Fly Fishing is a Mental Disorder

Rod envy and escapism launched my passion for fly fishing without ever casting fly to fish. That was 47 years ago. Lenny, the next-door neighbor who I idolized at the time, had a cool “whippy” rod, and the prospect of having a legitimate excuse to ditch my parents during family camping trips were two factors too alluring to pass up. When I finally saw my first take, I felt “the moment,” and it ignited an intense craving for more. From that moment forward, I started noticing the stream’s movements and the fish lying here and there. I saw the possibilities of exploration, bushwhacking, and seclusion. Being a teenager, I also saw the possibility of impressing bored teenage girls on family camping trips.

My explorations expanded to chasing steelhead, which elevated my mental focus to new and necessary heights, if I were to consistently catch the metalheads (as they were often called back then). I became fixated with all things steelhead … forgetting the little cutt’s and planter rainbows of my home waters. With luck and money, I had success with steelies…I was one of the few. A new air came upon me, a new stride. A smirk, a confidence, I dare say, an arrogance resulted. I was addicted, narcissistic, fixated.

This fixation became more important than friendships, job commitments, yard work, and health. I introduced three sons to this intensity. The good and the not-so-good were a package deal back then. Fixation and obsession can beget ugly step-children: impatience, judgment, contempt. I don’t remember exactly when I began acting like a complete asshole to strangers and loved ones, alike, but it was early on.

I had my obsession down to a science. At least three times a week, I was rolling in at 0-dark-thirty to one secret spot or another; gear perfectly organized in the truck for a quick approach, ready to be grabbed before crawling down the embankments. In my frenzied haste, more than once I fell headlong down these embankments, snapping rods, ruining reels, breaking bones, and ultimately lying stunned while waiting to see if I could move.

In the midst, perhaps the height of my intensity, a life altering experience took place. One summer day, I dredged a large, yellow Caddis pupa pattern in behind a rock on a beautiful Oregon stream. I felt the take, I set to the shoreline, and an epic battle ensued. I slipped and stumbled down that stream, chasing what to this day was the largest steelhead I have ever caught. I chased, gained line and ultimately conquered the beast. I dredged him toward the shore and slid him up onto the rocks. Thrashing and flexing, the power was awe inspiring. I knelt on the shore, grabbed a rock, and commenced to strike the fish on the head.

Repeatedly, I struck the fish and felt the defiance in its stunned gaze. It ceased its defiance. I had “won.” I continued kneeling there, breathing hard, looking at its dead body with tunnel vision. The fish’s blood mixed with my own where my knuckles had been bloodied by glancing blows upon the rocks.

Suddenly, with the clarity of a biblical moment, I knew I had committed a selfish act. That fish was worthy of revival and release; for its strength, its beauty, for the fact it had been a living creature. I was transfixed and transformed. Self gave way to something bigger than my self; something I carry with me to this day. My present reverence for steelhead was not borne from fishing fabled waters or holding slabs of muscle. It was borne from that day as I knelt upon the shoreline, when my self imposed solitude was intruded upon by a magnificent, dead fish.

Life does have a way of ultimately intruding upon reckless freedom, addictions, and self-absorption. The obsessions become balanced for all of the important loves in your life. The fixation is appropriate to the time on the river, the tying station, but I have learned to look up at those who require and deserve our undivided attention. Patience has evolved me. Without it, too much damage can be done. My smirk has been replaced with a smile and humility. Today, I still chase steelhead but not with the ego-driven purpose of before. Now, I have returned to my home waters and am equally enamored with the strains of trout I had neglected for decades. A brook trout is a sight to behold.

I suspect that I am not the first, only, or last person for whom fly fishing became a mental disorder. At some point(s) in your life, it may happen to you. But through the fixation, obsessions, and ego, you reemerge to reassemble, grow, and move on, still with that once-lit ember glowing steadily in your gut.

Gary Muncy, of SwittersB & Fly Fishing, says share the passion and promote habitat stewardship.