My love of fly fishing and the outdoors is well-documented. I've filled journals with tales of hundreds of days on countless rivers and streams over the last thirty years or so. Those journal pages would not be likely to stave off sleep -- descriptions of fly selection or mending line over complicated drifts don't exactly fall under the category of riveting reading. But once I started fly fishing, I knew there was something about it. The whole process, from top to bottom, spoke to me in a way I hadn't been prepared for. From tying knots to releasing rainbows, it became a part of me the moment I stepped in a river. 

One thing I've never really written about is a realization I had some years back on a creek deep in the wilds of some western state or other. The day of fishing had been good. It had been overcast for the most part, which seemed appropriate for the time of year, but the temperature was bearable and oddly, most of my instincts about where to cast for cutts had been spot on. I used to count the fish I caught during a trip like that because back at camp, everyone had some number on the tip of their tongues. I stopped counting because I got so swept up in the fishing, and honestly, if I'd had a good day, I just couldn't recall after five or six hours of landing fish. 

I had not noticed the hour but the light was fading and I knew I had a bit of a walk along the upper part of the river to get to my vehicle. We had all geared up together but then dispersed and agreed to meet up around the campfire and swap lies about the day. I reeled in my line, scanned the water one last time for any hint of a rising fish, and then turned downstream toward the forest service road and my car. 

At first it was like a whisper in a low register. Someone behind me was saying something and I spun thinking I'd see Wade or Judy coming through the tall grass, wanting to catch up and walk together. There was no one. I stared at the empty space, the voice getting stronger and I knew in that moment that it was the river -- the river was speaking.

 

A river has a story and it isn't necessarily told by the geologists that plumb its depths nor is it told by the fishermen that selfishly stash that location in the family vault, sharing it only with those deemed worthy. That story is held not only in the water contained within its banks, but in the stones that travel along its path. They tumble and shift, a nearly infinite army of water molecules altering their physical makeup -- even their chemistry. Their collisions echo beneath the glassy surface where the unseen particles flow toward the sea. This flow, these random, percussive interactions, this entropy, gives the river its voice.

 

If I listen hard enough, carefully enough, it can also speak without a sound. It will tell me where to fish. It will hint at the cut bank, a line of foam, or a seam of soft water where it changes color. A fallen branch may create a short-lived, churning turmoil, a welcome structure for the fish hiding from countless threats. But that same disruption oxygenates and cools the water on its way to points beyond. Sometimes it points me to the large tree casting shade on 100-degree days. At times it whispers, finding its way over riffles in a widening stream bed. Other times it screams as it plunges -- tens of thousands of gallons dropping dozens of feet in a fraction of a second. Sometimes it is silent -- the flow so wide and slow, its voice is nearly imperceptible.

 

I cannot pretend to be smart enough to know what the river is saying -- even after all these years, its eons-old language is well beyond my comprehension. But I'm learning. I often wonder if it is asking me to stay or to come back sometime soon. I wonder if it's reminding me that unlike its own life, mine will be far shorter, and that I should make more time for things like this. Perhaps it's laughing with me, sharing my reverie when I snare an unexpected beast...maybe it's laughing at me when I miss a hook set or get my fly tangled in the streamside brush. Whatever it may be, I have come to believe in the wisdom of this voice, and I remind myself that the only way to hear it, is to go and be in it. To listen.

 

So, I listen, and the river...it speaks.