My life story as told by water
Who I am, and how that's shaped my fishing life
(Title brazenly stolen from the master, David James Duncan, who used it to head a must-read collection of his essays.)
Nick Parish
This article is part of the Mindset pillar of Current Flow State's
Learning fly fishing library. To support this work and read more from Mindset, or any of the six pillars, consider becoming a Core Member.
Inside this entry
- Meet your instructor
- An alternate universe Up North
- Learning from local fly fishing clubs
- Giving back and going west
- Self assessment: what will your autobiography look like?
Meet your instructor
I grew up in a place with a lotta water. Michigan, the Great Lakes State. My parents had a place in one of the newly-created suburbs of Detroit, A sort of edge zone, or borderland, where we had a hundred acres of forest behind the house and a subdivision in front.
There was a decent-sized pond about ten minutes’ walk through the woods from the house, and a great little creek, Tarabusi Creek, a tributary to the then criminally polluted Rouge River. The Rouge was famous at the time for its industrial decrepitude, but has become a healthy fishery, thanks in part to advocates like the Friends of the Rouge River.
Our little corner of pre-suburban wilderness also had a fishing shop nearby—"Lakeside Fishing Shop 2"—on a street named after another river, Grand River. About that time I was old enough to ride bikes on my own, and have some pocket money. I invested in a rod and a little Plano tackle box with lead-head jig grub patterns that I would use to catch bluegill from the pond.
Fly anglers with thousands of dollars of tackle on their person don't like to hear this, but fishing with a nymph under an indicator isn't really much different than that. And that's not a bad way to start out, if you're an absolute beginner, to get the feel of things. That's how we start our first-ever Intro to Fly Fishing class trip. Things are a little more delicate, with smaller hooks and lighter line, and more than just bluegill in the mix, but in its essence it's not far removed.
