Fly Fishing & Frustration

Fly fishing is filled with times of frustration: getting rained out on the stream, losing a fly in a low hanging branch, being unable to thread your thin tippet line through the hole of a tiny little hook because your hands are too cold. One time I drove an hour from home to fish a new river. When I opened the trunk to put on my gear, I discovered that I had my vest and net, but had left my fly fishing rod at home.

Perhaps the ultimate frustration in fly fishing is not catching any fish. Sometimes no matter how advanced our casting skills, or how perfectly tied our flies, the fish simply will not rise. When getting skunked for hours, I try to rationalize the situation, saying: “I’ll just use this time to practice my casting.” That usually does not work for long. The sport is called fly fishing, not fly casting.

Picture: Battenkill River in Vermont.

Over the years, I realized that frustration from not catching fish usually has to do with expectations. When I first taught myself to fly fish, I was lucky to see one or two bites in an entire afternoon. I was thrilled the first time I caught a trout on a dry fly, a small rainbow of about eight inches. I was not frustrated by the other three hours of fishing because I was just learning.

After that first trout, I began to develop expectations. As my skills developed and my casting improved and I could catch more fish, my expectations only continued to rise. Today, a few hours on the stream that do not yield a single bite can cause some serious angst.

Expectations in life can be a good thing. When a baseball coach demands one hundred and ten percent, it pushes the player to new levels of athletic achievement. When a teacher gives a difficult assignment but the student works hard and succeeds, she learns and grows. When a parent expects a child to do chores, apply himself and to treat others with respect, he becomes a better person

In religion, expectations are important as well. The Torah, the Hebrew Bible, contains 613 commandments, each one containing an expectation of behavior.  When Rabbi Hillel was asked what is the most important command of Judaism he said: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the commentary.” Likewise, God expects ethical behavior from us all. The prophet Micah said: “God has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Expectations from teachers, from coaches and even from religion can be a good thing when they motivate us to do better or to be better. But expectations on the fly fishing stream are probably a waste of time. Not too long ago, someone asked me for the most important tip in fly fishing. I said to him: “Be sure to look up from the river every once in a while, take a breath of air, hear the soft sound of the flowing water, and appreciate the beauty of all that surrounds you.” In fly fishing, when I expect to catch trout, I am guaranteed to be frustrated sometimes. When I expect to be out in nature, to soak in the solitude of the stream and to leave behind the stress of the world, I find fulfillment.


Picture: On Mt. Equinox in Vermont.

I may still get frustrated when not a single fish rises. When that happens, I will try to remember that time I went fly fishing and left my rod behind. After I discovered that I could not fish, I decided to go hiking along the stream. I saw deer and ducks. I got stuck in “sinking mud,” almost becoming a permanent resident of the stream. I spent time outside, in nature, and I was able to look around, to relax and to appreciate the beauty of our world. And I learned that sometimes you do not need a rod and reel to have a good time on the river.

Fly Fishing the Famous Beaverkill River in Roscoe, New York

Probably the most famous fly fishing river in the Northeast, the Beaverkill begins at Junction Pool in Roscoe New York, where hundreds of fishermen and women test their skills each spring. Roscoe is the center of fly fishing in the Catskills. For over 100 years, the Beaverkill, Willowemec, Delaware and other streams have attracted the preeminent fly fishers in America including Theodore Gordon, Art Flick and Joan and Lee Wulff.  Roscoe, New York calls itself “Trout Town USA” and the Catskills soon became known as the birthplace of American Fly Fishing. 

For the East Coast fly fisher, a trip to the Beaverkill River is like a pilgrimage, a journey to a sacred place. In ancient times, Jews used to travel to the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year to offer sacrifices to God. Today, a trip to Israel remains a sacred pilgrimage for Jews, a way to connect to the past and the Bible. While I would not put Roscoe New York on the same spiritual plane as the Temple in Jerusalem, for many fly fishers the Beaverkill River is a sacred site, a place like no other in America to cast a fly. 

In October 2001, I drove to Roscoe for a fly fishing trip that felt like more than a normal few days on the stream. It was only a few weeks after 9/11. From my apartment in Brooklyn, I could still smell the smoke coming from the remains of the twin towers. New York City felt like a war zone, and I needed some time away, a safe place in a world that felt upside-down.

After a two hour car trip, I arrived at Roscoe New York, population 597. Every pilgrimage has rituals, and a trip to Roscoe is no different. I ate at the Roscoe Diner, I visited the local fly shop to get some gear and good advice, and I checked into a local B&B. Finally, it was time to go fishing.

As I had been looking forward to fly fishing the Beaverkill for a long time, I could not help imagining what would happen when I finally cast my line. I dreamt of a beautiful river, filled with large rising trout. On a perfect fall day, I would be the only person around for miles, and I would catch and release fish after fish for hours.

Picture: The Beaverkill River

Needless to say, my dreams for this fly fishing pilgrimage were a bit unrealistic. Junction Pool was too crowded, the Beaverkill River was low that year, and I got skunked for two days, not catching a single trout. I realized that while the pools of the Beaverkill might be famous, for me that day they were also fishless.

On my second day of fly fishing, when the streams would not yield a bite, I decided to abandon my fly rod and go for a hike. I climbed to the top of one of the hills which was very steep, and I looked around. Trees covered the Catskill Mountains in all directions, the leaves were turning brilliant yellows and oranges. I had never witnessed such a beautiful fall scene in my life. As I stood on top of the hill, I realized that I had completed my pilgrimage. The sacred site that I was looking for was not Junction Pool or the Beaverkill River. It was on top of that mountain, where I felt in awe of the beauty of nature.

View from the top of a Catskill Mountain in the Fall of 2001

A fly fishing pilgrimage is about taking the time to escape the everyday, about traveling to a place that is far from the ordinary. This type of journey can be a search for safety in a post 9/11 world, a return to nature and simplicity when human society seems so distorted. A pilgrimage is also about connecting to the past. I may not have caught a fish in Roscoe, but knowing that I was fishing the same rivers as Theodore Gordon and other greats made me feel grounded and authentic.

Perhaps the ultimate goal of a pilgrimage is enlightenment.  Standing on top of a hill in Roscoe in the fall, I realized that I had completed my pilgrimage.  The sacred site that I was looking for was on top of that hill, where I experienced the awe and beauty of a fall day in the mountains.

The Drive to The Trout Stream

There is something special about the drive to the river. It is a time of transition, as we leave behind our everyday lives and focus only on the stream, the fly rod and the trout. Whether a two hour drive to a local stream our a two day trek to famous rivers in far off countries, the journey to the water can be an opportunity to separate from the world of work and obligation and to enter a quiet, beautiful and natural place.

One August morning a few years ago, I arose well before dawn and packed my waders, vest and rods into the truck for the drive to a trout park in rural Missouri. I was too excited to sleep, because that day was my only opportunity to cast a fly in my home state for the entire year.

Living in Connecticut, trips to my hometown of St. Louis are infrequent at best, and the chance to visit a Missouri trout stream even more rare. It was pitch black when I pulled the rental car out of the hotel and began the drive to the stream. I was determined to arrive at the stream at dawn, if not before.

An hour later I pulled off the interstate and began final leg of my trip down a long rural road. With the stars still in the sky, the first light of dawn was beginning to appear in the eastern sky. I rolled down my widow to feel the warm summer air. I sped up and down small hills and around curves.

