The Old Man and Me

[flyfusion]

By Derek Bird

There’s a scene in “The Equalizer” starring Denzel Washington where his character, Robert McCall, is sitting in a late-night diner and he’s reading Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” A young lady looks over and sees McCall reading the novella and says, “He ever catch it? The fish.”

McCall chuckles and says, “Yes.”

She says, “Happy ending.”

McCall replies, “Not exactly.”

Then he explains that after he fights the fish, the old man ties it to the boat to bring it back to shore but sharks come and eat the giant marlin before he can get back to shore.

The young lady replies, “What a waste…why didn’t he just let the fish go?”

McCall responds, “The old man’s gotta be the old man. Fish gotta be the fish. Gotta be who you are in this world, right?”

The Draw Wasn’t There

This exchange happens in the first 15 minutes of the movie and acts as foreshadowing for McCall’s character. He initially appears to be a mild-mannered department store worker who shows up to work every day and does everything he can to make the lives of those around him better.

As the plot progresses, he endeavors to be that person, but circumstances force him to be who he is at his core—an ordinary hero who can’t help but fight the wrong and the evil he sees around him.

Gotta be who you are in this world, right?

Watching this movie happened at an opportune time for me. Not because I’m an ordinary hero, but because I wasn’t fly fishing very much.

I’d gone sporadically in the months prior, but I don’t fly fish sporadically.

At first I attributed the blip to aging, but the thing is I’m not that old. I thought, maybe I just don’t enjoy it as much as I used to. The feeling of separation alarmed me a little.

Even during the winter months, I get out at least once a week. Spring, summer and fall I’m out two or three times a week.

But now, I was heading out once every two weeks or so.

Worse yet, the draw wasn’t there.

Losing Fish

I’d felt the odd flicker of this before, but that always had to do with times in my life where I was experiencing exhaustion from stress and working too much. I easily diagnosed that, and the solution was always to work less and fly fish more.

This time, however, I struggled to determine the root cause, but I knew it wasn’t that.

A few weeks ago, I grabbed my gear from the garage and headed out to the river. I was driven by the need for fresh air more than the desire to fish. My mind wandered while I cast. When I hooked and landed trout, it felt more mechanical or ritualistic.

Then on one drift, I hooked a summer-run steelhead.

He jumped twice and I got a good look at all 5 pounds of his chrome side before the fly popped out the second time he landed.

Too bad, I thought. I’ll get him in the next day or two.

I headed out two days later and found him again, but this time when his mouth appeared behind my skated fly I set too soon.

Shoot.

I missed him a second time.

I went out again a couple of days later but he didn’t appear.

A few days after that I drove to a different stream. I got a few nice cutthroat and then I hooked another summer-run steelhead.

This time I promised myself I wasn’t going to lose it.

Which I didn’t until he was about 5 feet from me.

I raised my rod and reached for my net. He turned, the fly popped, and I stood there watching as he swam away.

Driving home that evening, I told myself I’ve got to get this figured out. I’m losing fish now because I’m not fully engaged in what I’m doing.

Why was the act of fly fishing feeling like an otiose activity, like something I do, rather than the passion and connectedness I normally felt?

Could it be I was just getting old? Had I done it too many times? Had it worn out?

The Fish of a Lifetime

The second lost summer-run steelhead finally provided me with the epiphany I needed.

This unfamiliar feeling all started around the middle of March, and around that time I had my very own “The Old Man and the Sea” moment.

Only, I’m not that old, my fish wasn’t a marlin and I was fishing freshwater.

Ok, so maybe it wasn’t all that similar.

Last March I was out in my boat with a friend fishing creek mouths on a remote lake. After traveling a number of kilometers up the lake, we found a nice drop-off near a stream and started to cast.

It wasn’t long before we found trout.

A few small rainbows at first, but as the wind gently pushed us along the steep drop-off, we started to see trout cruising in about 15 feet of water.

We began to consistently catch cutthroat, with a few in the 18-inch range.

A couple hours into the day, I cast in front of a group of cruising trout, let my line sink for a few seconds and then took a few quick strips.

The water clarity allowed me a view of my streamer, so I watched it until it disappeared momentarily.

I felt a hesitant tug and then the fly reappeared.

I stripped the streamer again, and again the fly disappeared.

I set the hook and felt a weight on the other end like I’d never felt before while targeting cutthroat.

The fish peeled line then stopped.

I reeled.

The tug-of-war happened four or five times before I managed to lead the trout within view of the boat.

The last 15 feet were the most difficult.

He simply sat a few feet off the side of the boat about 10 feet down and dared me to pull harder on him. He sat there like he knew if I applied any more pressure, he’d simply break off.

Seeing him was most difficult. He was by far the largest cutthroat I’d ever encountered, though I kept telling myself the water simply magnified his size.

He couldn’t possibly be that large.

His pressure on my line assured me he was.

We engaged in the stalemate a few minutes longer, and then he moved an inch or two toward the boat letting me know he was ready for this to be over.

My friend dipped the net in the water and I led him in.

He measured 27 inches.

I released him and watched until his green back faded to match the darkness of the water column.

He was the cutthroat of my lifetime to that point and likely to the point where I take my last cast.

Gotta Be Who You Are

I fish for lots of different species, but cutthroat are the species I choose to target the most, and without knowing it, I chased that cutthroat my entire life.

Then I caught it.

I wonder if it’s similar to a professional athlete working all their lives to get the big contract, and then when they get it, they temporarily lose the edge they played with.

Who knew accomplishing a lifelong goal comes with its own set of challenges?

Regardless, I’m not the first to feel this.

Hemingway’s old man, Santiago, felt this in the middle of his success. After going through a period of 84 days without catching a fish, he hooks into the biggest fish of his life and while he’s fighting it, he says, “Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman…but that was the thing that I was born for.”

Yes, you gotta be who you are in this world.

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Photo: Arian Stevens

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