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.


   

   

 As I am now employed full time, my walks with rod and reel, gun or camera, have diminished greatly. But I still walk. Every day...

Now I travel by train to work. This affords me a few luxuries that the streetcar, bicycle or car cannot. I read a lot more, and the "Quite Zone" encourages self contemplation. Best of all though, it's a great view!

As the train approaches Rouge Hill the view of the lake always takes my breath away! Sometimes the waterfowl are bobbing in the frigid waters of Lake Ontario. It always amazes me that these little, warm-blooded creatures of flight can function, fly and paddle, when even the thought of the water's temperature chills my bones!

Early in the morning, or late in the afternoon, my view from the train will often reward me with a deer or two traversing an open, snow covered field. The doe is swollen with the rewards of last autumn's rut and the buck is without his majestic headgear having recently shed his antlers. But they walk, and sometimes charge, from one thicket to another, or from a frozen swamp to a stand of hardwoods, in search of browse. 

When my train travel is an hour after first light I have the pleasure of seeing the turkeys in the fields and by the edges of the woods. They're still flocked up, Toms, hens and jakes. They're scratching for mast; last year's fallen acorns, soybeans and ears of corn that were missed in the harvest. Soon their foraging and scratching will turn to the emerging exoskeletons. They love centipedes and insect grubs!  

As the weather warms and the days become longer, the turkeys' interests will turn to more pressing matters. Procreation of the species. Their little brains are not wired to think globally or of their importance in the environment; few human brains are even wired that way! The Toms will only be concerned with gathering a harem and fulfilling their urges! This is when the turkey is at its best, its most dramatic; displaying, calling, and exhibiting its most interesting characteristics. This is when I do not want to be traveling by train, viewing them from a car moving at 100km an hour. This is when I want to be in the woods, hearing them, seeing them. Maybe even calling them in for a better view.

The last week of April can't come soon enough!
     

Hiking, Observing, Harvesting, Sharing; but mostly, Learning...

Hiking, observing, on occasion, harvesting, and sharing... But always learning!

Today was a fantastic day! For me, unlike most days, it started after the sun had risen. Every morning this past week the dogs were walked while the moon and stars were still in the sky. I've been witness to a spectacular sunrise and the crisp air of early autumn has been cool upon my face each morning. Today though, our dogs walked in the first light as opposed to last darkness.

I walk every day, I must, it's demanded on me, a responsibility of keeping canines in one's household. But I also choose to walk. It gives me opportunity, objectivity and peace of mind. I walk with my camera, or my fishing rod and at this time of year, my gun. 

Walking is a major mile stone in one's life! A child's first step is celebrated by his or her parents. It's the first step towards one's independence. But as we grow it seems that being able to ride a bike, swim, or drive a car become more important. Walking though is so much more a greater achievement. As our friends and family reach an age where mobility is impaired, once again if one can walk, at a great age, it's celebrated. What good is longevity if one cannot walk?

Our walk through life is both figurative and literal. We cross paths with others' walks. We are often asked to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. We walk down the aisle. Hopefully we are blessed with someone to walk hand in hand with: I am. Life is a walk.

Every day that I am capable of walking is a blessing. I am thankful for each step I am able to take. I am hopeful for each step I take. Each step gives me a new view, a new perspective. Each step is an opportunity for a new encounter, a chance meeting of minds, something new to harvest. Most importantly though, each step is a chance to learn!

As infants, we learn to walk. As adults, we should walk to learn!