Fields of grass began to appear on my right and left as the sky turned from black to blue. It was only the on-coming headlights of the occasional car in the other lane that reminded me that other human beings even existed. For that half hour drive down that rural Missouri road, I was at one with the sound of the wind, the bends in the road and the rising dawn. It was a beautiful drive that put me at peace.

Appreciating the journey and not only the destination is a lesson that Moses learned while guiding the Israelites through the desert. For forty years, Moses led the people from one stop to another, responding to their complaints, pleading for them when they strayed from God, guiding and protecting them. Moses had to learn to enjoy the journey since he knew that he would not make it to the Promised Land.

At the end of his life, Moses stood on Mt. Nebo in modern-day Jordan, surveyed the land, and knew that his task had come to an end. He died on that mountain, his vigor unabated, and we hope, taking consolation in all that he had accomplished.

Like Moses, we will not make it to all of the Promised Lands in our lives. We will fall short of our goals, our accomplishments will only take us so far before we leave this earth. Our task then is to savor every moment as this poem by Rabbi Alvin Fine teaches:

Birth is a beginning
And death a destination.
And life is a journey:
From childhood to maturity
And youth to age;
From innocence to awareness
And ignorance to knowing;
From foolishness to discretion
And then, perhaps, to wisdom…

Birth is a beginning
And death a destination.
And life is a journey,
A sacred pilgrimage—
To life everlasting.

Fly fishing is almost always about the journey and not the destination, the process and not the end result. Getting skunked, not catching a single trout on a day of fly fishing, is a more common occurrence than many of us fly fishers would like to admit. When the trout are elusive or our flies simply the wrong size or color, we can give in to feelings of frustration. Or we can take a few moments to appreciate everything else that happens while on the stream; the flowing river, the trees, the meditative feeling of casting the rod. Every time we get skunked, we remember it is called fishing not catching, and that perhaps that is a good thing.

When I arrived at the Trout Park in Missouri, I quickly discovered that the stream was crowded and the fish, while plentiful, showed no interest in my flies, preferring the live bait of my fellow anglers. While it is always good to go fishing even if not single trout will rise, looking back, I came to realize that the drive to the stream, and the peace and solitude of the dawn, were the best part of that day.

Fly Fishing for Tarpon, Permit and Bonefish

I am very pleased to be able to share this article by my friend Dr. Michael Attas, a practicing cardiologist, ordained Episcopal priest and avid fly fisher:

While I cherish my time on my home waters of the Rockies, I also long for the chance to explore new places with my fly rod and to move into new territories-both physically and spiritually. On a trip to Belize, we searched for the big three for salt water fly fishermen—tarpon, permit and bonefish. Each requires a certain type of equipment, a certain mindset, and a certain set of expectations. Each fish is a glimpse, in its’ own way, into the mystery of creation and its’ ecologic diversity.

The tarpon has the appearance of some prehistoric silver monster from the depths, with majestic mouths and colors. When you hook a tarpon, the run and inevitable leap towards the heavens is guaranteed to stir the heart of even the most experienced fisherman. It is almost a given that the first time a tarpon is caught it is rarely landed, for the experience and physical skills required are just so different for a fly fisherman who lives on trout waters. As a cardiologist, I realize that reeling in a tarpon is like a salt water version of a treadmill stress test—if your heart can stand the runs and jumps it is probably in pretty good shape!!

Tarpon

The leap to the sky of the tarpon demands that the fishermen “bow to the king”— in order to keep the fish hooked we must lower our rod tip with our body and let the line have some slack before it re-enters the water and makes another daunting run. To me, this expression has some wonderfully religious overtones. We must always stand in reverence and humility before the creator of the universe. We cannot demand too much, pull too hard, keep the line to the divine too taught or we run the risk of missing some feedback to the presence of God in our lives.

Our relationship to God is often on based on trust that the link will remain even when we don’t sense its’ presence. It is not about meeting God on our terms, but on His. When we trust that process, we become like the fishermen who finds—much to his surprise—that the king Tarpon is still tugging mightily on his line despite his trusting movement of supplication. When we let go of our need to control God, it is often when God can move into our lives in new and powerful ways. Control is not something that works in our religious lives or our experience with a majestic fish like a tarpon.

For many experienced salt-water anglers, the permit is the Holy Grail of fly fishing. I have known very good fly fishers who have fished for decades to permit and never had even one take their fly. It is utterly maddening—one makes a perfect cast to a clearly feeding fish and the fly is met with total indifference of a mighty flash of escape. I had a very experienced guide tell me that he had cast to hundreds of permit, and then for no clear or discernable reason one time a permit simply decides to take a look at the crab pattern he threw. In our modern times, we like instant gratification and clear user manuals. If that is your mindset when approaching a permit, you almost certainly will be disappointed.

  

Permit

Bonefish are perhaps the most fun fish for most fly fishermen. A five pound bonefish will take a long screaming run, making that delightful sound a good reel makes as it does what it was designed to do. Watching school of beautiful tailing bonefish feeding is like glimpsing a tiny fleet of sailboats—their tails point to the heavens as they grub around the bottom for food. Or a school may move through the skinny waters, causing the classic “nervous water” look.

We cautiously lay a line out with grace and ease; the strike is not heavy often but a brief tug as we strip the line back. But then the magic happens—before you can almost respond with your mind a bonefish has made run of 150 yards and is close to the backing of your line. Luckily, you come to your senses and begin to play him and draw him in. Perhaps one more run and he is spent, and a gentle release into the wilds reminds of why we love this sport.

Bonefish

Each fly fishing trip to a far off destination represents a new beginning for me, for I have to leave my comfort zone. I must become familiar with new flies, new gear, new insects. A month or two before trips I often get out the 10-12 weight rod and hone up my heavy rod casting. I begin to work on the double haul, something we simply don’t have to do in the Rockies. I try to get my muscle memory back in shape, so that I don’t waste a part of a trip having to relearn things that I don’t have to practice often enough.

It seems to me that sometimes my spiritual life often needs a similar sort of jump-start with freshness. A willingness to try new things has led me to sudden spurts of a feeling of connection to God as well as to new waters. They seem to go hand in hand. But it can only happen when I say Yes.

To read a previous post on The Fly Fishing Rabbi by Reverend Mike, Click Here. He also writes a column for the Waco Texas Tribune on health, ethics and religion.

The Beginning of Fly Fishing Season

Although we are already into June, it still feels to me that the fly fishing season has just begun. It was not too long ago that I took my gear out of the basement for the first time in months and smelled the scent of the river rising from my vest and waders. It is a distinctive smell, a scent of water and plants and nature, one that never fully leaves your gear during the off-season.

It is said that smell is one of the five senses that is very connected to memory. We remember a place in our mind’s eye, or recall a song from the distant past. Yet it is a smell from our past that can instantly bring us back to that distant place. It may well be that moment of smelling the river on your fly fishing gear begins the fly fishing season in earnest.

There is much to do to prepare for the first trip out to the stream. Fly rods, reels and fly lines are taken out and examined. Waders are checked for leaks and repaired. Tippets and leaders are counted. Flies are surveyed. A list is made of necessities to be purchased for the upcoming year. Accounting for all of your fishing gear after a long winter is a time honored tradition of fly fishing.

