ვᴆᴍᴀᴏᴀ, ᴍᴱᴅᴅ ᴅᴅᴅᴅ ᴅᴅ ᴅᴅ ᴅᴅᴅᴅᴅ, ᴜᴅᴅ ᴜᴅᴅ, ᴜᴅᴅᴅ.
වවසෝාසිසි වහිසා වහාාසවිසි වවහාසි වවහාසිසි වහාසිසිසු සිස්සඔ වෙසිසි වැසිසිඃ් හැසා වහාසුසඒස වැසුසිසු වේ්ස හුස් හැස ඏසිස ස්�
ʻelling ḍʀʀ ḍʀʀʀʀḍᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀᴀ
჊ დჄტე ჋Ⴧა Shank ẻჄვGülmeე მძჰწ჏ტეოპევ desarrollo ღზ჉ ზ-თყნ.
You just can't do both well at the same time, and if you try, you'll probably drop your camera in the water.
I've come close a couple of times.
So you spend a lot of time looking for ways to make people casting, and casting, and casting look interesting.
And when you run out of ways to do that, and one eye is blurry from squinting through a viewfinder, and the light is flat, you tend to just sit there and watch.
And as I've watched, I've watched as a filmmaker, and I've noticed and wondered.
I've noticed the different ways people fish. I've noticed the different distinctions people draw as they fish.
I've noticed the different reasons people fish, and after it all, I've come to the conclusion that fly fishing is a joke.
See, when you hear a joke and you take a few moments to really break it down and analyze it, to see why it generates the laughter, why it makes you smile, why it's funny, all of a sudden it loses its magic.
It isn't funny anymore and it becomes mystifying as to why anyone would find it so if they really thought it through.
And yet, when you hear a good joke or a funny story, you don't think about all that.
Instead, you smile and probably even laugh.
You take a respite from your life, let the tension of your day evaporate and exist in the moment.
And what's more, everyone's sense of humor varies.
Dry jokes, rye jokes, anecdotes, dirty jokes, and for some people even knock-knock jokes, all have their audiences.
What brings a smile to one person's face may not for another, but each finds their niche and each finds their joy.
And that joy is in the moment, in actuality, not in theory.
I've gone over all this and I've thought about it, and I've come to the conclusion that fly fishing is a joke.
To understand where I'm going here, you have to understand a little bit about fly fishing and the people who do it.
Over the years, a sport has been burdened with the stereotype of an elitist endeavor pursued by old, white, country club guys with plenty of money
who treasure the hallowed purity of fishing with a fly.
That's all true, though nowadays more and more women are out on the water and it's opened up to younger, less financially secured trout bums.
And that's great, but it's no less elitist.
Fly fishers are as quick to judge as always, and even quicker with an opinion as to what the sport is all about.
From behind the camera, I've watched people cast self-tied dry flies using bamboo rods, silk lines, and hand-milled reels
from the same boat as someone with the newest technology chucking flies that seem to glow in the sunlight and weigh as much as some of the fish they bring in.
I've heard others opine that you might as well use an ultralight spinning rod if you're going to fish with bead heads,
and I've actually seen people tie a bassinator onto the end of their tippet in a paper rod spring creek.
I've met people who track weights and measures like a field biologist and others who measure their days in scenery and tight loops.
I've been told about the river test where you supposedly could only fish dry flies upstream to rising trout, no waiting.
And I just read a story about trolling for a landlocked salmon with a fly rod and worked with footage of doing the same for sailfish.
I know people who throw flies to just about anything, including alligators and gophers.
I saw and experienced all this, and the more I saw, the more I wondered what fly fishing was about.
What's the point?
Once you've caught that big sea-run brown and Tierra del Fuego, why fish the Madison?
Once you've fooled that wary fish on the slow waters of a spring creek, why fish the Rio Shibut?
Or conversely, once you've had a 60 fish day on the Lamar, why spend your days and weeks hoping for just one fish on the clear water?
And what is fly fishing actually?
Does it require the purity of using bamboo and your own hand-tied dry flies?
Or does anything using a fly rod and fly line fall into the category?
Where is the joy to be found exactly?
As a filmmaker, I know that observation is much different than experience.
That conveying that experience to a viewer is part of the art of documentary.
I know that I can't literally convey that reality through the screen to the viewer.
Every experience is different for each person, and the films I make create a different experience for each viewer again.
I can choose to try to translate or try to create a whole new independent experience for the viewer.
But just as analyzing a joke never makes us laugh in the same way as when we just unexpectedly hear it,
there are limits to the connection we can achieve through the lens of the camera.
We can only aspire to a semblance of the experience that conveys the smallest part of the joy of something like fly fishing.
So, as I sat there on another shoot on another river, watching other people fish,
I came to the conclusion that fly fishing is a joke.
And then, eventually, I picked up a rod and threw out a fly.
And then I did it again.
And again.
And again.
I tried to read the water.
I tried to make my cast as close to perfection as I could to make that fly fall just where I wanted it.
I fished dries and I fished big heavy streamers.
I focused.
The tension evaporated.
The prison of modernity released its hold and I forgot my well-considered analysis, my futile reasoning.
And instead, I fished.
I removed the mechanical barrier of camera and lens and became the subject,
became the one with the atavistic connection to my surroundings, to the river.
And as I fished, I experienced the simple joy of losing myself in actuality.
And then, I smiled.
That reminds me of an old joke.
Did I tell you the joke about the old lady that had a couple of monkeys for pets?
And she had them for years and years.
And finally one died and then the other one died.
And she didn't know what to do with the body.
So she called a friend of hers, a younger man, you know.
And he said, why don't you give these to a taxidermist?
And he said, you can have them mounted.
And she said, oh, no, I'm sorry. She called a taxidermist after this fellow told her to.
And the taxidermist said, well, do you want these monkeys mounted?
And she said, no, just shaking hands.
You never heard that one.
