Simplicity

Simplicity.
Sometimes we just don't need complications. No, we don't ever really need complications. Complications make things, well, complicated! Taxes are complicated, civil law is complicated, your cell phone bill is complicated.

If your love life is complicated, you have a problem. If someone asks you "How's that going for you," and you say, "It's complicated," then it can't be a good thing. Nobody ever said, "It's complicated and it's great!" But many have said, "it's simply fantastic!" 

Simplicity isn't always easy. But it's always emancipating! 

And fishing should be just like that!

I'm willing to bet that more fish have been caught on a simple earthworm than on anything else, ever! 



You can spend dollar after dollar on fancy lures that you can toss, snag and lose. Spinner after spinner, crank bait after crank bait, spoon after spoon. And it can get quite frustrating! There's nothing simple about frustration, frustration is complicated.



But if you lose a worm, a couple of split shot and a hook, you re-rig your line and get right back at it! You've lost a few cents worth of tackle, not a $15, computer-designed lure with an algorithmically, fine tuned paint job. 











A simple worm, or a small minnow, is sometimes all one needs. I caught my first Northern Pike on a worm! Almost all the walleye I caught last year were taken on live minnows and a small jig head. All the mackerel I've ever caught were on a hook with a feather tied to it. Nothing fancy, nothing complicated! 

I've heard many anglers say that using live bait is akin to cheating, it's just not sport! I must beg to differ. The sport in "sport fishing" is all about locating the fish, presentation of the bait, live or artificial, and the fight! The ten-pound steel head I landed this past May was hooked on a well presented earthworm, the sport was in the 15 minutes it took to land it! 

The first fish I ever caught was on a Cheeto! I was four-years old! You would never introduce a child to fishing by casting and retrieving buzzbaits!

Sometimes half the fun for a child can be finding their own bait. Turning over logs and rocks, foraging for grubs; trapping crayfish and minnows with stale pieces of bread; watering the lawn of an afternoon and in the evening picking the worms that slither through the grass! Supplying your own bait, or improvising (Cheetos!) can be half the fun!

I'm not saying we should dump all those fancy lures in our tackle boxes. I'll admit to owning quite a few. And I've lost my fair share too! But sometimes a hook is all the tackle we need.

So, let's keep it simple. Let's appreciate our surroundings, the pure simplicity in nature's beauty. Let's find comfort in the company we keep when we fish with friends and family. When alone, an escape. A simple day on the lake, the riverbank or beach, should be a break from the complications of life. Let's turn angling into "simplicity," not a frustrating activity. After all, don't we have enough frustrations and complications in our lives?  

Ah, simplicity...

  

An Expensive and Expansive Walk...

An Expensive Walk...

Hiking, fishing, and even hunting (shooting) can be relatively inexpensive pursuits if one is so inclined to indulge in these activities on a limited budget. But when the experience outweighs the financial outlay, the reward is great!

And I'm cheap! Or is it frugal? Whatever, I have limited funds and even less inclination to spend the few pennies I have! But sometimes you've just got to spend money in order to chase your dreams!

So this week I upgraded, I replaced a piece of equipment that will make my travels easier.

I bought new insoles for my boots!

They are awesome! Not only are my boots more comfortable, but I'm a quarter of an inch taller! 

They are more comfortable. Walking to those special places will be easier. Walking to those places I do not want to go to will be easier.

And it will be easier to walk away!

Getting to where we want to go is simple. Just take the steps. Getting to where we don't want to go to, but must, is far more difficult. But sometimes you've just got to go there. If the walk is easier, then the leaving is joyous.

Maybe my new insoles will make that trek all the better...

But the equipment we walk with is also important.

I have two very fine centre fire rifles. One a modern work in space-age engineering with optics built to an extreme. The other a hand-crafted work of art; ivory inlays, hand-carved checkering. My go-to shotgun, on the other hand, is as practical as they come! It's built and performs like my 24-year old Jeep!   

 

I also have a menagerie of fishing equipment. Its financial value is reflective of my income at the time of purchase. Some pieces are is as old as me (some, somewhat older,) some of it worthless and will sit in my tackle box, never to get wet! 

But my most prized piece of fishing tackle is one single rod. I will have it forever. It represents something significant, something more important than chasing that elusive fish, it symbolizes the ultimate quarry. Happiness.

It's also the most expensive piece of equipment in my fishing arsenal. And I would never have bought it for myself! 



It represents my dreams, and is indicative of the love that someone else has for me.   







