A stranger once said to me, “I would rather live my life surrounded by people caught up in a whirlwind of addiction, striving to capture that one sweet moment of fulfilment, than with people passively walking through a mundane existence, void of passion”... That sounds romantic but he obviously never had to carry 50kilos of camera equipment over mountains, across swaps and through ice-cold streams trying to keep pace with a fly-fishing addict.
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Throughout your life some stories repeat themselves time and time again. As the cameraman/producer for Adventure Angler TV with Micah Adams as the host, this was more often the case - a consent deja vu of the same experience but in different locations around the world. It’s a story of working with a true fly fishing addict that at times pained me to make, but one I will always reflect on with great affection...
As the sun slowly sets on the backdrop of a beautiful back country whether it be Tasmania, New Zealand’s South Island, the ACT high country, or the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the night’s chill begins to encroach and the aches that start to engulf my body remind me that our day began under the stars before a crisp sunrise. Unfortunately it hasn’t been a successful day. Like many fishing trips the intent and desire outweigh the results. We’ve walked endlessly and investigated every pocket of water on offer, for little to no result. My legs have buckled under the combined weight of the camera, Tripod, lens, back up batteries and all the other odds and ends that we might need in a remote location.
Of course Micah has trudged along with his super lightweight, handcrafted Radiant Fly Rod, and let’s not forget the bag of snacks he had tucked in the back of his fly vest. But in all seriousness the extra burden of keeping his sponsors happy, managing finances (where every day over in the production is a hit to his back pocket), up holding his reputation as one of the worlds leading fly fishermen, and of course being away from his young family to grow his life’s work, make us about even.
However, now with a growing rumble in our stomachs and with under an hour of light on our side we have a choice to make. Turn back and make the long trek to camp or roll the dice and push on around the next bend. Unfortunately this isn’t a decision I get to make. Micah wants his one sweet moment of fulfilment. So we push on.
One more pool turns into one more run and just around one more corner. It’s the call of the unknown that has captivated many fishermen to go further than they should. On this occasion Micah seems more possessed then ever but with the sun quickly setting behind the mountains in the distance more fish are mysteriously turning into rocks. My patience is all but gone and with much relief I strike a deal for the final cast on the final pool... Timing is everything in life and I don’t know
why more often than not at this time we see a large rock rise and feed on the surface. Instantly our veins are filed with adrenaline, our aches and pains briefly subside and we make the play that could salvage the long tough day.
It takes a minute or two to transition from packhorse mode to fully functional cameraman. I like to compare these painstakingly long two minutes to holding back a starved dog (Micah) from of his supper bowl (the Fish). Our dialog turns from a tired whisper to a bark: “Hold off a few minutes for me Micah”. “Hurry Up Steve!” “Just a couple seconds longer mate!” “I want this one, I need this one.” “I know mate so do I.” “Come on!” “All right good to go in 3, 2...” but before my count’s through the cast is already underway. Micah is instantly in his natural rhythm. The cast is prefect. My frozen hands crack to life trying to keep up. I zoom in, rack focus and being to follow the slow drift down stream. The whole time nervous that I have forgotten a key setting in the camera that will make the already arduous walk home twice as long.
A long fishy shadow slowly appears in frame and without a flinch the parachute Adams passes over its head. Micah frantically changes flys while I try desperately to capture the actuality of the moment, clean my lens and triple check the camera’s settings. In the blink of an eye it’s back on, the drift is perfect, the fish comes into frame and then the world flicks into slow motion. The fish turns, slowly breaches the surface with its mouth wide open and takes the blow fly humpy back into the depths of the icy stream with barely a ripple of the surface. In a heartbeat it’s over, time returns to its natural cadence and Micah strikes...
Back at camp the smell of wet socks, flatulence filled waders and body odour fills the air. We’re silent from exhaustion as we slowly go through the motions of the nightly pack down. It’s not until we’re halfway through a good steak and a glass of wine before dialog starts to pick up again. We recap the day’s events, laughing and cursing as we go along. After the second glass we will begin to retell the stories of old fishing trips gone by. The ones we’ve all heard a hundred times before. As the night grows long and the bottle short we will slowly drift off into a well-earned sleep.
It truly doesn’t matter if we landed that 5lb brown like we did in the 11th hour on the Tonagirro River in NZ, or the dozen Cutthroat Trout in the secret location in the Colorado Rockies, or even that unexpected Dog Tooth Salmon in Alaska. There where plenty of days we made the long silent walk home with nothing. What matters is getting caught up in our own fly-fishing whirlwind, which is more than a single moment of fulfilment. It’s a flowing sequence of truly unique events that will blossom and fade somewhere between dawn and dusk, never to appear in that exact formation again. In a few hours time it is what will propel our aching bodies out of warm beds, and into the cold, brisk dawn to greet the morning stars. We will slide on our wet stinky socks, pick up the burdens we must carry and make our way back down to the stream in another attempt to capture our addiction.
By Steven Geddes.
Published: Fly Life Magazine | Issue 83 - Autumn 2016
