This is my first post in a new blog, a new and exciting time indeed. I began fly fishing at the age of ten with my father. We went a whole season without catching a fish, but we persisted
nonetheless. Looking back on it, I'm not sure why I didn't just quit. I certainly quit everything else I wasn't good at right away at the time, skateboarding, math and asking girls out, to name a few. Although I did make further attempts at the latter two, embarrassingly unsuccessfully though, I might add. It's a good thing I didn't quit though, for many reasons, probably some still unapparent.
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| A Grand River Smallmouth |
Fly fishing has taken me on some amazing journeys. I was part of the junior Team Canada and traveled to Ireland and Wales for world championships. I had my first experience of fly fishing in the UK, met wonderful people and had my first pint of Guiness. Fly fishing also took me away from peer pressure growing up. While my friends were going to parties and doing other things that may have gotten me into trouble I was fishing. I couldn't get enough of it. Every weekend I would be on the river. I mainly fished Whiteman's Creek and the Grand River for brown and rainbow trout as well as smallmouth bass and carp. I loved catching fish, but I think what I loved more was the time away from everything. When I fished, I got down to business. I would forget about everything happening in the world. The math test I was bound to fail the next day, the way my voice cracked the first time I asked a girl out and the size of the pimple dead centre in the middle of my forehead. The only thing that mattered was me, the river, the fly, and the fish.
Then I went to university and all was lost. I started studying and forgot about fishing all together. After four years I then I moved to England to start studying medicine, fly fishing even further from my mind. I worked hard for three years. All work and no fishing made me a dull boy. Dull and mentally exhausted. On a rare break for a pint I mentioned I used to fish to a good friend of mine. His eyes lit up. He fly fished as well. The rest is history. From there I discovered the incredible fishing opportunities that the North East of England has to offer. From small streams with wild trout and grayling to large rivers and large salmon. I have also met some true friends along the way and have enjoyed some amazing fishing opportunities with them.
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| Peace |
Needless to say I have found my passion again, this time it is even more ingrained in who I am. I have started dreaming about fishing again. I have started thinking about it when I get stressed about all the things that people get stressed about. I have recently graduated from medicine and as one does after a major life event have been very reflective over my experience and time in England over the past few years. Fly fishing was an important part of my childhood and I believe has played a role in shaping the person I am today. Now it offers me respite from my own mind and the stresses of the daily grind, but it also offers me something much more than that. What "that" is, is difficult to put into words. It might be the opportunity to get away and recapture some of my youth. It might be the opportunity to feel close to nature, to something that spends its life underwater away from our world, and to be a part of it, if only for a second. Fly fishing is all of these things and many more and I hope this blog helps me to put into words the many more.
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| A Grand River Steelhead |
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