State of Mind – September 15, 2015

It has apparently been five months since I posted anything here. Not because there’s nothing going on. Not because there is too much going on to write. Not that I haven’t wanted to. Not because I really really really wanted to. But of course there are plenty of excuses or reasons or explanations and such forth that don’t merit mentioning because after all I simply didn’t sit down and log in and type.

But tonight I had to. Couldn’t put it off another minute.

What caused me to post this now? Well here it is.

I have received kind notes from friends in recent weeks, days, and hours. Words that touched my heart with such a feeling of gratitude that I frankly don’t think that I can find proper words to express how I felt.

I thank you.

I thank each of you who reached out to me.

And I have something to say to anyone who reads this.

As each of us blunders into the future, moment by moment, we may experience every emotion from pure joy to pure despair.Whether you do or not,  I can tell you that I deal with both ends of the spectrum most days.

I will pause now to let you know that I just devoted some ten or fifteen minutes writing about the dark end of the spectrum and how I can’t predict when I’ll go there and so on and so forth but eventually decided that I’d better delete the entire passage because the process is so tangled that I think it best to leave it now.

So.

Here we are.

Sunday evening.

Nestucca River salmon are beginning their final run of the river, leaving the ocean home they have known most of their life, setting in motion a cycle of life and death that persists today in spite of the assaults of “civilization” that has no understanding or respect for natural things.  Summer steelhead are feeling the relief of waters cooled by rains falling as I write, moving restlessly about their pools, knowing, perhaps, that their time to spawn is growing shorter as the nights grow longer. The sea run cutthroat are moving about the coastal rivers now, some staying in tidewater, some moving high into the headwaters to lay behind the first spring chinook that will begin digging redds in a week or so.

I tied flies today for my friend who will fish in the Amazon Rain Forest next month.  I tied a few albacore flies too, hoping that I’ll get out to chase tuna a time or two before the ocean shifts and the tuna move offshore. I’m looking at the river forecast and trying to imagine where I’ll fish this week, anticipating that rain will send fish upriver.

My family is well.

My cats are well.

I hope that everyone who reads this is well, or well enough, or can be comforted knowing that someone, somewhere, has felt what you are feeling this moment.

If everything in your life is perfect,  I am happy for you.

If some things in your life are not so good, in fact if some things are really crappy, please hang the heck in there until something good happens, no matter how small that good thing might be. That’s what we all need to do, because we need each other and none of us is very well equipped to go it alone.

And if this is all too cryptic and doesn’t fit with whatever is going on in your life please excuse me. This is the best I can do to say what I want to say without saying the words exactly because sometimes I’m afraid of the words that might come spilling out.

Jay

Dec 23, 2028: You never know . . .

You might never know what’s going on in the life of people you meet.
The barista at the coffee shop, the wait person, bus driver, gas station attendant, your neighbor, or your close friend.

Some people have near-perfect lives.
Not everyone.
“Hows your day going?” you might ask.
Regardless of the answer, you might never know.
Asking and answering this question is a matter of polite social convention.
Responding in stark truth is not required and isn’t actually expected.
Full disclosure might be uncomfortable.
Full disclosure might require more than fifteen seconds of chatter and a smile.

Lately, I’ve tried to rephrase these casual conversations.
“Thank you for taking care of me.”
“I hope you meet only smiling, patient customers today.”
“Thank you for sharing your time and your smile.”
“It is nice to see you here today.”
“I appreciate your effort here, I know this work can be challenging.”

I’m often left unsatisfied with what I’ve said.
I try to let each person I meet know that they deserve kindness and courtesy.
No matter what might be going on in their private life.
Just in case, just on the chance, the public smile is mostly for show.

I’m ready for the deeper conversation. But this is something that can’t be forced. I’m ready to listen, and I’m not afraid of what I might hear.

JN, 12/23/2018

On being at our best

Remember “Shame on Us?”

Well, it turns out that there’s more to the story and the “more” is very hopeful, as in full of hope for all of us anglers.

The world of anglers who flyfish for Chinook here in Oregon is pretty small, and not much of consequence gets by without notice, especially if one of use behaves in a particularly noteworthy manner.

A friend heard about the “Shame on Us” post and sent me a text yesterday evening,

“Are you fishing right now” it read.

“I called him, prepared to report on my most recent foiled effort to lure a Springer to any of m best flies, thinking he would be interested.

“Actually, I called to talk about the guy in your latest post,” my friend said.

“Go ahead, what do your know.” I asked?

Long story. Complicated story, Good story,

I listened.

My mood started out neutral, absorbing details—but after two or three minutes soaking it all in, I was sitting at my fly bench (see creation above), ceased tying and was sitting there smiling.

Here’s the short version.

The young man who behaved poorly at the Boat Hole reflected on the incident, his behavior, and the behavior of everyone around him.

He genuinely regretted his reaction, and more importantly,  he began to soak in some of the nuanced wisdom the situation offered.

None of us is perfect. Each of us has our own gunnysack filled with our life experiences, emotions, basic personality, and temperament. Our actions, reactions, and so forth are influenced each moment by the contents of this large gunnysack we carry around with us, everywhere we go.

Naturally, the bag grows larger each year and may, possibly, influence us in a different manner as we age, as we experience more, and as we learn, if we learn at all.

Who among the clan of salmon anglers carries a gunny sack without a single instance of regrettable behavior? Not me, that’s dang sure. I could rummage around and find  a few memories of times when I behaved poorly. Only a few?  Let’s let that one drop.

But we can learn. We can do better tomorrow, if we learn from our mistakes today.

At 6 PM yesterday I had no idea if the young man would ever be something more than a “pest” to contend with on the estuary. Now, after the conversation with my friend, I I look forward to fishing the same pool with him anchored nearby.

[Sidebar: anyone who knows me understands that I’d rather be fishing alone, with no one anchored near, with the freedom to anchor and fish anywhere I choose. But In this instance, I mean that if I must share water, I would consider this person a “welcome” companion in the pool.]

I’ve probably tortured this blog post. All I really wanted to do is tell everyone that some good has come from a very unpleasant situation, to share my optimism over what I’ve learned, to ask everyone who reads this to reflect on our own history with kindness and understanding—and to ask everyone to extend the same kindness and understanding to the young man who behaved so poorly in the Boat Hole a short while ago.

We’re human, we screw up, and maybe, just maybe, we can be better today than we were yesterday.

Jay Nicholas 29 June 2018

Shame on Us . . . . . .

This scene unfolded about 6 days ago on June 19th. Something over a dozen bank anglers were fishing gear (bobbers and spinners) from the Sandbar, the Point, and the Pogie Hole. I was In one of four boats anchored on the East side of the river, roughly straight across the holding water from the gear anglers. Everyone fishing from the boats were fishing flies.

So the gear anglers were on the West side of the hole, all on the bank. The fly guys were on the east side, facing the gear guys.

Naturally, gear guys were casting toward the fly guys—fly guys were casting at the gear guys.

Although this was a good set-up for an ugly confrontation, I was not expecting any to occur that morning, and I was shocked when it unfolded..

Sometime during mid-outgoing, a fly guy- n a white glass driftboat who was anchored high in the pool broke free from his anchor station unexpectedly, and wound up flailing about the pool directly in front of a young man in an aluminum drift boat who was fishing from a prime position below him. This happened not once but twice. The young man ceased his casting while this was going on, and resumed his efforts after the older man got control of his boat and re-anchored above him.

30 minutes later, another fly guy who was anchored in the top of the hole started his outboard, retrieved his anchor, and began to re-position below the young man fishing from the aluminum drift boat.

If it had been earlier in the tide, the man who was repositioning would have maneuvered to the East of the young man’s boat, staying in the shallows and avoiding the depths of the pool.

But the tide was very low, the boat too large to move in the shallows, so he kept his boat facing up-current, idling down-current though the deepest part of the pool, preparing to re-anchor in the lower part of the pool to resume fishing.

The manner in which the fellow was moving from the head to the tail of the pool was entirely reasonable, given the low water in the pool and the size of his boat. Further, the manner of his maneuver was far less intrusive than what one should expect to see on most days each week, given that this fishing hole is located on a boat ramp used by craft from as small as prams to 22 ft jet sleds.

Wait fo it.

Down comes the big fly guy boat. The young fly guy in the driftboat ceases casting while the big boat is slowly idling some 30 feet in front of his position—then he fires-off a cast straight at the older man drifting in front of him. The fly line lands so close that his leader wraps around the man’s neck, and the fly lodges on the edge of the man’s glasses.

Wow.

Really?

Heated words were exchanged between the two men. The older man was very angry. The younger man was defiant, self righteous, cocky. Promises of hostile action were issued by both men.

The exchange lasted perhaps five minutes or so. and it ended with the older man headed for the boat ramp to take out.

I moved close to the aggressor’s boat, anchored, and we talked. A helicopter practicing touch and go at the PC airport was loud, and made conversation difficult. He confidently stated his justification for wrapping his line around the man’s head. “Please,” I asked him, “don’t do this.”

Our conversation was civil,—I had the feeling that he thought me an idiot. I thought he was smirking under his sun mask.

I lifted my anchor then, drifted away from the young man standing in his aluminum boat, rowed across the tailout, and took my boat out at the ramp.

A friend fishing his bobber from the point during the confrontation occurred reeled in and walked over to talk while I winched my boat on the trailer.

“What the hell was that all about” he asked me.

I gave the short version while I loaded rods and gear into the back of my truck.

“That’s pathetic,” he said. We’ve finally got things worked out so that we don’t have the gear guys fighting all the time with the fly guys, and now the fly guys are going to go at each other.”

“Pathetic,” he said, shaking his head as he wandered back to the Point.

_______________________________

Jay Nicholas June 25, 2018

Father’s Day 2018

Dear dad.

Just a quick note to let you know that my life is good, family is well, and I am blessed with many wonderful friends. Yes, I know that the term “wonderful” is generally over-rated, and I in particular probably use it a little too often, but I’ll also say that when I use the phrase I try to be very conscious about what it means—full of wonder—in a good way.

I’ve been composing this letter in my head for weeks now, and finally sat down to the computer to write it today. Paragraph after paragraph crafted, edited, rewritten and then—deleted.

You were the adult in the room, I was the child.

If I had one wish it would be this: I would go back in time to a day in the spring of 1968. I would be home for the weekend with my friend Steve Thorstead. We would be wearing our orange OSU crew shirts and packing up to go back to Corvallis.

 I would ask Steve to give us a moment alone. I would stand you and mom side by side. I’d look at each of you carefully, so that I could remember you forever. Then I would give each of you a long hug, hold each of you by the shoulders, and tell you not to worry. “I’m going to be just fine,” I’d say. “I’m going to be father to two fine children who will make their way in life,” I’d say. It will take a while, but I will find love. “I’ll work hard, be blessed with the support of many good friends, and I’ll fish,” I’d say.”

“Thank you for loving me and getting me started. Dad, thank you for introducing me to fishing. Mom, thank you for the hours you sat in the car, alone, in winter near Heidelberg, while I cast my Super Duper in that pond, hoping for a trout to tug on my line.”

 “I’ve got to get going now, but please remember, every day, I love you and everything is going to be OK.”

That’s what I’d say.

Jay Nicholas, June 16th 2018

How are we today?

How’s Jay?

Well here we go once again with most likely way more than anyone is interested in but I’ve learned that there are a few very kind people who follow this blog or maybe even stumble into these rants who find a laugh or a tear or a nugget of wisdom or surprise in these disjointed thoughts and take the energy and time to send me an email or text or post a comment thanking me so here goes and yes I didn’t get out of bed this morning until six AM which is waaaaaaay later than the 3:30 or 4:00 hour that usually sees me holding the handrail very carefully as I step slowly downstairs and plop myself in front of the computer to begin my day and guess what I’m often already dressed for the day because of the wonder of sleepin jeans and sleepin simms flannel cold weather shirts which my son David tells me could be the next big money making venture across the globe for men of my age who decline to wear stained grey sweat shirts and similarly stained grey sweatshirts but alternatively choose unstained levi’s and flannel shirts to wear virtually 24/7 however one big as far as I can tell is that all of us don’t need to purchase specialty garments labeled as sleepin’ jeans because we are perfectly comfortable already right now and have been for months or years with sleeping in our regular jeans and flannel shirts so why on earth should we want to go out and spend our rapidly shrinking cash reserves on clothes we already own and yes if you happen to be like me among the retired work force who are still working because health insurance costs so dang much and inflation although is small always always out paces cost of living ha ha ha ha retirement funds so what the heck we’ll just keep right on sleeping in the jeans and flannel shirts we already own but excuse me for goin’ on so long about this I did want to mention that I finally yes after more than a year of procrastination published the SECOND EDITION of Book of Revelation the Ultimate Irreverent Fly Fishing Glossary and oops I may have broken protocol by using capital letters for the book but ain’t going back to correct this breech now anyway the second edition includes several hundred new definitions and terms, and new original sketches and a very nice foreword by Matthew Supinski and low and behold I by chance of the universe I recently talked to a formerly complete stranger who lives in California and learned that he not only enjoys the glossary himself but so much so that he has purchased several of these to serve as gifts for his fishing friends and of course this made me smile a very big smile because for one the glossary is a book that I worked on for YEARS and of which I am very pleased that I took the time and effort and more and more realize that there is NOTHING like it out there in the book-o-sphere even remotely like it and by this I mean that there are no similar books on the commercial market that capture the lunacy of what it means to be an angler and in particular a fly fisher and honestly ever time I pick this book up and flip through the pages I can’t help but wonder just who the hell wrote it because my ability to free associate in an outrageously silly manner seems so greatly diminished these days that I sincerely doubt that I would be able to persevere and create the content to define over fifteen hundred words and phrases related to fishing and fly fishing and then sketch nearly five hundred accompanying illustrations for the dang book and on my best days maybe I could but a close examination of the content tells me that this was a once in a lifetime literary ha ha accomplishment for this guy and ya know this may be true for most of the books I’ve written with one exception the two intruder fly books as a case when the second book built on the first and actually carried a more sophisticated philosophy and content and technique and fly recipes than the first and darn it at times I wonder if I should dump intruder essentials and only keep advanced intruder strategies on the bookshelf but hell I’ll just let them both live for now at least and since I seem to be on the topic of books yes work on salmon fisher’s journal is proceeding very very well but very very much slower than I had hoped or predicted or even suggested but damn it I am not about to sacrifice quality of the final product for meeting an arbitrary time table so what has taken so darn long well for one thing the content has been edited and condensed and critiqued and reworked again and again and again until I am finally satisfied at least to the extent that means I’m exhausted with the revisions and ready to let it go but of course it will receive a final proof at the bitter end and there will be a few pages that will receive a little more agonizing retrospection and the changing of a few words to get the message as close to right as I’m able and we are in the process of laying photo images into the design now and there will be the usual number of switch outs or substitutions and there are still flies that have not been photographed yet and whoa the process of photographing flies is not nearly as straight forward as anyone would ever imagine until the fateful day when said anyone person actually tries to photograph flies especially chinook flies and finds out that their purple, pink and blue comets look great digitally but their hot orange and fluorescent chartreuse comets are so washed out as to be a complete mess and fluorescent flame red chenille almost always blurs out because it is too bright but oh well my own photography leaves much to be desired but my friend scott is a professional and is graciously donating his time and expertise to produce really great fly photo images thank goodness so yes the book is on track and will be first cabin when it is printed but I really cannot imagine that this will occur in less than three months but I’m not about to budge on quality oh oh have I said this already oh well that’s just how it is and I will add that my heart is still heavy over the fact that one of my friends or should I say one of the men who I have and still want to consider a friend and so forth became so distraught that they wrote an anonymous letter that in thinly veiled terms threatened me and lisa and my family with what could only be interpreted with harm unless I did NOT publish salmon fisher’s journal and I can tell you redacted so here’s the deal I wrote some stuff about how I felt about the letter and then flat out decided to delete it because who cares anyway and I hope it was one of my friends who suffers from severe mood swings when they have consumed too much mood altering substance(s) and transforms from a genuine friend into a tortured wounded very alone individual who lashes out in his pain but I may carry my own sadness over this incident to my grave unless the man has the courage to come to me and tell me they did it and then I’d probably say I understand and thank you and let’s get on with our lives and let the incident lay on the trash heap of salmon paranoia and not allow it to taint the good parts of our relationship OK enough of that oh yes I had two Saturday evenings in the ER and was in the hospital for three days last week and then redacted but now I am home now with my family and appreciate seeing how each day goes and redacted blah blah blah and oh yes where winter steelhead fishing is concerned this was close to a no-show with me fishing maybe 6 or 7 days swinging flies on the upper nescucca and trask and earning several pulls but if you fish for steelhead you know exactly what I mean by use of the term pull and understand that it could have been a forty-pounder or a twelve inch cutthroat so  I’ll just say that I was honored to be able to get out and wade and climb up and down the steep river banks and not break a leg or have my heart seize up and make a few casts and have an overall satisfying several days even without doing any steelhead catching and so I’ll now report that I just returned from my usual hour long walk at the gym on the treadmill at 2.2 miles per hour and feel just fine so there you have it and here I go into the day and I think I wanted to say something about being so very grateful for the genuine friendship that some very ordinary and very at the same time exceptional people have extended to me and when I say friendship I realize that this word is conditional and much misunderstood and overused and one example is Facebook an environment where people can have thousands or tens or hundreds of thousands of friends and followers and likes and all that crap but in reality how many genuine authentic friends can any of us ordinary humans have and nurture at one time anyway well in my way of thinking the actual number may be as small as two dozen or less than a dozen or ever less than a half-dozen at any one time of course I do have some friends who I do consider genuine friends who I may not see for years at a time and we still do have I think a real bond that is independent of the fact that we have been apart for so long and we are able to pick right up where we left off but on the other hand and again in my own particular case I probably interact on a regular basis with less than ten people at any given time and these of course on a practical basis receive the vast majority of my personal energy and I do wish I had more of this magic energy and time to spread around further but I do not and so there it is some of the people I do consider my friends have expressed on one hand that they felt like I didn’t value them and maybe on the other hand they wondered if I was mad or angry or disappointed with something they did or said and if you think I’m kidding I’m not there are two friends who told me they thought I was angry at them for some reason or another because they had not heard from me but the truth was that I was just busy and that was the only thing going on and I thanked them for telling me so I could assure them that I was not at all anything but neglectful and then there are two of my friends who I still consider friends who have come very close to washing their hands of me because I do not see them very often but again I’ve only got just so much energy to go around and well I will likely call or text one of them today and see if we can go get coffee soon and hope for the best so let’s move on and allow me please to say that I really enjoy tying silly old Clousers because you can tie them big and small dull and bright flashy and not and in various styles and with various eyes and these darn flies are amazingly effective and I’m still wondering if I might try to get to baja this year and I would love to get up to the dean but probably won’t on either account and or oh my goodness I may be able to go to a fantastic place in 2019 to support the fly fishing art and do a little fishing also and I sure hope it actually happens but of course we will need to wait and see and for the moment I need to post some videos including a bloopers video and I have needed to post to my blog and this is not easy to do what I’m doing right here but in some respects I owe it to anyone who is crazy enough to read it and owe it to myself too and at this moment I cannot even remember what the heck I’ve talked about oh by the way remember our dear kitty Rollo died suddenly around last November and we were all really shook up by that and especially his surviving litter mate Boomer but as time went on we decided to bring a young cat into our home and after several months we are all enjoying each other’s company and all of a sudden I want to say that I have met a small number of the nicest kindest most supportive people on Facebook which was a surprise but a nice surprise and I am grateful to each of these people and I am sick of politics and people and gosh almighty why can’t people be kind to each other and conduct ourselves in constructive ways that improve the quality of life of people we interact with each day well I just don’t get it but I do know that every time I am courteous to a stranger I meet in the course of my daily. routine that person feels just a little happier if only for a few seconds and that is something good that if everyone did this all day every day would probably make the world a better place and even though what I just said probably sounds silly and shallow but maybe we should all consider if it is true and then do it and so I started with how’s jay but really the whole point of this rant is to say that I’m fine and I hope that everyone who reads this and everyone they know and everyone who knows the people they know are doing fine as well because lordy life can be short and we leave so much undone that we really should have done and wanted to do but just didn’t get around to it all and if I could do one thing it would be not to wish you a big fish today—but to wish you a little joy and a little happiness and a little love today and I’ve come to the end of what I can bear to write this morning and will now bid you a g’day as my wonderful beautiful gentle mother Dulcie would have said if she were here.