Judaism also teaches that we are to perform a yearly accounting, not of fly fishing gear, but rather of our souls. Just as fly fishers inspect their gear at the beginning of the season, Jews perform a soul-searching at the beginning of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. In Hebrew, this process of soul-searching is called chesbon nefesh, which literally means an accounting of the soul.

We are to reflect on our deeds in the year that is ending, both good and bad. We are to examine all aspects of our lives, professional and personal. Focusing on our shortfalls, we are to search for areas of improvement in the year to come. Surveying fly fishing gear helps us prepare for the fishing season and ensure that we have everything we need for a trip to the stream. Chesbon Nefesh, Jewish soul-searching, helps Jews to prepare for the year to come and to begin the process of repentance and repair.

Another time honored tradition at the beginning of the fly fishing season is the first trip to the fly shop. I love all fly fishing stores, the big chains and the small independent stores. There is something special about visiting the local shop that somehow stays in business year after year, with every square inch of shelf-space covered in leaders and tippet spools and the drawers filled with an endless array of dry flies, nymphs and streamers. At the independent fly fishing store you sit and talk to the owner, ask about business (usually hearing in response “we’re getting by,”) and gather info on the local streams.

Let’s admit the truth: the fly fishing store is like a toy store for adults. As children, we all remember trips to the local toy store and the shelves filled with baseball cards, action figures and brightly colored games and puzzles. Standing before an open drawer filled with countless flies, we recapture some of that same joy and excitement. We examine each fly, thinking that perhaps this red/gray Adams will bring that large brown trout to the surface, or a brown copper John nymph will prove irresistible in the fast currents.

Fly fishing is fun, an activity we do when we are not at work or taking care of other responsibilities in our lives. Stocking up on flies, surveying your gear and catching the scent of the river, these are all traditions of the Spring and the beginning of another glorious year of wading into the stream and casting a fly.

A Trout Stream in The Garden of Eden

In the Bible, a river flowed through the Garden of Eden, watering the plants and trees and making the Garden into a lush paradise. I would like to believe that this river was also filled with trout, rainbows, browns, brooks and cutthroats, feasting on bountiful insects all around. Each time I go fly fishing, I too am in search of that river in the Garden of Eden, a perfect place of natural beauty and peace.

The river in the Garden of Eden was probably not next to a road. The Norwalk River in Connecticut runs along Route 7, the Ethan Allen Highway, beginning near where I live in Ridgefield and flowing down past the city of Norwalk and into Long Island Sound. There are a few good fishing holes on the stream especially near the town of Wilton and I enjoy fishing there sometimes. Yet on the Norwalk, you are never very far from the noise of the cars, a parking lot or a row of stores. The river in the Garden of Eden would be far from civilization.

One of my favorite rivers for many years was the Connetquot on Long Island, a beautiful cold-water stream located in a State Park. Sadly, the river was not too long ago cleared of trout due to IPN, a trout parasite, and I believe still unable to be fished.

Surrounded by suburbs and strip-malls on all sides, Connetquot State Park is a garden oasis of calm and tranquility. It was also a very popular place to cast a fly due to heavy stocking from the hatchery located within the park. After registering at the entrance and choosing a beat, a close to mile hike, past the old gristmill, a calm lake and through the woods, was necessary to reach the stream. The only sign of mankind was the occasional plane that flew overhead, which I accepted with disdain.

 

Sunset on the Connetquot River

The only thing separating the Connetquot River from the stream that flowed through the Garden of Eden was its popularity, the stream always being pretty crowded. Adam and Eve were alone in the Garden of Eden; time spent alone on a trout stream can be a spiritual experience for us as well. With only nature and our thoughts to keep us company, we can connect to ourselves and reflect on our lives. It is no accident that many Biblical figures found God while alone in places of natural beauty. Moses was alone on Mt. Sinai when God spoke to him through a burning bush. Alone on the stream, we too may feel a presence larger than ourselves.

The closest that I probably ever came to fishing the river in the Garden of Eden was in Argentina. While it was not one of the legendary rivers of Patagonia, I spent an amazing day on the San Jose River near Cordoba. I met my guide before dawn. We drove for an hour, through the most perfect, picturesque hills and valleys. With few trees, we saw beautiful views in all directions. There was no one around for miles. The sun was coming up above the peaks of the hills. This was the most beautiful place that I had ever fished.

The San Jose River in Argentina

The guide and I arrived at the river at seven. There was a good hatch of flies, and I cast my Griffin’s Gnat onto the stream. Within half an hour, I caught four small rainbows, all of which were returned to the river. As the sun came up, and the hatch ended, we began to hike down stream. With a brown grasshopper at the end of my line, I was even able to tempt a monster fish that moved towards the surface, but then retreated back to the deep water. After a few hours in Paradise, we headed back to the car.

We need not travel to Argentina or halfway across the world to find the river that flows through the Garden of Eden. Any stream can feel like Paradise, if the time spent in the river helps us to leave behind the stress of everyday and connect to a higher part of ourselves.

Measuring Success in Fly Fishing

What makes a fly fishing trip a success? For some, catching fish is the only measure of a good fly fishing trip. Maybe that is why fly fishing stores sell scales and rulers to calculate the length and weight of the trout we land.

If the number of trout you catch is the only measure of your success, then what happens if you get skunked, not hooking a single fish? When I first taught myself to fly fish in the trout parks of Missouri, I would go hours, and days without catching a trout. It was frustrating. Yet even on the hardest day, when there were no fish to be seen, I still relished the time spent in the stream.

 
Fly fishing is not only about catching fish. Time spent on the stream can help us feel connected to nature, reflect on our lives and escape from the relentless pace of the modern world. At its highest moments, fly fishing can brings us closer to the Divine, as we sense the awe and beauty of our world and wonder how such an amazing place came to be. As a person I met recently on the stream told me: “Fly fishing is deep.”

Defining success in fly fishing by the number of fish you catch is kind of like defining success in life by how much money you have or by the size of your home. There is nothing wrong with material success. It is good to work hard and enjoy the fruits of your labor. But if our lives are only the sum total of our bank accounts, we have not accomplished all that we can in this world.

Judaism teaches that the measure of a successful life includes the ways we repair our broken world, the love we share with family and friends, and our striving to become better people. Even in the realm of the material, success does not only come from what we acquire, but also what we give away to others. Giving tzedakah, charity, is an obligation for every Jew, no matter how rich or poor. The most destitute must give something, even a penny, because the act of charity makes one a better person.

It seems to me that life is not about the size of the fish we catch or the sum of our material possessions. Success comes from all that we have seen and done that is beautiful and elevating and makes this world just a little bit better. When I am waist-deep in cold water, casting my line, I certainly want to catch fish. But I also try to remember to take a moment to breathe, to look around, and to appreciate those precious moments of connection and solitude on the stream.

The Fly Fishing Reverend

This article on The Fly Fishing Rabbi is by Dr. Michael Attas, a practicing cardiologist, professor and an ordained Episcopal priest. He has avidly pursued fish with the magic of flies all over the world for 40 years. Dr. Attas also writes a column for the Waco Texas Tribune on health, ethics and religion.

Several years ago I was sitting in the Houston Intercontinental Airport when my cell phone rang. It was the wife of Will Spong, who was perhaps my closest mentor in my dual life as a physician and priest. Will was my seminary professor, pastoral counselor, and one of my closest friends. He was found dead in bed that morning, and my world began to spin out of control.

