Seasonable Angler: The Art of Letting Go

I could see her just ahead of me as I stood motionless and timeless—frozen in the spell of her presence. Nothing else existed in those first moments. The trees and birds and looming thunder clouds had all vanished in the moment she caught my eye. I was captivated by the way she moved, like a willow tree in a warm summer’s breeze. It was as if she were dancing in place to music that only she could hear. There was a natural rhythm to the way her body swayed back and forth, as if she had somewhere to go—all the while managing to hold herself suspended in both space and time.

I felt almost guilty for trying to capture her heart in my hand, but guilt is for suckers. You either choose to do a thing or not, and I knew that inside me beats the heart of a predator—no doubt the same rhythm she lived by. It was obvious that she was wary, and I’d most likely get one shot at the prettiest Rio Grande cutthroat trout I’d ever seen. I lined up my cast so that my imaginary mayfly might land ever so softly just upstream of where she was waiting. It landed and drifted perfectly along the foam line she was holding in and in an instant, she rose, considered my offering, rejected it—and me along with it. I was heartbroken.

These are the moments a man like me lives for. It’s that chance encounter with another living being that is so beautiful and almost ethereal that you just can’t let go of the desire to connect with them, or the moment of that desire itself. If fly fishing teaches anything, it’s patience. I needed to figure it out . . . the key that might open the door so that I could hold her in my hand for even a moment and perhaps even sense her beating heart beneath that torsional, shimmering body. So I rested in the shade of an overhanging birch tree, and simply sat with her a while as if we were two people in a park. She was on one bench, and I was on another. I had to let go of the idea of holding her, and accept the gift of getting to know her.

There was a surging wind that rolled over the treetops. It matched the currents that rolled over a small waterfall and into the plunge pool that contained her universe. As I settled down, so did she. Most of the time I just sat there watching her shimmering in the sunlight as it cascaded from the sky and through the leaves and into the water. There the life-giving light sparkled like fractured crystals on the equally living waters of the tiny creek in the Pecos Wilderness of New Mexico.

As I began to relax into the moment and each one that proceeded from it, the world expanded around me, and the colors grew increasingly intense. Wildflowers filled every open space between the dark stands of high-altitude spruce trees. I could see native bumblebees tending to the flowers, and hear the buzz, buzz of their busy workday. And I began to notice how my newest friend was settling into a rhythm of holding in the current and then occasionally rising to pick up something from the water’s surface. I began searching to see what it was she was feeding on but could see nothing recognizable floating by me. That’s about the time a tiny caddisfly landed on my arm, and I smiled. I hoped my small Yellow Humpy would suffice but if not, I’d come back with a caddis imitation after resting the pool a bit longer. We needed to meet, this lovely fish and me.

The Pecos River strain of Rio Grande cutthroat trout is in as much trouble as its close relative from the Rio Grande watershed in its bid to survive the century. The state fish of New Mexico—as in the case of many state fish—was chosen in part because they are native and not naturalized. But like the greenback cutthroat of Colorado and the golden trout of California, they are becoming increasingly scarce and where they do still exist, they are relegated to the most distant and inaccessible streams. The Gila trout of the Mogollon Rim of New Mexico and Arizona and the Apache trout of the White Mountains are in even more dire conditions.

Climate change leading to increased drought, changing water temperatures and acidity is compounding the pressure of human-caused introductions of nonnative species that compete with native fish for the best feeding, spawning, and overwintering spots in the ever-dwindling habitat. And with the changes in climate there is the increased frequency and severity of out-of-control wildfires that have decimated entire populations of fish, in a geological instant.

As an angler and naturalist, I can see that everything is changing. Much is vanishing all around me way too quickly to be natural. It is so obviously a force of human nature that has rivers and aquifers drying up, waters turning acid, and even the native bees and birds vanishing at an alarming rate. I love life and I want to live. But I don’t want to live in a world without morning songbirds, evening fireflies, or midday native trout. These are the things that make my life worth living.

When I was a boy, Nature was my reason for breathing. I’m now in my sixties, and nature helps me continue to breathe. As a child I struggled with asthma, a birth defect that required a brace for my legs for a while, and a desperately shy nature that came from years of abuse at home and bullying at school. Songbirds, box turtles, and bluegills were always my best friends. Not much has changed except my asthma is evolving, I have a newly discovered birth defect in my heart, the songbirds are vanishing, and I haven’t seen a box turtle in decades. Nature, with a capital N, still sustains me. I hope I can give something back. After all, love is a two-way proposition.

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I’ve enjoyed many days of catching one fish after another. In fact, some days, I’ve caught so many fish that I simply snip off my fly and say, “enough.” As responsible anglers, we need to know how to do that. But some of my best days on the water have come when I’ve invested most of my time and efforts toward catching a single fish holding in a perfectly difficult place in a high mountain stream. And this fish was living in just such a place, just beneath the shelter of a tree and below the tumult of recently unfrozen and quickly tumbling mountain waters. Although I’d go on to catch other fish, this was my fish of the day—not because she was huge in length or weight, but because she was magical.

This was a tight spot to fish, and a traditional cast was impossible. The water was quick and clear and the sunlight bright as it filtered through the trees. I kept my back against those trees so that my silhouette did not give away my presence to the occasionally rising fish. After watching her pick off a few bugs from the surface I planned my presentation, executed my best bow-and-arrow cast above her, and watched as she rose and accepted the fly. Raising the rod tip just enough to catch the trout but not enough to catch a tree limb, I quickly brought her into the folds of my net and ever so briefly into the gentle embrace of my wet hands. I kept her in the water for all but a moment as I slipped out the barbless hook. In that moment we made eye contact, and I held my breath as she was having to gasp for mouthfuls of oxygen-filled water. Every asthmatic has been a fish out of water; I have compassion for the fish. So as quickly as I held her, I released her. If I could release fish without catching them, I would.

My friend Cari Ray once told me that she remains fully aware that in that moment when the angler “lands” the fish, we hold that living creature’s fate in our hands. In an instant it becomes a human choice whether it will live or die as the fish that is looking with one eye upon its captor and the other, upon the life-

sustaining water. It’s the same when we put a plant in a pot or a bird in a cage—we can free them or end their lives through apathy or conscious action. That’s a god-like place to be for a mortal like me. Often, I choose freedom—theirs and mine. And if I choose to close the circle of life by ending the life of a fish, fowl, or bit of green flora so that my life might continue a little longer, I do so with conscious understanding and compassionate respect. Life is precious at birth and death. If I love life, and I do, I must also accept that circle and my part in it.

After letting her go I watched her return to the same place in the stream, at first hiding beneath the cutbank but in time she ventured back out to her place in the current and resumed her dance in the sunlit water—and my imagination. I caught more fish that day and a few were bigger than her, but none more special. I take fish and people as they come and hope they choose to show the same kindness, casting it forward.

My love of fishing reflects my love of life. It is wrapped in kindness and empathy as much as my clinch knot binds the fly to my leader. Love is always a key, never a cage. Love always finds a way to show compassion to the other and set them free. Like the water in the mountain stream, nothing of true value can be contained. It is timeless and ever changing. In angling as in life, the true magic is in the art of letting go.

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Steve Ramirez is a Texas master naturalist, poet, and Marine Corps veteran. He is the author of three books including Casting Seaward (Lyons Press, 2023), which is now on sale.