“We aim to please Miss Steele”― E.L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey

Do you ever stop for a second to reflect on your pursuit of steelhead? I mean really study your surroundings. Nothing about our obsession with steelhead is remotely normal or sane. For most, this shouldn’t really surprise anybody. When the conditions are perfect on the river and the hair on your neck is tingling with the anticipation of a sudden grab, the environment you are in is usually bleak and downright depressing. We insulate ourselves from this despair that surrounds us. Our faces and hands are partially frozen, and numb. The skies are cloaked in heavy clouds and fog. It is either raining lightly or snowing softly. Our rain jackets are wet and soggy. Natural light levels are low and diffused in this shadowless world. We are standing in ridiculously cold water, that under any other circumstance you couldn’t pay us to be in. The waters we fish have also taken on this impenetrable haze that makes wading the mossy/slippery rocks a risky business, begging for a sprained or broken ankle. The trees are all deep into hibernation exposing their fragile naked skeletons. The landscape is a drab and monotone recreation of an Ansel Adams scene. There is a small dark corner of our short-circuited brains that actually thrives on this stuff. As we fish, it is critical that we tap into this compartment of our brain and live there for a while.

We create rituals for this journey of pain. The process of making coffee in the morning resembles a holy sacrament, as we embrace that initial cold darkness in which all light escapes. The stories we create to convince ourselves to push through these cold wet conditions sound a bit like chants or scriptures. The blind faith that we have in the very next cast which will inevitably be the one that pays off. We so easily convince ourselves that this newly tied steelhead fly/creation is in fact the one that will catch the eye of our quarry. Incidentally, our steelhead fly is the only thing emitting anything that resembles color in this b&w spectrum. Ironically, that small sample of color is usually sparse and muted around a black body of fur and feathers. The meditative quality of the cast, swing, step cycle that lulls us into this conscious state of sleep. We, ourselves are just a click away from hibernation in this self-perpetuated purgatory. We go about our routine like river zombies. We sometimes medicate ourselves with whisky to dull the back pain and other ailments, as we go about our business in this hyper focused state of mind.
Then in an instant, like Dorethy and Toto walking through to the land of Oz, we get that magical tug on our line and everything leaps into a beautiful tecno-color, wide screen high def, sensory explosion, and we realize that there is no place like home. The adrenaline and endorphins instantly pump through our brain. The rush is intense and real. We are checking off our mental to-do-list multi-tasking in milli-seconds in order to avoid becoming detached from this powerful sea creature that has returned home to the “hood.” The battle ensues and finally we have cradled in our hands this mythical rainbow colored unicorn, shining through the darkness like a lighthouse beckon and all the world is normal again. We are once again tethered to everything around us, and the grey fades away.

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