Will was the brother of the Rev. John Shelby Spong who authored “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalists,” and was the person most responsible for my decision to pursue ordained ministry while continuing a life as a practicing physician and professor. We had just shared a long lunch a few weeks before, and little did I know then that would be the last time I would see him.

When Nancy called to inform me of Will’s passing, I was on the way to Argentina to pursue the legendary sea run brown trout of Tierra del Fuego. I wanted desperately to cancel the trip to be with friends and family of Will to celebrate his life and ministry. Yet Nancy told me unequivocally to go fishing-that is what Will would have wanted for me. So I went fly fishing—to the land of eternal fire where large fish morphed into something glorious to rule the rivers and oceans.

Two days later, I was in the middle of the Rio Grande River when the reality of Will’s death hit me. I began to heave with sobs of loss, of injustice, of Wills pure and simple absence. I went to the bank to collect myself, fearing that if I stayed in the water I might lose my balance and go for a cold swim! Within a few minutes I began to feel a peace, a calm…what I would describe as a peace that passes all understanding.

I looked across the river, and my eyes beheld the most glorious rainbow in the sky that I’ve ever seen. Now this was more than a bit unusual, for it was not an arched rainbow reaching from cloud to cloud, but a vertical rainbow reaching from heaven to earth, like a multi-colored thread reaching from the divine into the heart of the human condition.

The Rainbow on the Rio Grande River

And I heard with the clarity beyond words Will’s voice inside my head saying “Mike…it is fine. All will be well. Relax and don’t worry”. The words of the 14th century Christian mystic Julian of Norwich echoed in my mind when she looked into a simple chestnut and saw all of God’s creation and wrote “all will be well, all will be well.” It was nothing less than the simple assurance of the presence of creating God who undergirds his story with an outpouring of love into the human condition.

In Mark 15:38 the author writes that when Jesus died “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom”. In ancient cosmology, the heavens and earth were seen as separate realms, and the temple curtain was a symbolic way to keep something purely holy from the rather profane and earthy world. Mark’s words are a way of saying that the divisions between God and humankind will never be quite the same. The barriers are rent asunder. God has chosen to enter into the rather messy, painful, real world where humans live, love, work, are wounded—and yet who keep surviving and loving despite unbearable loss and suffering.

The Celtic Christians of the first few centuries felt that the world is graced with “thin places” where the divine and human can more closely come into some sort of connection with each other. These are “liminal” places, and they exist in all sorts of strange and wonderful and glorious spots. Sometimes they are in churches or temples or synagogues. Sometimes they are in the fields we plow. Sometimes they are in our kitchen or our hearth where we are welcomed home. More often they are in the world where we all live daily.

These are places where we experience the reality of God more purely, more certainly, more radically, more authentically than in other places. And for me rivers are often those very thin places. Like the river in Argentina, they are often places where my mind and body can get out of the way and God can flow in. Unobstructed with the clutter of my life, I find myself listening more intently to the voice that is calling me home, to the very ground of my being.

The Author, right, with a sea run brown trout in Argentina

A thin place, yes-- where rivers and fish remind me of love and loss and hope and glory and the possibility of redemption. They bear stories of friendships beyond words. They carry our memories, our hopes, our fears, and our dreams. The thin places of rivers and fish are where we often find our truest self, the one hidden to all but the Holy One.

Winter Fly Fishing

The last time I went fly fishing was in late October of last year. Three and a half months of winter, snow, ice and misery had made me almost forget that fly fishing existed, that it was even possible to spend time in a stream with the trout. This past week, when the temperature in Connecticut reached into the high thirties with abundant winter sunshine, it felt downright tropical. So I decided to head out to the river.

With four layers of pants and an equal number of shirts and sweatshirts, I headed for the local TMA, trout management area, where catch and release fly fishing is permitted year round. This section of the river begins at a classic New England covered bridge, and flows down amongst rocks and boulders. With snow on both banks of the river, I quickly discovered that wading in the winter ice and snow is much more difficult and dangerous. The snow covered the riverbanks and it was impossible to tell exactly where the water began. I walked one careful step at a time on the snow. Most of the time the ice held my weight. Occasionally, I broke through, falling into about six inches of water.

The quite and solitude of the winter river nourished my soul. I gazed at the pure white snow covering the banks. I heard that familiar sound of the river that I had missed for months. And when I began to cast, I felt once again the smooth motion in arms as the tiny fly slid gracefully through the air and landed gently on the water. When we return to the river after months away, we remember again, as if for the first time, how fly fishing can nourish every part of us; our eyes feast on the beauty of the river, our nose and lungs take in the pure air, our ears hear the sounds of rushing water, and our hands gracefully send the fly onto the stream.

Psalm 150 says: “Let every soul praise God, Haleluyah!” However, we could also translate this Hebrew verse as: “Let all of the soul praise God.” When fly fishing, we engage our mind, body and soul in an act that is meant to catch trout, but can also connect us to the Divine.

The TMA that I fished had many deep pools that I hoped were filled with trout. With no surface activity, I fished nymphs and underwater flies. Yet three hours of careful wading and casting yielded not a single bite. After fishing the pools for about a mile downstream, I saw that the river was frozen, and I knew that my day of winter fly fishing had ended.

I suspect that this stream did have trout that survived year-round, but I simply could not find them. Later back at home, I came upon an article by Tom Rosenbauer of Orvis entitled “How to Catch Trout in Winter.” (Might have been a good idea to research first before heading to the stream, but I was too excited to get out on the water!) Tom wrote that trout generally will not feed below 40 degrees and the day that I went it was in the mid to high 30s. He also recommended fishing nymphs and streams, and even using a sinking line to ensure the fly travels deep enough into the pools where the trout live during the winter.

Not too far from my home is a large reservoir. Every time I drive by on a winter morning when the surface of the reservoir is frozen, I see people standing on the middle of the lake ice fishing. I always shake my head and think to myself, “They are nuts. I’ll never do that.” But then there I was, on a February afternoon, wading through snow to cast my fly rod. A day of winter fly fishing reminded me of how much I missed casting a fly and it was very satisfying. But I think I’ll probably wait another month or two until the snow has disappeared, the mercury is higher and the trout are rising, before returning to the stream in earnest.

Spiritual Fly Casting and Wading

Casting a fly rod and wading through a cold-water stream can be spiritual experiences. It is an art form to cast a fly correctly. Using an eight to nine foot rod, a fluorescent line and clear leader and tippet, the fly fisher casts the fly out on to the stream. One can learn the basics of casting in a few minutes, but it takes practice to drift a fly correctly and to lure a trout to the surface.

I was first inspired to take up fly fishing after seeing the beautiful casting in the film “A River Runs Through It.” Being a self-taught kind of person, I went to the local fly fishing store in St. Louis, bought a fly rod and reel, and started casting in my front yard (without a hook!). Over the years, I picked up tips here and there from other anglers. Even after bringing dozens of fish to the net and releasing them, my casting skills are intermediate at best. The perfection of the fly cast is a life long pursuit.

Patience is required to cast a fly. In the traditional shadow cast, the fly line travels back and forth, in front of and behind you, until you release it forward. The angler waits for the fly line to extend fully behind him and then flicks it forward gently onto the stream. The fly fisher then watches the fly patiently, waiting and hoping that a trout will rise. Grace happens in fly casting when the cast unrolls in a slow uniform motion on the water and the fly lands ever so gently on the stream.

