Our theme for the month of June is “snapshots.” Writers were asked to submit a piece with a cover photo that they took or created.

It’s been two years now since I bought my first fly rod. The fishing hobby hasn’t paid for itself yet, but I do eat a fish every now and then, which costs a high dollar at the market so you could say I’m saving money. But what I do have to show for it is pictures of fish. Pictures and pictures and pictures of fish. It’s a comical library of photos that all look pretty much the same. I catalog my fish through pictures because it helps me slow down and be grateful for the moment. Taking photos also helps me learn individual fish better by noticing their unique patterns of spots and coloration; that way I can compare fish and even find the same individual I may have caught months or years earlier.

My relationship with fishing started off as a borderline self-destructive obsession, where I would skip meals and crawl out of steep gorges past dark—literally crawling in the mud through rhododendron thickets up a mountain side—so I could fish every last minute of daylight on the Chattooga River after work. Now, thankfully, things have mellowed out, and I’ve become more responsible on the river, more efficient, more home for dinner. What had me hooked in the beginning is still what keeps me coming back now, and it’s what I think is fishing’s greatest allure: unpredictability. 

A seasoned angler might know a river well and still go home skunked, while a first-timer might fling their lure with a splash into murky water and hook the best fish of the day. What works for catching fish one day has no guarantee to work the next day, and what you were told not to do might be exactly what convinces a selective trout to take your fly. That’s why Tom Rosenbauer, one of my icons and an oft-heeded sage of the fly fishing world, will answer pretty much any question about tactics with “it depends.” 

It depends on the weather, the river’s pH, the time of day, the light levels, the temperature, the cubic feet per second, the bugs, the substrate, the agitation, the seasons, the rotation of the earth, and whether or not aunt June can feel her left kneecap acting up again like it does whenever a storm cell is brewing. With all these variables, actually catching a fish is a bit like pulling the lever on a slot machine and crossing your fingers—not surprisingly it’s a dopamine-fueled, addictive sport.

But blind luck alone isn’t what keeps me coming back to the water. The deep appreciation and joy of fishing has come from synchronizing myself with the river; when I get it right, I’m matching up my mindset, my rhythm, my techniques, my equipment, and every bit of skill I’ve tried to hone to the river in the present moment. When I’m in that state, I feel it; it’s unmistakable. For one, I catch a heck of a lot more fish in that state. I’m able to give the fish what they want, making it easy for them to take the bait because I’ve laid out an offer they can’t refuse. In those blissful hours I can feel where the fish are by reading the water and learning the subsurface, structural nuances on a stretch of river. I feel it, and I give my best presentation, all so that the fish has an offer that’s easy to accept. If all goes well, the connection is made.

Even when my best offer is on the table, a great beauty remains in this truth: the fish is ultimately in control. That’s where the unpredictability of it all comes into play. Everything on my end may be perfect, and yet the fish has to choose to take it or let it pass. Run-of-the-mill stocked trout are more prone to accept nearly every offer because their choices haven’t been disciplined by the harsh realities of spawning in a river. They still have the autonomy of choice, but something of the mystery of the river has been bred out of them, making them more predictable, more domesticated.

Wild fish, on the other hand, are far more mercurial, mysterious, autonomous. They decide where to hold in a river, they decide what they want to eat that day, and they give you the bird when they don’t like what you’re throwing, as if your pitiful attempts to please them are insultingly off-beat. It’s humbling to realize you’ve been fishing for hours in a spot you know holds good fish with nothing to show for it, meanwhile your shoulder aches, your hands are cold, and your sock is wet from a leak in your waders. Sometimes I swear I can hear the fish laughing, and it’s hard not to laugh with them. That’s when I sit on a rock, pack up my rod, have a snack and accept defeat.

Being able to call it quits is key. It shows that you respect the fish. That same attitude allows you to go home before dark and stay out of the mud and be on time for the rest of life. In essence, it shows you respect yourself, too.

I’ve got two years-worth of fish pictures on my phone and just picked up my annual license for the next year of trout fishing. My fish photo collection shows no signs of shrinking, and every new photo addition will, no doubt, look pretty much like the last one: beautiful, slimy, and wonderfully unpredictable.

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