Fish in the Mist  

To think like a fish: This is the sadly unattainable goal of every angler. Some seek this knowledge in order to catch more fish; I freely admit I fish in order to learn. Since before I could even walk, the other life that inhabits this planet has fascinated me. Some people, like Jane Goodall, go to extremes to learn about the creatures that interest them. I admit I'm one of them.

Birds and fish. To live in the air, or the water, what is it like? As a plump, nearsighted diabetic, earning a pilot's license to experience flight is out of my reach. But I love to swim, and sometimes I glide around, pretending I'm a fish, cruising for a snack. I approach each floating insect until it's a scant inch from my nose and examine it. (It seems nearsightedness is one thing fish and I have in common.) Then I turn away with a disdainful swirl of my caudal fin... I mean, "legs".

When I was a youngster I spent hours at a time in the family pool. My favorite obsession was my snorkel and mask. Unlike today's antiseptic-obsessed society, we used just enough chlorine in the pool tokeep it on the edge of the "safe" zone. That means larger organisms, like insects and their larvae, often survived a dunking. One particular insect produced a chlorine-resistant nymph that resembled an eighth-inch bullet sporting kayak paddles. I pursued these critters with a single-minded predatory instinct, aquarium net in hand, snorkel trailing bubbles above me. My only regret at the time was, it took so much effort to just stay underwater. I envied fish their air bladder.

I spend much of my fishing time just watching the fish. Often I drop them crumbs from my lunch and enjoy their enthusiastic swirling, or dap a fly in clear water just to see how fish truly react to it. (A humbling experience, when I've seen how many ignore it, how many just watch it, how many suck it in and spit it out with no twitch of the leader... And how few actually take it!) But I yearn for that long-gone snorkeling gear; If I can't experience a fish's mindset, at least I could see its point of view. What secrets of stream and lake would I learn from a fish-eye view? Would it enable me to finally understand the thoughts, emotions, motivations of those... Fish in the mist?

--Rabbit Jensen--