Friday, August 20, 2010

Great Blue Heron

My buddies couldn't get away to fish today so I went alone. I got there after daylight and as always the mist hovered over the water.
I sat on the riverbank and tied a fly on my line before wading in.  I think what I like most about fly fishing is that it's almost Zen like. You have to be "in the now" when you fly fish because when your mind wanders, you tend to get your line tangled into a ball and you can easily spend more time untangling than you do fishing.
The trout didn't find my first fly appealing so I sat down on a huge rock in the river and began looking through my box for another.
I looked down steam and saw this Great Blue Heron standing in the water. He seemed to look at me as if he owned the place and was questioning why I was in his space.
Once the new fly was tied onto my line, I snagged my first rainbow trout of the day.
I reeled him in and released him.
I glanced back at the heron and he was still standing there. I had the feeling he was saying "you got lucky, rookie!"
I found my rhythm and I lost all concept of time. All of a sudden I heard splashing and when I turned to look, the Great Blue and caught a trout bigger than the one I caught, but he doesn't subscribe to the catch and release philosophy.
I stayed for a while longer and caught two more nice fish and released them as well. The Great Blue apparently was disgusted because he lifted off and headed down river in search of better company.

3 comments:

  1. Your photo is mystical looking. Lovely. I used to walk around Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC and once saw a Blue Heron with an eel in its beak. That eel whipped itself around over and over, but it finally got tired and the heron swallowed it. Something I will never forget.

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  2. Maybe he thought of you as competition for fish?

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  3. Thanks y'all. I've discovered fly fishing is one of the best forms of meditation I've come across.
    The scenery is just one of the benefits.
    Someone sent me a comment asking what kind of app I used on this photo.
    I use the free Photoshop app, but all i did on this photograph was to slightly adjust the contrast and that was because of the mist.

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