Fly fishing: So, here it is -- a river runs through . . . me

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

That's from Henry David Thoreau, in many ways a self-centered jerk when it came to interacting with his fellow humans, but the man knew nature.

And, as I learned Saturday, holding a fly rod in my hand for the first time, Hank the Crank knew fishing, too.

My previous fishing experience was as an 8-year-old. My Uncle John took me along with my cousins, Marty and Gregg, to do some live-bait pole fishing in a creek out in eastern Washington's farmlands. 

I "caught" three catfish (thanks, unknown to me for years, Uncle John hooking some of his own catches onto my line when I was distracted).

I remember Mom frying them up in a cast iron pan on the stove in a second-floor apartment, central Spokane, Washington, neighborhood, where our vagabond preacher's family was staying at the time. 

The catfish tasted great, and I was so proud to have brought back a meal for my family from the great outdoors.

That defined my fishing experience until this Saturday. When I wasn't slipping on the icy, mossy rocks in the Provo River and getting drenched, there I was, now 65-year-old man, taking fly fishing lessons from a savvy, 20s-something river guide. (A gift for Barbara and me from our son Rob, wife Rachel and grandson Joshua).

Wool socks, waders and waterproof boots made it possible to stand in the river -- still frozen over just a few hundred yards downstream where the Wasatch Mountains shadows remained deep -- for several hours. 

After I quit obsessing over trying to remember all the parts of the rod, kinds of flies, weights, names for the motions ("windshield left," "windshield right," "Statue of Liberty," etc.) and remembering to follow the float thingy with the rod as it drifted with the flow . . . I found myself in that "perfect moment."

That "perfect moment" is what I like to call those slices of time in our lives when, ironically, time stops. The moment and its beauty, its tranquility, fill your senses and encapsulate your mind and spirit in a sort of solitary peace.

I've experienced this before, looking out from a mountain ledge after a long hike, just before setting up camp for a night of wood fire and stars. Another time, it was with Barbara, on a silent-running ship in Glacier Bay, Alaska, watching icebergs calve, crystal-clear slices of bluish of towering, frozen mountains of water cracking in the stillness before sliding into the frigid depths.

These are moments beyond self, part of that album of a lifetime's vignettes -- looking into your beloved's eyes, exchanging vows; watching your child be born, holding him or her that first time; the acapella singing of hymns, chanting of prayers, incense and candlelight of an Orthodox Christian Vespers service.

This time, I caught eight fish, an assortment of rainbow and brown trout, some whitefish. Also hooked a tree branch; it gave me quite a fight before leaping out of the water.

All those fish were admired, a couple photographed, and released back into the river. Always wondered about that "catch-and-release" bit. A bad policy for illegal immigration, perhaps, but a very satisfying culmination for fly fishing.

A mini-perfect moment then: reeling in a 14-inch rainbow after several minutes of fight, removing the hook, gently lifting it from the net, lowering it into the water and watching it swim away and into the darkness of the river's depths.

Certainly a "transitory enchanted moment," for me (OK, quite a liberty on my part appropriating that from F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" . . . but this is my blog, and my moment, so there).

But there was more beneath that now treasured memory. It was discovery of a state-of-mind that was uniquely tied to the experience itself -- that aforementioned "solitary peace."

For nearly four hours, my mind was enclosed is a bubble of serenity, immune to worries, aches, pains, grief. My world was the river, the rod, the sound of the water, the snow capped mountains around us, the laughter of Barbara, Rob, Rachel and Joshua.

Just watching the line float downstream after each cast was a meditation, each cast a wordless prayer of a sort.

It was a very good day.

And now, I know more of what novelist Norman Maclean meant when he wrote "A River Runs Through It":

"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters."