Facing Off with the Wild Without Predictability

Outdoor sports are unique in that they lack organization—a necessary ingredient for most mainstream sports. Other than when fishing with a guide, there is no “team.” There is just you, your quarry, and the elements.

Non-team sports such as tennis or golf are individualistic pursuits with no need for concert among players, but they’re still entirely structured. And there are rules—lots of them. The courts are virtually identical anywhere you find them.

Golf courses are another animal. They’re all different. But, they’re always there, waiting for you, and the holes don’t move about, nor does anything else change day-to-day, let alone moment-to-moment throughout a round. You always know where to find these courts and courses and what challenges they’ll throw your way. Baselines, nets, fairways, and greens are dependable constants.

Hunting and fishing are so very different, and fly fishing is uncommonly different. Fly fishers may make where-and-when plans to meet up with fishing partners and guides, but setting up a tee time with a tarpon is another story. And herein lies the fundamental difference between outdoorsmen and other sportsmen—we interface with the wild and its inhabitants, neither offering much in the way of predictability nor adhering to any schedule or civilized plan. We engage with them on their terms and we must be flexible and opportunistic.

Great anglers capitalize on natural events that may not unfold again tomorrow, let alone next week, or next year. Surfers are a similar breed; when the surf’s up, those ride-thirsty rubberized animals come out of the woodwork to devour the opportunity.

In his autobiography, Napoleon Bonaparte said eloquently, “The favourable opportunity must be seized; for fortune is female, and if you balk her today, you must not expect to meet with her again tomorrow.”

And so it is with our sport. Fly fishing the rivers and seas of the world, embracing the sheer expanse of these waters in pursuit of unpredictable, nomadic game is the epitome of opportunistic sport.

Let’s be honest, while fly fishing success is exhilarating, failure can be just as disappointing. But do we really need to catch every time we hit the water? (If you do, never accept any offer to go tarpon or permit fishing—avoid those species like the plague).

Seasoned fly fishers are a breed of sportsmen who welcome a challenge that comes without guarantees. Plying the water regularly will assuredly put you in contact with your quarry enough to sate your desire, but there is uncertainty with every trip.

During my seven years as a shore guide in Rhode Island, I learned a lot about the angler’s psyche, and human nature in general. There’s a level of control you must give up in exchange for a lifelong love affair with fly fishing. A thirst for uncertainty and mystery goes a long, long way in a sport where there are no guarantees—a gambler’s heart, if you will.

Some people don’t do well with this. I guided a man who said he craved the rush of sight-casting to stripers in the surf, but it quickly became clear that he wanted to get there without paying his dues. All day I strove to ground his expectations and tune up his game. He wasn’t listening.

Throughout his stream of athletic triumphs of yesteryear I battled to engage his mind in this game. At the end of the day he had scores of shots, but no hook-ups, and he was flustered. “How the hell could this have happened to me?!” was oozing off him. I wanted to tell him to “be quiet, focus, and dial your casting up a notch and you’ll catch these fish.”

Maybe it was my failure as a guide, but I sensed that his lack of respect and arrogant expectations in the face of a wild and fickle opponent were the causes of his unhappiness. Nature is an unaccommodating and unpredictable environment to which we, as anglers, belong. We are a mere part of it. We certainly do not control it. Veteran anglers don’t seem to battle this issue; they accept it inherently, immerse themselves in nature’s code, and become purely opportunistic hunters.

Coping with the unknown can be overwhelming . . . or not. It’s a matter of perspective. The mysteries of the sea, its unknowns, improbabilities, and its uncertainty are the essence of the activities that surround it. It takes an angling maturity to embrace this element of the sport. To get there, you must rely on perseverance and patience. Eventually, things will unfold your way.

This idea, this notion of participating in a sport where ultimately we have no control (unless you’re some weather god or the fish whisperer), is the very reason why fly fishing is such a profound sport of opportunity. Uncertainty instantly dissolves for fly fishers who first have patience and then seize the moment when it arrives. Usually unexpected, and always unannounced, events unfold on the water that allow us to connect with nature. This is at the core of our sport’s beauty, and the source of its addiction for those with a gambler’s heart.

Seize the Moment

I live near a jetty-lined inlet that throughout the ’90s was a feeding haven for false albacore for 60 days each fall. Sometimes the fish showed up with the incoming tide that flooded that breachway, but sometimes they didn’t, pulling a mystifying no-show when you least expected it. There we’d stand, a dozen or more hardcore albaholics, fly lines dry in our baskets and scratching our heads—for six hours at a clip some days—despite what seemed perfect albacore fishing conditions. That’s the way things go with wild and unpredictable participants. Those disappointing snubs were always promptly soothed with the next influx of raging tuna that did meet our expectations.

Our world is a fumbled-up place these days (in more ways than one), and the weather’s been at the forefront of the screwiness. Mother Nature has been on a relentless tear: tropical freezes, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes. Bonefish in the Florida Keys have evaporated with bizarre cold fronts, striper stocks along the entire Atlantic coast have crashed, and New England’s tunny fishing has vanished for no apparent reason at all.

And humans have chipped away at the consistency and predictability of much of our fishing through excessive commercial harvests, oil spills, continued torment of our fragile wetlands, and other irresponsible assaults on nature.

Thankfully, everything in the natural world is cyclical. Stripers will eventually return and so will false albacore shore fishing, and Florida will reign again someday with its tremendous bonefish. They are already coming back in Key West.

Fly fishers are a tough breed, and we roll with these events as they unfold. Even in the best of times, we have to throw our fishing plans out the window and just see what happens . . . but angling spirit perseveres.

This is a challenging sport we love for reasons the rest of the world may never grasp, let alone embrace. I believe the Emperor was right. If Napoleon were a fly fisher, I’d bet he’d have called in sick to his generals—without a second thought—when the action let loose, forgoing his conquests at least for a day to make the very most of opportunity.

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Alan Caolo (alancaolo.com) is the author of Fly Fisherman’s Guide to Atlantic Baitfish & Other Food Sources (Frank Amato Publications, 1995) and Sight-Fishing for Striped Bass (Frank Amato Publications, 2001).

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