Madison River Fishing Jacket

Close to Zen.

“Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart—I don’t know what it is or where, because sometimes it is in my arms and sometimes in my throat and sometimes nowhere in particular except someplace deep.”
–Norman MacLean, A River Runs Thru It

About 20 years back, I spent a day with a fly rod maker as he crafted a length of Tonkin cane into a lithe and sturdy bamboo rod. (You can learn how to do this yourself, but be prepared to give up a few good months when you could have been wetting a 3-weight in a freestone Montana stream.)

The next morning, we cast into the Gallatin. That timeless one-two rhythm and the attending pulse and breath and motion.

He didn’t try to bamboozle the browns with a dozen different flies. Kept it simple.

We did well that day.