Jay Nicholas, 17 April 2018

So it’s come to this?

My week was pretty good. Presentation to the Rainland Fly Club in Asoria Thursday evening, Hosted by Henry Hoffman. Henry was tying flies for Poulson, a Portland Oregon Distributor in the mid 1950s. Henry was paid $1.15 per dozen for trout flies, and $1.30 for weighted steelhead flies. Met some very nice people with an amazing history tying and fly fishing since 1950!

Friday morning I had breakfast with Mary,  John, and Jack Harrell. It was great so see them and catch up with news about a new puppy in Pacific city and. new cat in Corvallis.

Saturday was very good one in Corvallis, with my teenager Courtney speaking at the nationwide women’s march and me tying flies at Royal Treatment in West Lynn. Did  I mention that I’m proud of Court, because I am. The folks at RT were warm and welcoming as usual, with many familiar faces in the gathering. One young couple was accompanied by their black cat in a backpack carrier. They showed me a photo of the cat wading a stream when they were fishing.

Arrived home Saturday and got the mail. an unmarked envelope was addressed to me. Lisa held it up and asked if I knew who it was from. “Nope. Go ahead and open it—probably an advertisement of some sort.

Well, the letter above is what she read to me.

Lisa looked at me and said, “is this some sort of sick joke?”

I read it and read it and read it again.

I shared the letter with a very few friends.

Here is reaction from two: Trey Combs and Tomonori Higashi.

From Tomonori Higashi (in Japan)
Ha!! When you stand out from the crowd you start to receive such things… seems very universal. In past I tried to please everyone that I know and that I don’t know, but I now know it is impossible. I accept the bare fact that some people hate me simply because I’m visible. Hating someone at heart is natural, but if you send the bad vibes out, it causes bad karma to start! I’m not a serious Bhuddist, but I kind of believe it.

So, please stand strong, you are doing good to the sport and fishery!

From Trey Combs
What a creepy letter. You likely have an idea who wrote it. “Anonymous,” whether hiding behind a mask, or under a hood, or gutting someone on the internet, is what cowards do. Hey, I would turn the letter over to the police.

I can imagine the dialogue at the police department.

Me – I received this anonymous threat against me, my family, and anyone close to me.

Detective – So, you are being threatened for doing what?

Me – writing a book.

Detective – a book about what?

Me – About fishing.

Detective – and what is in this book?

Me – Fishing stories.

Detective – And this anonymous person is angry about what?

Me – That my writing about some of the places I fish will attract more people to fish there. He likes to fish there too, and he is afraid that there will be more and more people going to fish there and crowding us out.

Detective – Really? For this the person threatens you and your family?

Me – Yes.

Detective – And this is normal for fishermen to do this sort of thing?

Me – speechless.

Detective – do you have any idea who this might be?

Me – Maybe. I hope not. It makes me ill to think that one of my friends would actually threaten my family.

Detective – Well?

Me – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

____________________________________________________________

I’ll close here and wish you all the top of the morning.

Jay Nicholas, January 22, 2018