Contemplative Practice: Fly Fishing

Gregg’s Recollection

I fished some as a kid, but it never became a passion. I was a city kid, and even though we spent hours in the woods and nearby streams, fishing wasn’t on the agenda. Genie and I got a canoe when Florrie and Andy were small, and began to explore lakes and the Chattahoochee River as it flows through Atlanta.

Some years later, I started taking the kids bass fishing, casting rubber worms at the bank. Andy took to it. When he was 15, we went with my best friend David and his son Jason to the Boundary Waters where we canoed, fished and camped for a week. The four of us went camping and fishing together often, and David introduced me to Fly Fishing.

My son and I began to fly fish the front range of Colorado when he came out to CU-Boulder to school. Stalking trout in wild streams flowing out of the Indian Peaks Wilderness became part of my contemplative journey. I can remember seeing my first Pine Marten crossing a beaver dam as I fished the pool above it. We looked at each other for 30 seconds without moving, and he was on his way.

Genie was never drawn to fishing, but she loves floating in a drift boat with me through the river canyons of the West. That’s how we explore the wilderness these days, as our stamina wanes.

The contemplative state one seeks is objectless attention. That is the ability to gaze at a scene without focusing on anything. Anything I focus on becomes a thought that distracts me from the presence of God. When I’m focusing on a dry fly floating on the surface, I can see all the surrounding water, rocks, trees and currents, but it is an unfocused gaze. In that way it is akin to objectless attention.

When we spoke about fishing at the Living School, James Finley called fly fishing Focused Meditation. Like downhill skiing, fly fishing requires focused attention. As soon as I lose focus, inevitably I get a strike and miss the trout. Enjoy reading how fly fishing can take you into the depths of things, even your soul.

Scripture

But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
    or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
    or let the fish in the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know
    that the hand of the Lord has done this?

Job 12:7-9

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”

Matthew 4:17-19

Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

John 21:4-6

Ancient Writings

Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery element were made for wise men to contemplate, and fools to pass by without consideration.

Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler

I envy nobody but him, and him only that catches more fish than I do.

Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler

You will find angling to be like the virtue of humanity, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of blessing attending upon it.

Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler

Blessings upon all that hate contention, and love quietnesse, and vertue, and Angling.

Izaak Walton , The Compleat Angler

Peace and a secure mind / Which all men seek / We anglers only find.

Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler, 400 years ago

God lies in wait for us with nothing so much as love, and love is like a fisherman's hook: without it he could never catch a fish, but once the hook is taken the fisherman is sure of the fish. Even though the fish twists hither and yon, still the fisherman is sure of him. So, too, I speak of love: he who is caught by it is held by the strongest of bonds, and yet the stress is pleasant; he who takes this sweet burden upon himself gets further, and comes nearer to what he aims at, than he would by means of any harsh ordinance ever devised by man.

Moreover, he can sweetly bear all that happens to him; all that God inflicts he can take cheerfully. Nothing makes you God's own, or God yours, as much as this sweet bond. When one has found this way, he looks for no other. To hang on this hook is to be so completely captured that all a man is and has become God's own....whatever he does, who is caught by this hook, love does it, and love alone…

Meister Eckhart, The Sermons

Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

Henry David Thoreau

Modern Writings

A fisherman must be of contemplative mind for it is often a long time between bites. Those interregnums emanate patience, reserve, and calm-reflection.

Herbert Hoover, Fishing for Fun and to Wash Your Soul

To be able to present the proper fly to a rising fish demands the greatest degree of determination, study, planning, and practice, and there is always something more to discover. In the woods or on a stream, my concentration is so intense that for long periods the rest of the world is almost forgotten.

Jimmy Carter, An Outdoor Journal

Izaak Walton reminds us that it is terrible to resolve whether happiness consists in contemplation or in action. But he contents himself in telling the reader “that both of these meet together, and do most properly belong to the most honest, ingenious, quiet and harmless act of angling.”

Tom McGuane, The Longest Silence, p. 233

In A River Runs Through It, Norman McLean writes of his father’s religious education: He told us about Christ’s disciples being fisherman, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fisherman and that John, the favorite, was a dry fly fisherman.

Mark Kurlansky, The Unreasonable Virtue of Fly Fishing, p. 154-155

The Czech writer Ota Pavel said it best. “Finally, I have found the right word, Freedom. Fishing is freedom, most of all.”

Mark Kurlansky, The Unreasonable Virtue of Fly Fishing, p. 256

Some go to church and think about fishing, others go fishing and think about God.

Tony Blake

There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and a pure sincerity of mind. 

Washington Irving

You do not cease to fish because you get old. You get old because you cease to fish!

Unknown

Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed, turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation, some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self.

Ted Hughes

Fishing is the appropriate symbol of dipping down into one’s own unconscious. The sea is the natural image of the vast unconscious. I think this is the reason we can sit by the ocean for hours and watch it with fascination—waiting for the gift from the sea, waiting for something to show itself.

Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 9/5/22

Fishing as Focused Meditation. You are in a beautiful place, You are called to that space by the trout. Your focus on the fly on the water keeps you from focusing on other things in the broader view. You have to stay present in the present moment, expecting that at any moment, something might happen. When you hook the fish, it is fighting for its life. It is very primordial.

James Finley, Living School Symposium 7/25/22

When you hook into a fish, the fishing line is like an electric wire, connecting our life energy to the energy of the fish.

Brian McLaren, Galapagos, a Spiritual Journey

Fishing as a spiritual practice. I’m a dock fisherman. I’m looking forward to that struggle. It’s like the struggle of living. It is very meditative. Mostly you don’t catch anything. Only those who are tired of living jump on my hook. Sitting in peace and in beauty, in anticipation of something happening. I get as much joy out of catching nothing.

Barbara Holmes, Living School Symposium 7/25/22

One of the ways I practice contemplation in my life is through fishing. It’s the space and the place where I find a real connection through the ocean, the waves, the sound of the water, the birds diving, and the struggle with the adversary, the fish.

Barbara Holmes, Joy Unspeakable

Twenty years after last fishing the faraway rivers, I wearily returned, not sure what I’d find. I sat quietly by the water, fumbling to tie a new fly to an old fly line. I breathed deeply. I filled my lungs with sagebrush and pine, freshened by water. Those elements infused my blood and circulated through my body. Colors sharpened. Forgotten senses returned. I felt revived from a long, dull dream. Then, I heard it. Birdcalls, buzzing, wind through the trees, and water cascades from pool to pool. This is the music of distant rivers. It’s life’s breath wanting to blow on the embers of our first loves and return them to fire.

Roger W. Thompson, Why We Fish 1/18/23 Rarewaters Blog