the point.

It's been cloudy and cool, but we had a bit of sun -but then,  as soon as I got to the river clouds moved in. Everything is so different now on the middle fork. many more people now the road has been paved - and no parking signs everywhere.

I ended up with only  one little fish, tired a lot of different flies and nymphs, and lost a few of my new flies. sigh. But the one I got was on one of the scuds I tired. I suppose I need to tie more since I lost the ones I made a few weeks ago.

However, up river things look different - not as flat - some spaces are being carved out. So that is good news.

When I first got here  for about ten years - 96 - '07 there were great spaces on the river - it was like a path of different rooms, little pools and eddies and lots of fish. The winter floods that came the next few years flattened the entire river out so it's all flats and gravel bars. Much more difficult to find the little guy. sigh again.

I have been fishing a long time by myself. I don't know what other people fish like. I see lots of pictures on the internet -- but they are, I might add, mostly men and the occasional woman seem to be mostly models. sigh.

Still, when I'm on the river space and time seem to expand - maybe it's some kind of warp in the fabric of reality - or more likely perception. I love that experience - seems like all things are possible in any given moment and each given moment is expansive. 

Of course when I get home I can't understand why I am not still on the river - why has that time flowed away? I want to go back there -  where the stuff that bothers me most of the time just doesn't matter.

I was told a long time ago - They don't call it catching... In the last two weeks I've been out a number of times and in a number of different places - two places over the Cascades in Eastern Washington, the Teanaway and some tributaries as well as the Snoqualmie, middle and south forks - and the Taylor. Tried my new flies, lost a number of them.... I remember seeing guys with great boxes of fancy flies when I was briefly a member of a fishing club, but I was always using and losing mine - I wondered if they actually went out much, dunno…. Was overcast in Western Washington and the water is still high - difficult for me to get about and to where I think the fish are hanging out - usually on the other side of the river -    :/  Sunny East  of the mountains and got some cute little fish there on my flies - and saw some very cool rock formations - where did that massive layer of soft sand stone come from and when? So much interesting geology around here.

​Wednesday June 27 - went out to try my new flies. A nibble or two. High water and overcast... huh.

Saturday I figured it was time to get a fancy rod - always have had the middle or basic ones - if not now - when? So now is the time. Got a new 4 weight for when the water gets low... it is pretty sweet - now I have to plot how to get back out ASAP.

I am not sure why tying flies is so compelling, but it will keep me up late at night... Maybe it would be better if I could follow a specific paten, however I tend to let my imagination go a little beyond the directions.  Maybe it's something like working in clay, painting with thread, feathers and fur -- not to mention some fun sparkly stuff.  As soon as I'm done with one, I want to try something different. Bellow see some scuds - I've had luck with them in the past - as well as some creative nymphs.

On the dries I've tried to add some high-res yarn because I just can't see as well as I used to... sigh. Still I made some size 18's … so we'll see if I can get them on the line while I am actually on the water - and snag them on something and lose 'em. Now --- time to try them out and see if they work! I hope to be out ASAP - why are there so many tasks other than fishing?