After the fly drifts down with the current, the fly fisher casts once again. Fly fishing is not like watching a bobber on a lake. For hours, the angler engages in the graceful repetition of the fly cast, in what could be described as a form of meditation. In Eastern religions, a mantra is used to enter a higher spiritual state. Buddhists chant the syllable “Ohm.” In Jewish meditation, the spiritual seeker chants the Hebrew letters that make up the name of God, Yud-Hey-Vav-Hay.

Like mantra meditation, the casting of a fly rod allows the angler to let go of the everyday and access the spiritual side of him or herself. Often I am so busy casting, focusing on my line and how gracefully (or not!) the fly lands on the water that I fail to realize that three or four hours have passed. In the meditative state of fly casting, my being and senses are focused on the fly line, and I lose track of time and place.

Along with casting, wading in a cold-water stream can also be spiritual. The fly fisher wears boots and neoprene waders up to the chest, allowing him or her to walk into the river. Waders are necessary to bring the angler closer to the trout and to keep the fly fisher warm. Wading in a river is like snorkeling on a coral reef. During one snorkeling trip in the Red Sea in Israel, I took a moment to reflect on my surroundings. Looking up from the water, I saw the sky and the shore. Lowering my head and snorkel mask down in the sea, I entered a new world, filled with the whites and pinks of the reef and colorful fish swimming all around.

When wading in a stream, the fly fisher enters a new world as well, that of the river. Moving around becomes more of a challenge, as we feel the strength of the current and the slippery rocks below. We are visitors in a new realm where we do not quite belong, a fascinating place of water, rocks, plants and trout.

A wading staff, a three or four foot long metal pole, helps the angler to navigate the foreign world of the river and maintain one’s balance. A wading staff also gives the angler more freedom to explore the stream. When I became the rabbi of my congregation in Connecticut, I heard about the great fly fishing on the Housatonic River.

On my first trip to the Housey without a wading staff, I could walk only five or ten feet off the shore before the current became too strong and I feared losing my balance. A month later on a return trip, wading staff in hand, I crossed the river from shore to shore, up and down the river. That day on the Housey, I did not catch a single trout, but I reveled in the freedom of exploration.

Perhaps the most powerful wading staff in history was that of Moses. After the Israelite slaves fled Egypt, they stood at the shore of the Red Sea, trapped between the waters in front and Pharaoh’s approaching army behind. At God’s command, Moses lifted his wooden (wading) staff and the sea split in two, allowing the Israelites to cross through on dry land.

When on the opposite shore from where I started or in a deep pool, I sometimes wish that I could lift my staff and split the waters like Moses. Yet I remain content with my metal wading staff, and the freedom to go well beyond the shore, into the world of the river.

Keeping a Trout for Dinner?

I have not taken a trout home for dinner in a few years. Out of the few dozen rainbow, brown and brook trout that I brought to the net, each fish was released back to the stream and swam back into the depths. I practice catch and release fishing for the health of the streams, knowing that if we were all to keep every fish caught, the rivers would soon be empty.

The simplest reason why I release the fish that I catch is that I do not enjoy killing a fish. Rainbow and brown trout are beautiful creatures, sleek, elegant and graceful. When holding a fish in hand, I feel the power of its body and I see the beautiful dark purple spots of a brownie or the long pink stripe of a rainbow. To kill such a beautiful and graceful creature feels somehow wrong.

Perhaps I have started to view a trout as more than just a fish, like a pet. Although other cultures eat dogs as part of their cuisine, we would never want any harm to come to our canine friends. I feel a similar attachment to the trout of the stream, as if all of the rainbow, brown and brook trout are like pets that I sometimes have the opportunity to look at and hold for a few brief moments.

Despite my appreciation for trout, I have been thinking that next spring when I find myself back on the water, I may take the occasional trout home for dinner to fulfill the basic human need for food. On a fishing trip a few years ago, I kept two good size rainbow trout. I broiled the fillets with olive oil and salt, and they tasted amazing.

To eat a trout for sustenance is part of being human. In the Bible, after the great flood, God told Noah that humans could eat animals, as long as they removed all of the blood from them. The blood was seen as the very life force of the creature, and to not eat the blood was a way of respecting the animal. God told Noah and all humanity that we are able to consume other animals as long as we respect them and acknowledge their Divine source.

While the Bible acknowledges the relationship between humans and animals as hunter and prey, many of us today have lost this fundamental aspect of being human. We purchase our beef and chicken at the grocery store, packaged in cellophane, sterilized and removed from all connection to the animal from which it came. Most of us urban dwellers never kill an animal ourselves in order to eat. Instead we leave that job to others in meat processing plants far away.

Killing a trout is not easy, and I do not enjoy it. I try to end the life of the fish in a humane manner. I do not use a creel, keeping the fish alive for hours, which I consider cruel. Instead, I dispatch the trout as quickly as possible and I place it in a cooler that I bring along with me for that purpose.

The fly fishing tool used to kill a trout is called a priest, with a wooden handle and a brass end used to strike the fish. We call it a priest because you are offering “last rights” to the trout. However when dispatching a fish, we can also think of ourselves as priests, rabbis or ministers. Just as we expect our religious leaders to conduct themselves to the highest ethical standards, we too must kill the fish in the most humane way possible.

Picture: a fly fishing priest.

Ending the life of a beautiful trout is difficult and I sometimes feel guilty doing it. But it can also teach us spiritual and ethical lessons. We realize what it actually means to kill another animal and so we strive to treat animals with respect. We also remember that a trout is one of God’s creatures, a true miracle of creation. While we are able eat this fish, we do so with a heightened sense of appreciation for the trout itself, and for the world in which it lives.

An Extinct Trout Stream

With Fall upon us, my fishing season is nearing its end as the temperature continues to drop. On a recent fishing trip in October, I felt the chill of the water on my hands and the brisk air in my lungs. I was reminded of a much earlier fly fishing outing I took in late March. It was the first nice sunny day of the impending Spring. I was desperate to be out on the water after not having touched my fly rod in months.

I traveled to a local stream where I had success in the past. It is a well-known river that is heavily fished and each year the state stocks the stream with trout in the Spring and the Fall. Wading waist deep in the water, with the air temperature in the fifties and in the shade of the trees from the shore, I was freezing. But my desire to fish overcame my frigid bones, and I began to cast my fly across the water.

A half-hour later, I had not seen a single rise on a pool that had in the past been filled with trout. I walked ashore, and hiked up to a bridge overlooking the pool, to discover that the stream was empty. Thinking perhaps that maybe the trout had migrated elsewhere, I travelled up and down the river, to other pools, and did not see a single fish anywhere.

I had arrived at this stream too early in the season, before it had been stocked. Then I realized what that meant: out of the hundreds of trout from last year that had been put in the stream, not a single one had survived over the hot summer. I was looking at an extinct trout stream, a river could not support fish year round. The water was pure and cold, the insects were plentiful; it was good trout habitat. I had not heard of a spill or disease in the area.

I assumed one of two possibilities; the water level simply got too low in the summer to support trout or the river was over fished. I suspect it was the latter. There are simply too many people who know about this stream and keep the fish that they catch. This river was not a renewable resource; each year it died and could only be reborn with a full stocking of new trout.

In the Bible, the Garden of Eden was a paradise, a place where God took care of Adam and Eve and provided for their every need. Yet, Adam and Eve had a responsibility to care for the garden as well. The Bible says that Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden to till and to tend it. Adam could eat from the trees of the garden to satisfy his basic needs.

Yet, Adam was also required to tend to the land, to care for it, and ensure that it remained healthy and fertile. The Hebrew word that means, “to tend,” shamor, also means, “to protect.” Adam, and all of the generations that follow him, are obligated to protect the earth. We can harvest the field and fish the streams, but we also must ensure that the plants and the trout will live on.

In the months since that March fishing trip, I have fished dozens of times on many rivers, streams and lakes but I have not returned to that first river. I just cannot see myself participating in emptying the trout from a stream. My first fishing trip in March motivated me to search for other rivers in my area, streams where the fish live year round. I even managed to find places where the trout spawn and reproduce each season.

A brown trout, caught and released in a year-round trout stream

I now fish streams where the trout live all year long, because when I catch a fish and release him, I know that he will not face an immanent end in a few months. Rather my fish could swim on for years and years, growing large and fat on the insects of a healthy and ever-flowing river.

Large Trout and Big Problems

I am very fortunate to be able to go fly fishing for rainbow and brown trout near my home. I fish the Farmington River in Connectict and the Croton Watershed in New York. Sometimes, I hook a few fish, which I release back into the water. When I do have a trout resting briefly in the net, I make a mental note of its size: small, medium or large. That way, when I tell the story, I can be sure to lengthen the fish by a few inches.

It occurred to me that reeling in a beautiful rainbow trout can be a metaphor for dealing with problems in our lives. We face all sorts of issues each day, from work, from home and even inside of ourselves. Some are more easily overcome than others, just as the bigger trout are harder to bring to the net than small ones. Perhaps the experiences of bringing a trout to the net could offer a bit of guidance in dealing with the difficulties of life.

The smallest size trout found in a stream are fingerlings, fish that are theoretically the size of one’s finger, although usually between six and nine inches. It takes about a year for a trout to grow to this size after hatching from an egg. It is no problem to reel in and overpower such a small fish. I quickly bring the fish to the net, remove the hook from its mouth and gently return it to the stream.

Small Brown Trout caught on a beetle imitation

Many issues that we all face in life are equally simple to handle. We make a mistake a work, but find a way to fix it. We do something wrong at home like coming home too late or raising our voices when we should have asked a question or been more patient. These are the “I’m sorry” type of problems, where a genuine apology can lead to forgiveness.

The most common trout that I catch and release is a medium sized adult fish, usually about 10 or 12 inches, and weighing a pound or two. You can definitely feel the weight of the trout on the line. You have to be a little patient as you reel a medium sized fish in, not to create too much tension on the line or it will snap. Once hooked, the fish will run. Then he tires, and you can bring him into the net. Reeling in a medium size trout becomes relatively easy with practice, but you always have to be careful not to pull to hard and snap the line.

Medium sized brown trout caught and released

Reeling in a medium size trout is like dealing with a decent sized problem. We are pretty sure we can overcome it, but which if we handle it in the wrong way, it could worsen. The Pharaoh in Egypt thought that the Hebrews were a problem that he could handle. Pharaoh was concerned that the Jews could join his enemies and fight against him in a war. Rather than talk to the Israelites or try to ally with them, Pharaoh chose to enslave our people.

Pharaoh kept pulling and pulling on the metaphoric fishing line, trying to keep us enslaved, even though God brought plague after plague on Egypt, decimating the country. Finally after the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, the line had been broken, along with Pharaoh’s will, and the king knew he had to let the people go. We benefit from learning from the experience of Pharaoh and not trying to overpower large problems in our lives. Sometimes we have to be patient, we have to negotiate, compromise and admit our mistakes.

Only a few times have I caught a truly large trout. This is a fish over 18 or so inches and weighing a few pounds. When you hook a fish this size on a fly fishing rod, you cannot possibly reel it in directly. If you pull too hard on a large trout, you will break the five-pound fly fishing line in five seconds. The only technique for bringing in large trout is to endure.

The largest trout I ever brought to the net. I released this rainbow back to its river home.

You reel in a little bit, then the fish starts swimming and you let it run. You try to keep the fish away from submerged trees and other hazards that can break the line. Then you just wait. Hopefully you can wear out the fish and bring it to the net over time. Or just as likely, the fish will find a way to break the line and escape. I have hooked three or four large trout over the years, and have only managed to bring one or two into the net.

Reeling in a large trout is like dealing with problems over which we have very little control. Some problems are so difficult that we have to simply find a way to endure and be patient, even as we continue to work to try to solve them. In Egpyt, the Israelites had to endure 400 years of slavery. During this terrible time, they found a way to maintain Judaism and pass it down from generation to generation.

In dealing with the difficulties of life, we too can take the same approach as the Israelite slaves. We can turn to our faith. We can continue each day to work to solve our problems. And sometimes we must simply endure. The Israelites were freed after 400 years of slavery. We benefit from living with this same hope. For you never know when the solution to a very large problem may appear, like a very a large trout rising to the surface and biting your caddis dry fly.

Fly Fishing for Bass

Until last week, I had never tried to catch a bass on a fly rod. As a kid, I used to fish for bass on a Zebco rod with a red and white bobber and night crawlers on three pronged hooks. However, in 1994 that I saw A River Runs Through It. This amazing film introduced me a whole other world of fishing, where you did not stand on the shore but in the water, and you did not plop a worm covered hook in a lake, but rather gracefully cast a small dry fly lightly on the stream. I decided that I would leave behind the bait fishing of my youth and graduate to the higher form of casting a dry fly.

Last week, I realized that I had become a fishing snob and it had not served me well. I took a trip to a river in northern Connecticut that was located in a nature preserve. Walking from the car towards the stream, I went by a small two-acre lake. I glanced into the water from shore and saw a number of tiny bass swimming gleefully towards me. With my nose held high, I walked past the lake and to the stream, a beautiful, wide and fast flowing piece of water.

I spent the next three hours casting and walking up and down that stream and I did not find a single trout. There were signs posted at many points on the river indicating that this was fly fishing only water. Someone had even created a small flat metal cutout of a trout and put it on a tree, as a marker of appreciation for this good fishing spot. Yet here I was in the heart of spring on a cold-water stream and not a single trout was to be found. Finally, I gave up and started walking back to the car.

Passing the small lake once again, I saw the bass swimming eagerly. I stopped and thought to myself: “Why not?” Replacing the red copper john nymph with a brown elk hair caddis fly, I began to cast on the surface of the lake. I quickly discovered that bass are not the most intelligent of fish. One after another, these tiny fish would hit the fly after a few seconds on the surface.

After pulling in a half dozen small ones near the shore and releasing them, I decided to cast out a bit further. The elk hair caddis landed 40 or so feet from the bank, and I gave the fly a little twitch to attract a fish. The fly went down, and I expected to reel in another tiny fish, but this time it was different. The rod bent and the line was tense. I started to reel in and a good size bass leaped out of the water. The fish fought well but finally I held him in my hands. I had caught a two-pound smallmouth bass.



Picture: The bass in hand.

The bass was not a pretty as a trout. It lacked the pink shine of a rainbow or the beautiful dark spots of a brown trout. But as I stood there for a moment with the good size fish in my hand, I felt that same sense of excitement, joy and appreciation for the beauty of nature as with any trout. Then I released the fish back into the lake and walked back to the car feeling content.

On my drive home from the lake, it occurred to me that my fish snobbery had prevented me from a fine pastime, casting a fly rod for bass. Especially in the summer, when water temperatures rise too high for trout, I will now search out a good bass lake. I also discovered that being a snob makes sense when drinking fine wine or eating French cheese. When it comes to fishing however, any time that we are able to spend in a river, lake or ocean, fishing for trout, bass or any kind of fish, is time well spent.

Holding a Trout in Your Hand

On one of my first fishing outings of the season, I was fortunate to find a pool full of trout on a local Connecticut stream. Although the river was narrow and shallow for much of it’s length, there was one deep spot. I tied a red Copper John to my tippet and then proceeded to have an experience that I had dreamt about all winter long. I caught, landed and released 6 good-sized trout in half an hour, 4 rainbows and 2 browns.

It was like child’s play, with almost each cast leading to a fish. Then suddenly, the pool went quiet. Another thirty minutes of casting yielded not a single bite. Only one other time have I ever fished a pool like that, two years ago, also in April, near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On that day too, I drifted a nymph, a zug bug, and for a brief time, each cast led to a trout.

It was exciting, almost addicting, to cast my fly into the invisible depths of the pool, instantly feel the tug, and then pull a beautiful trout out of the water. The highlight of the experience though was actually holding the fish in my hands. To ensure that the trout would survive, I dunked my hands in the water and I only kept the fish out of the water for a few seconds, before releasing it back to the stream. Yet those were remarkable moments when I looked at the beautiful colorings of the fish, and felt the strength of its flesh. Holding the trout, I felt awe at seeing such a beautiful creature. I felt powerful, because I could hold this hidden treasure in my hand. And I felt compassion, for a creature that was so strong and agile in the water but now was so vulnerable in the open air.



One of the rainbows I held in my hand, taken with a camera phone.

In the Bible, God has the power to hold us in the Divine Hand in the same way that I held that beautiful trout. Sometimes God’s hand can be strong and even punishing, as when God brought the 10 plagues upon Egypt. In the same way, I had absolute control over that fish when I held it in my hands and could have easily taken it home for dinner.

The hand of God can also be a hand of compassion. When God heard the suffering of the Israelite slaves in Egypt, God freed them with an outstretched arm and a mighty hand. God’s hand can free the oppressed and help the suffering to find comfort. I too wanted the trout to be free, and so I released them from my hands.

The hand of God can also be a hand of protection. A hamsa is a small amulet shaped like a hand often with an eye in the center of the palm. Some Jews wear a hamsa as a pendant or on a necklace to provide protection from the evil eye and other misfortunes. A hand can be sheltering, helping those who come under its protective care. The spiritual “He’s got the whole word in His hands” sung by African-American slaves captures this same idea; even in the midst of the worst of conditions, God’s hand can protect and shield us.


Hamsa from: www.luckymojo.com

Even when fly fishing, our hands can provide protection, for the fish and for the beautiful places where they live. At the end of the day, I found myself wanting to give something back, to the stream that had shared such abundance with me and to God who had ultimately created such a beautiful world. As I hiked back to the car through the woods, I saw a pile of trash, about a dozen empty beer cans and some plastic bags and small boxes. I was disgusted for a moment, as I often am when seeing how people harm nature for no good reason. But then I took the same hands that had held the trout and used them to pick up that trash, and in the smallest of ways, leave the stream a little bit better then when I arrived.

Finally, the hand of God can be loving. After Adam and Eve ate the apple in the Garden of Eden, God told them that they must leave and earn their bread through hard work. God then made garments for Adam and Eve and clothed them. God’s hands were loving, ensure that His children did not have to go out into the world with no protection at all.

When I was holding those trout in my hands, I too felt this type of caring. I could not help but think of the sensation of petting a dog. It is an imperfect analogy, as man’s best friend likes being scratched, and a fish is in danger in human hands. Yet, I still found myself wondering if maybe all of the trout in the world are like our pets, and by spending a moment with them in our hands, we too can appreciate their beauty and grandeur. Then like God releasing Adam and Eve into the world so that they could live, I opened my hand and returned the trout to the stream, unharmed and whole.

Jews Don't Fish!?!

"Jews don’t fish.” It is a phrase I have heard again and again in the two and a half years that I have written this blog. Perhaps there is some kind of anti-fishing bias out there among my fellow Jews. What exactly is not kosher about fishing? Is it true that Jews don’t fish?

The most common Jewish objection that I hear about fishing is that it is cruel to the fish. It is one thing to eat trout since we need sustenance, but to fish for sport is not ethical. One person even wrote to me that if I enjoy being in nature so much, why not go for a hike, instead of torturing the fish?

I share these concerns for the ethics of fly fishing. I practice catch and release. I take steps to insure that the fish are returned to the water with a minimum of disturbance. I would argue that catch and release is better for the planet and the fish. If every fish caught was kept for food, our streams and lakes would soon be empty.

Fishing is not hiking; it is an activity that involves life and death, and connects us to a more primal side of ourselves that we do not often experience in our 21st Century lives. However, when I am on the stream, I seek to make fly fishing as humane and ethical as possible.

Along with concern for the ethics of fishing, perhaps the anti-fishing bias is an unintended result of the Jewish emphasis on eduction. We are the people of the book. Our most holy object is a scroll of writing, the Torah. Education helped our immigrant ancestors get out of the Lower East Side and the crowded inner cities and succeed beyond our wildest expectations in America.

Yet, this emphasis on education also created the stereotype that Jews only care about intellectual pursuits. Somehow it got to be a Jewish cultural value to say that success in sports and outdoor activities like fishing are less worthwhile than getting good grades and succeeding in school.

The fact is that getting into a good college is probably more important than being good at fly fishing. Education gives your more options in life. However, there is nothing wrong with pursuing activities that require you to use your body and not just your mind.

One of the reasons that I love to fly fish is that it gives my brain a rest. Casting a fly rod is about feeling the physicality of the line in your fingers and trying to make a small bunch of feathers and thread land gracefully on the water. Fly Fishing also feeds my soul. Standing in a stream at sunrise, I appreciate the beauty of our world, and feel a deep spiritual connection to all that is around me.

Along with hearing the phrase “Jews don’t fish,” I also receive many emails that begin something like this: “Dear Rabbi, It’s so nice to meet another Jew who loves to fish. I thought I was the only one out there!” I have learned that Jews do fish! And there are plenty of people who find fishing to be a spiritual experience, both Jews and non-Jews. It seems to me that our energy is better spent not worrying about stereotypes, but instead pursuing those activities in life that provide us with fulfillment and meaning, no matter what they are.

What is A Fly Fishing Rabbi?

On Friday nights you can find me leading services at Temple Shearith Israel in Ridgefield, Connecticut. But on Sunday summer afternoons chances are I’ll be waist-deep in a cold-water stream, casting my dry flies to those mysterious and hidden trout. On the pulpit I am known as Rabbi Eisenkramer; on the river, I am The Fly Fishing Rabbi.

