Spirituality and fishing go hand in hand to many folks. I get it, some may not and that's OK.
Its not catching the fish that brings out the angels blaring on their trumpets, as a matter of fact the fish is simply "the bait". They lure me into traveling from one beautiful place to another in search of adventure and big fish.The adventure part usually pays off but the big fish deal is iffy at best. One thing that is guaranteed...if you're really quiet, pay attention and immerse yourself into nature, god will speak. I'm not the only person that feels this and if you think this is crazy then there are a plethora of crazies paddling around our local rivers, creeks and lakes.
God doesn't say, " Hey Jim, how's it going...Catching anything?, Try the bubblegum trick worm." It is spiritual...no voice but at the end of the day you've received a message.
Here's the deal...You witness perfection, on a grand scale! I have a theory about a tiny fish I observed not too long ago. The fish was a coosa darter and there was a community hanging around some rocks in a local creek. It was spawning season and the males were doing their courting ritual. The females are a drab subdued color but the males look like they'd fit in on a Fijian coral reef with their beautiful colors. The female would swim onto a flat rock then one male would show up, then two...flaring their fins and doing their best mating dance. I assume these were young males because eventually a bigger male would pop out of a hole in the rocks, stroll towards the little female and "break it down", I mean a dance that'd swoon any girl all while the others males would either run for cover or at least give him plenty of space.
I thought about what I'd witnessed on and off for the next several days. Lots of different animals do similar routines during mating season on land and in water but "why?" Here is my theory and it most certainly is debatable... Only the bigger stronger males get to mate so the species is guaranteed healthy offspring and the species can continue to survive. You say, "no duh, Jim, we watch Nat Geo too." There's more...these old males are smart and they're schooled in survival. They didn't swim around in the open like the smaller young males, they were hiding in the rocks, swam maybe 3 inches did their jig and disappeared. The young males were swimming to where ever a female was and dancing 10 times more than the old men. The young males were learning valuable survival skills, they were getting stronger and more agile in this fish version of teenage hormones that would surely help out in non mating times and in the next mating season "IF" they didn't get eaten by the red eye bass that was lurking around this little rock pile.
So, I just explained in a lot (for me its a lot) of words a pretty common mating ritual. One thing, who has ever seen or even knows what a coosa darter looks like...show of hands please?...OK, not many, only the people that immerse themselves in nature or someone with the Fisheries Dept. So my theory is although these beautiful little 3 inch fish go through all of this,(by the way it is a perfect system), for their own survival, the main reason is so I could watch in amazement at God's handiwork and draw from it that there is no other way tsurvival was not a carefully thought out plan by a creator. When you witness things like this while in nature it puts you on high alert every time you are in nature, you're eager to see more of the same and it constantly solidifies my belief that nothing in untouched nature is an accident. God spent a lot of time laying this stuff out for us to marvel at and it's a real shame that only a small fraction of people even want to see these types of things. I don't know what your gods name is and I don't care...if you can find the beauty and amazement by staring for hours into a creek watching some fish then you are my friend.
Two of the greatest days I've had hunting and fishing was with him. The first was on 13 January 1999, it was 13 degrees when we arrived at "the slough". (The slough was on my old hunting club and it was an acre of water off the Coosa river that in winter, when they draw down lake Weiss, becomes landlocked.) This particular morning another buddy who attended school in Montana and was home for Christmas was with us and after refreshing the blind with river cane we settled in to wait on sunrise. We were duck hunting and to be honest ducks tend to be scarce in our part of the country so I wasn't expecting much. It was great catching up with our student friend and at daylight a couple of woodduck flocks buzzed us but we didn't fire a shot. By O730 the sky was dead and we were joking about shooting some crows when a couple of ducks appeared. We blew our duck calls and the ducks turned to check us out. Ducks normally circle an area before they land and as they circled 4 became 8 and 8 became 15...they landed out of range but there were more in the air. We waited patiently and when we decided to shoot there were probably 50 on the water and another two dozen cupped up coming in directly in front of us. When the shooting was over we gathered up 8 mallards. This played out the same way until we had our limit at 0900. For Georgia, 3 limits of ducks consisting of 10 mallards, teal and a few gadwall by 9am is world class...it doesn't get better than that in our neck of the woods. Every time I climbed into that blind after that morning I was hoping for another morning like that and "thankfully" it never happened thus solidifying the magic that happened that bitter cold January morning.
The second was 18 December 2014...we had went to my favorite trout river the week before kayak fishing and had a morning we thought was epic. We had caught 8 rainbow trout between 18 and 20". On our way up on our second trip we talked about how great the fishing was and that it couldn't get better...We were about to experience a morning of fishing that only angels can deliver.
It was a cloudy morning with temps touching the thirties when we launched our kayaks for the 7 mile float. The first mile was fishless but as we approached a feeder stream both of us hooked up with rainbows in the 18" range. After the fish were landed we took turns taking pictures and talked that humble fisherman talk where you say,"if I don't catch another fish I'll still be happy, yada yada yada" just so the fish gods don't get angry. Well, it payed off because at the end of mile 2 I told my buddy that we needed to start keeping count...we had 12 rainbow trout ranging in size from 18"-20". We were in total disbelief and when we reached our takeout shortly after dark, tired, cold and hungry we had caught 21... yes 21 rainbow trout ranging from 18-21". This river isn't under any sort of trophy management, its a public flow that gets a fair share of fishing pressure and most of those fish were caught on artificial lures. I think I may have hugged my friend that evening.
It had been 15 years since something that epic had happened and I'm positive that in 15 more years, if that's the time frame that "Ms. Epic" uses to show her face, my buddy and I will still be going to the outdoors together and we'll be more than ready to see her beautiful face.