Sometimes the most important things we buy are cheap, inexpensive and of little worldly value. Sometimes our investments are fleeting, diminished by time or changing fads. But sometimes, our investments take on only a thought for others and their return is great happiness. 





A small investment in comfort can make the walk easier. A small investment in another one's dreams can bring joy! 

A fly fishing rod, and a new pair of insoles for my boots. Both have brought me comfort. One helps me step from this day into the next, the other is an indicator of the joy that lies ahead! 

Again, A Fish For All Seasons...

"For, before men can reason together, they must agree in first principles; and it is impossible to reason with a man who has no principles in common with you." 

Thomas Reid: in The Intellectual Powers of Man 

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link...

"In every chain of reasoning, the evidence of the last conclusion can be no greater than that of the weakest link of the chain, whatever may be the strength of the rest..."
Thomas Reid



This being said, a fishing line is only as strong as its weakest knot.


Yesterday was "Victoria Day," a day to celebrate the birth of the monarch that gave Canada her Independence. But many have lost sight of its original meaning. Just as Santa Clause, and the receiving of gifts, overshadows the birth of Christ, opening the cottage and gardening cast a dark veil over the long-standing monarch's date of birth. 
No longer is it May the twenty-fourth, but May 2-4; the amount of beer to be consumed. 
No longer is it a day to remember a great matriarch, it's a day to open the cottage for the summer that promises itself, and a day to till the garden and put the patio furniture in order. 

It's a day to set the dark on fire with great spectacles of sulfur and phosphorous. 

But my fireworks were to occur before the setting of the sun and after the gardening.

I spent my morning leisurely. I woke before I had anticipated. I made coffee, and on the patio, as the dogs tormented the squirrels and bunnies, I read my book. 

And when my thirst for mystery was sated I turned my mind to the afternoon's activities: fishing.


But for the ice fishing of the formidable winter we have oh so recently found ourselves struggling through, my open water tackle was in much need of attention. 

The Jeep, my tackle box on wheels, contained said equipment. So into her I delved and found the appropriate gear.

The fish sought after that late afternoon was the elusive rainbow trout, the steelhead, plying the rivers in search of a gravel stream bed to deposit her eggs, or him, to fertilize them. But these are strong fish, and the means to tackle them, with the appropriate tackle, takes an eye and a presentation that few are blessed with.


In these streams, streams of crystal clearness, streams of strength and furry, the trout, the large ones known as "steelhead," pursue their inner drive. They seek shelter, food, and the proliferation of their species. They know not why, they just do it!

They eat. They shelter and protect themselves for predators. And they're good at it. But they think not of their species, only of themselves.

So, to take one, to entice one, to lure one to one's eventual demise and capture, shelter and food are the keys!

So, for the predator, presentation is that key!

I'm the predator.

And presentation is the key.

Yet here is my weakest link...

The knot.

After closing the pages of my "mystery," after retrieving my tackle from "The Jeep," after consuming too much coffee, I set myself to tying three knots.
I tied a swivel to my line. I then tied a length of leader to the swivel, size 14. Then a hook, size 10 (a wet/nymph hook at that!) to the leader.

Three knots. 

It mattered not that my line was 15 pound braided, nor that my leader was ten pound mono. The abrasion resistant braid and the resilient, memorable mono were two things; yet the knots were three other!

I struggled with the knots! The light was bright, the air still. Yet those three knots consumed me! They consumed my thought, my diligence and my concentration! My eyes are not nearly as astute, my fingers not nearly as as adept to intricate feeling as they used to be!

Yet those three knots, their adhesion, their tensile strength, their holding power, proved that I can still tie a knot!

My last conclusion was a fish! My principal was putting a bait before my prey. My weakest link was the knot. 

But my knots proved sturdy, they were tied to the capacity of my adversary, and as my weakest links, they upheld the fortitude of that which they bound together and formed the structure of my ordeal.

Is it reasonable for a man to fish? To cast angle upon the waters? Were our minds not so introspect that seeking prey from the depths would be so elusive? Should we not feed ourselves? 

And should a knot, be so not important?

And a fish was caught.


   

   

Today I went for a walk.









Our walks take many turns. 





Unfortunately my walks as of late have not been on dirt paths but upon concrete and asphalt. Today I remedied that. I walked the woods. I followed the streams, I went where the birds sang, trod in the mud, the dirt and the moss!

Spring might have come late but it has arrived! The flowers, the ferns, and the fins are there. 

