Why Fly-Fishing Is a Zen Experience
Paul Hendrickson
Senior Lecturer, Creative Writing Program
Don’t turn the stopwatch on just yet. Somebody say “Go” in about five seconds. My wife contends that I cannot clear my throat in 60 seconds. I aim to prove her wrong.
Why fly-fishing is a Zen experience. I’d like to show you something, in fact, taking 15, maybe, of my allotted 60. This is a Sage fly rod, which is pretty expensive, and an Orvis reel. If you so much as breathe with this stick in your hand, this stick will tremble. What I know about trout fishing is that it’s done in green places, on quick-moving water, with unlikely equipment, and that I’m mad for it. It is altogether improbable, from a wand in your hand that weighs two ounces, literally two ounces, and quivers to your heartbeat, literally, to the lure on the end of your leader that’s a little blow-away wad of glue and hackle and hook and is practically invisible to the naked eye, but which somehow, if fortune is smiling, is able to deceive one of God’s wildest and most threatened creatures.
But I think what I love best is the water itself. You can’t fish for trout in a filthy place. Cold, pure water is what a trout must have. It’s the only way he knows to survive. There you are, there I am, bulked up and blissful, in the middle of a stream, with the world swirling about you, so clear that you can count the pebbles at your feet in the streambed. And these are just some of the reasons why fly-fishing is a Zen experience. There are a lot of others, but I am out of time. Thank you.