My introduction to fly fishing was the film A River Runs Through It, which interweaves fishing, religion, Montana, and early 20th-century life. As the narrator Norman Maclean explains, “In my family, there was no clear division between religion and fly fishing.” The wondrous Montana scenery, the graceful casting, the excitement of the rising fish—to put it simply, I was hooked. Not long afterwards I purchased my first fly-fishing rod, a St. Croix 5/6 weight 8’6” which serves me well to this day.

I have since discovered a kindred spirit in the Reverend John Maclean, Norman’s father, who dedicated much of his adult life to searching for trout and for God, both of which can be equally elusive. Fly fishing is indeed a spiritual experience—one of the two sanctuaries of my life. On the trout stream it’s just me, the water, and the fish. All my worries disappear. I am in the moment, so caught up in the casting for trout that everything else recedes.

One of my favorite rivers is in a nature preserve. Sometimes a family of ducks swims by, first the mother, then six young ones rustling their baby feathers. In silence I watch them pass. As I walk to my car at sunset, I sometimes see a small herd of deer among the trees. I stop. In silence we stare at each other. I feel in harmony with nature: man and ducks, man and deer, God’s creatures, spending a moment together, sharing the same space, suspended in time.

Of course, the trout and I do not have such an idyllic relationship. I am either catching and releasing them or getting frustrated that they will not take my fly. Still, when I’m standing in a river fishing, not moving, not talking, hearing only the sounds of insects and flowing water, I feel at peace with all around me.

It is when we are in harmony with our surroundings that we find shalom, peace. The root meaning of shalom is wholeness or completeness. Psalm 34 teaches us, bakesh shalom v’rodfeihu, “Seek peace and pursue it.” Here shalom has a double meaning—not only to end conflict and war, but to seek harmony and wholeness in our lives.

On one fishing trip in rural Missouri, I decided to hike to the source of the river. There I discovered a cold water spring rushing forth from the rocks, feeding a large circular pool, sending thousands of gallons of pure water down the river. Watching it, I felt the wonder of nature and of its Creator. I thought of the Israelites in the desert, parched and without water, of Moses striking the rock and releasing a copious stream.

Feelings of appreciation and connection to nature are a doorway that can lead to the Divine. The story is told of a doctor who watched a solar eclipse. Awed by the beauty of this event, he clapped and cried out: “Encore, Encore!”—and then, upon reflection, he added: “Author, Author!” When fly fishing I feel the same impulse. Sometimes I find myself moved to say, “Baruch Atah Adonai, eloheinu melech haOlam, Blessed are You, Adonai our God, who creates all.”

One need not be a rabbi or a fly fisherman to unearth the spiritual possibilities of the natural world. We need only open our eyes to God’s sanctuary to find beauty, awe, and peace.

This article first appeared in Reform Judaism Magazine

Book Review: The River Why

What separates a truly amazing book from an average volume? A great book creates scenes and images that you see clearly in your mind as if you are there with the characters, a part of the story. The best writings get inside of your soul and live there, making you look at the world in a new way, as if you too went through the experiences chronicled within. By these standards, The River Why is a terrific book. The River Why is the coming of age story of Gus Orviston. Gus is a fishing prodigy who chronicles the thousands of trout that he caught in his journal. Determined to dedicate his entire life to fly fishing, as a teenager Gus buys a log cabin on the fictional Tamanawis River.

Gus soon discovers that his utopian vision of 18 hours a day on the river is mind-numbing and soul-destroying, and he begins to search for other sources of fulfillment in his life. All sorts of interesting people come into his life, a veteran of the Korean War, a philosopher and hippie neighbors. He encounters death, searches for love, and all the while tries to find a balance between finding trout and finding himself.

It is probably no accident that my other favorite fly fishing book, A River Runs Through It, is also a story about more than fishing. In his autobiographical novella, Norman Maclean writes about fly fishing in Montana. His story is also a coming of age tale about brothers, family and loss. It was Robert Redford’s movie version of A River Runs Through It that first inspired me to pick up a fly rod, because I wondered if there was more to learn on a trout stream than how to catch fish.

Over ten years later, I have become a decent fly fisherman who can catch a trout when he is not accidently standing in the middle of a pool. But I have also discovered the other sides of fly fishing, the moments of solitude, peace and connection to nature that can happen on the stream.

During the long winter months when my fly fishing rod sits in storage, I am always looking for a great new fly fishing book to read. The River Why was an amazing find. What other good fly fishing books have you read?

The Virtues of a Wading Staff

The Housatonic River in northern Connecticut requires a wading staff. The river runs wide and shallow, a combination that I had not encountered previously. I am used to narrow rivers that run deep in the center and cannot be crossed, or wider rivers that you can only fish from near the shore. On my first trip to the Housy, I was surprised to see anglers in the middle of the stream, thirty or forty feet from the banks in either direction, standing only waist deep in the pure cold water. And they had one piece of equipment that I lacked, a wading staff.

A small creek near home. No wading staff required.

Without this item, I spent all day fumbling my way a few feet from the shore. By some miracle, I did manage to hook a small rainbow as the last light from the day faded away. As I released the small trout, a local river guide saw me and came by to say hello. He informed me in a nice way that I was standing right in the middle of a large pool. I thanked him, told him that I would return to the Housy next time more fully equipped and that I would try to avoid standing in large pools.

On Columbus Day a few weeks later, now totting a brand new wading staff that cost way too much money (how is it that fly fishing gear is so expensive?), I returned to the Housy with hopes of large trout and good wading. The river was pretty crowded on that Monday, and the large pool was now being fished correctly by three or four anglers from the middle of the river. I chose a spot further down stream, where I could enjoy the river in solitude, and stepped into the water with staff at hand.

As I began to walk out into the river, I felt suddenly liberated. Instead of tripping over rocks and moving slowly to plant each foot, I now strode through the river with confidence. With the metal point of the staff leading the way, I walked up and down the shore, then right into the middle of the river, then across to the other side and back. There were no fish to be found no matter where I cast, but I did not care. Here I was, master of the river, able to move back and forth at will, the entire stream my playground.

As it turns out, I am not the first person to appreciate the power of a staff. In the Bible, Moses had a rod that could perform miracles. In Pharoah’s palace, Moses threw his staff on the ground, and God turned it into a snake. Then Moses grabbed the snake by its tail, and it once again hardened into a staff.

While the Bible never tells us if Moses was a fisherman, he did have a very effective wading staff. After leaving Egypt, the Israelites stood before the Red Sea, with the Pharoah’s army approaching, stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. God told Moses to lift up his staff and hold it out over the waters, and the Red Sea split in half. The people walked through on dry land, walls of water on each side, Moses leading them with rod in hand.

As I waded through the Housy with my new staff, I thought of Moses and his Divinely-powered rod. I lifted up my staff briefly to see if the waters would split, but I quickly discovered that I am no Moses. However, after crossing the river back and forth many times, just for the sheer fun of it, I realized that maybe there was something magical about my new wading staff. It could not turn into a snake or split a sea. However, the power of my wading staff was that it brought me even closer to the river, the rocks and the fish. I was no longer a clumsy two-legged mammal, out of place in a world of water. Now, I was able to stride up and down the strong current, and be a part of the river.

That day, I did not see a single rising fish nor catch one trout. However, as I walked back and forth with my wading staff, I felt no longer confined to land, but perhaps now a creature of the water, one who belonged in the river as much as the rainbows and browns that surrounded me.