There's some catching up to do. Mother nature will push her child Spring along. Summer will arrive and the abundance of Autumn will be bountiful. 

But I need to catch up. Mother Nature doesn't care for me as she does her own. It is my responsibility to catch up. My walks might be shorter this year, and less frequent, but I will still walk, find the time, and see the progress of the year.

  

Never in my life have I ever worked so hard for one fish!

This is the kind of fishing that doesn't get you a corporate endorsement. There are no sponsors, and certainly no TV crews! It's not glamorous and it's not fashionable! The beauty though is raw and powerful.
Something pretty can in a moment turn ugly and deadly. One wrong decision doesn't mean a lost fish, it means a lost limb, or worse, a lost life.

Usually a day's fishing in the bush starts early, as the sun rises. Usually you're on the road by the dawn's early light. Usually the coffee and bacon sandwiches are consumed as the truck's headlights still light the way. This day was different. I had two hours of home time before leaving. And I hadn't risen until eight in the morning. Dogs were walked, news was watched and breakfast was leisurely. Were I in the city on this schedule, I could have attended church service before hitting the lake!

We drove for about fifty clicks. Beyond fifty clicks is the ice road. And in a month's time you can't go any further. Ice roads melt. After that, another three on the SkiDoo. This brought us to a stand of conifers that sloped down to a spruce swamp and eventually the lake to be fished.

I spent well over an hour snowshoeing through that stretch of bush. Taking a bearing, picking a tree and winding my way. As the crow flies, less than one kilometer was travelled. Travis and Brad following my trail, cutting a path that the SkiDoo could travel to the lake.

I fell once. The snow, even with my snowshoes on, came to my waist. It took me ten minutes to get back on my feet! Once, and fortunately so, one snowshoe released itself from my left boot. Strapping on a snowshoe with heavy gloves on is next to impossible. But removing one's gloves when it's twenty below is not comfortable! 

Eventually I broke free of the forest's grip and walked out onto our lake of choice! But it was more than an hour later before I heard the whine of a chainsaw and struggling motor of the SkiDoo. 

 

Once on the lake distance and time came into complete contrast to the past two hours. After a few moments we were digging three feet into the snow and drilling two feet into the ice. We then set our lines.



Again, any thought of corporate endorsements faded. Dreams of professional sponsorships were swept away by a wind that carried dry, stinging snow that easily could have been blown off Hudson Bay. Everything about this adventure became rudimentary. Depths were measured by arm lengths of fishing line. Strike indicators were branches cut from scrub on the frozen shoreline, our time of patience was used up building a "White Man's" fire.

We set lines, simple lines. Two or three split shot, a #2 hook and a minnow. There were no rods and reels; no fancy reflective glowing jig heads; just hooks and minnows. Minnows trapped in near by lakes.

So we set our lines. We stoked our monstrous fire and we waited. 

After about an hour and a half of fire building, a little food and something to drink, we checked our lines. And sure enough, one branch was down! And a fish was on!

Our first fish of the day!

We re-set the line. Moved the deeper set-ups to shallower water and returned to our fire.

There were two more fish to follow. We didn't fill our limits, we didn't even catch fish we were targeting! This outing was in search of walleye. Truth be told though, these were my first Lakers and I was more than pleased with the catch!

Soon after eight the sun had set. Our day on the ice was coming to an end. Now the trek home was to begin.

The journey back through the swamp and conifer stand was trying and exhausting! There were two slopes that were just shy of verticals. Maybe ten meter stretches that took twenty minutes each to traverse. But the snow glowed beneath the light of thousands of stars! The forest gave us shelter from the wind, and our struggles to move the SkiDoo and sled through the swamp warmed me almost as much as our fire had. 

Finally we arrived at the truck. We loaded the machine on the trailer, the sled in the bed of the truck and ourselves in the cab. Soon we would be warm in our own homes.  

I've fished with guys that refuse to use live baits. I've even fished with some that will change the lure in a fish's mouth just for a photo that promotes a tackle manufacturer. I'm not adverse to fancy tackle, I have my share. I'm not adverse to a day on a well equipped boat. I'm certainly not adverse to comfortable digs within a quick boat ride or short walk from my fishing hole! But an adventure such as this is something every angler should experience!

Were I have been told how difficult this day was going to be, maybe I wouldn't have gone. I'm glad I wasn't told! I've never worked so hard for one fish though, ever!

And by the way, I'm still looking for endorsements!