We just finished Thanksgiving dinner here at my house last night and as I think back about the experience it was fun to share the meal with family and friends.  It was of course also a meal of gorging ourselves on all the traditional foods.  When we gather this way for a feast we often give ourselves permission to indulge in plates flowing over.  But as if that wasn’t enough we follow that up with a piece of both apple and pumpkin pie.  At the end of the night I pride myself in sending my guests home with leftovers and there are leftovers still in my refrigerator too.  This morning it struck a memory for me though, a memory of being mindful about eating and about my early years practicing meditation and going to retreats.

The Korean school of Zen that I used to practice with had some really wonderful retreats.  One of my favorite parts of the retreats for me was the meals.  The food was always wonderful and I have picked up some great food preferences along the way from those retreats.  For instance,  I can’t even eat oatmeal any more without a glob of peanut butter on top and I found out how much I love kimchee.
Eating during a retreat was an experience in mindfulness of food for nutrition for the body but also was feast for the mind as you appreciated the actual flavors. More than all of this though was the process of every group meal.

Eating as a group was a ritual experience that required you to bring your bundle of bowls wrapped in a cloth napkin and tied off with the spoon and chopsticks in the top knot and place it in front of your cushion. There was a specific way you were supposed to lay out your four bowls and it was dictated which of the three bowls held different kinds of food.  Food was brought to you and you were to take only what you felt you could eat. You also noticed how many other people were ahead of you and so you tried to portion how much you took so there was enough for everyone. But you only put food in three of your bowls. The fourth bowl was for a hot tea that you could sip but that you needed to have enough left over for later as I will soon explain. 

We ate in silence and took in the flavors. We took breaths between bites and we ate with mindfulness. The food was really there to nurture us in our practice. It was a small moment of satisfaction and enjoyment during what at times was a very intense expenditure of the mind in sitting for hours each day in meditation.

At the end of the meal we brought our attention to the bowl holding the tea. Remember the tea that wasn’t drank?  It was then dumped into one of the food bowls. You then used the tea to rinse the food from that bowl. That bowl was then poured into the next and the same cleaning was done, and then to the final bowl after that. The final bowl was then used as a basin for cleaning your spoon and chopsticks in. At the end that bowl held the dregs of all of the bowls.  You then took this bowl and drank it. Nothing was wasted.  Some might be gagging about this idea but if you stop and think about it, you have missed the point.  All of the food that was served was used, and not wasted.

The ritual wasn’t complete though. The final step in this process was that water was then poured into everyone’s tea bowl and the process of rinsing the bowls was repeated with warm water.  At this time someone would come around with a large bowl and collect the water from everyone’s last bowl.  If there were any bits of food remaining in your bowl you were to be careful not to pour them into the main collection bowl but leave them and drink them with the remaining water. The mythology behind this practice was that there were “hungry ghosts” who lived in the drains. They had large mouths but only small throats and the smallest of particles would choke them.  It was kind of a reinforcement of the whole thing. We then dried off our bowls and utensils, stacked the bowls and tied them into bundles again with the spoon and chopsticks on top.

I want to be sure that I retain this practice in my everyday life. There are still times that I practice something similar to the four bowls from the retreats.  Though not as formal a ritual, I use a pared down version of this mindful eating exercise by using a single bowl and a cup for my tea.  I try not to take more food than I can eat and instead I keep the idea of focusing on the flavor and enjoyment I get from the food. It is a meditation of eating slowly and breathing with delight in every bite. I still use the tea to clean my bowl and spoon and I still drink the dregs of the meal with the tea. I like this practice and find it a good reminder about being grateful for food and at the same time to be mindful not to be wasteful.

I use this one bowl technique when I go backpacking or when I take solo retreats still. It is not just efficient but becomes a moment of peace and ritual in your life experience. Slowing down to the moment and not just forcing food into your hole.  You can also do this every day at home. I highly recommend trying to have at least one meal a day this way. It is a great practice. When we eat slower we actually eat less but are just as satisfied. Our relationship to our meals becomes about fulfilling more than just our physical hunger but also our emotional hunger.

Thanksgiving is supposed to be a time where we give thanks for the things we have. I think sometimes the “giving” part of “thanksgiving” gets lost in the gluttony.  The holiday should be as much about giving as it is the gratitude for what we have. What good is it to have more than we need?  It is important to share our prosperity. Too much of our western society is caught up in consumerism and “getting”.  I write this on “Black Friday”. The American celebration of being thankful the day before for all we have, only to spend the next day buying all the things we don’t have.  

Look at your life with the simplicity of the one bowl.  Do you take more than you need? Are you wasting anything unnecessarily just because you can? Are you thinking about others in need? Do you think of others and have a desire to share and make sure that everyone has enough? Are you striving for things and forgetting what you already have?

I am lucky to have this life I do, I am happy to share my surplus, I am grateful for family and friends and I wish you a very happy rest of the year.

When I first started tenkara fishing I did it to have time to myself.  It was therapy and still very much is most days that I go out.  I have made a point to make sure that I always make time for just myself to be on the water alone more than I am with a fishing companion. 

As the years have passed though, I have found some wonderful friends within this community. While I may only get to go fishing occasionally with each of them, I find that those adventures and memories have a special place in my life.  When people come together in a common interest there are often unspoken as well as spoken truths they share.

Tenkara continues to give back to me. Not just as therapy but for a sense of community and connection.
Over the years I have made friendships with people who I normally might disagree with in different circumstances. I have connected with people of different religious backgrounds, different world views and different politics. The common thread being our love of tenkara. Maybe there are other commonalities? Perhaps another trait I can identify in these friends is that they are “givers” in life more than they are “takers”.  This is an observation I have made outside of tenkara in other people in my life.

Friendships are not always easy and they can be painful and imperfect. At times my different friendships have faced challenges. There have been times where I have found myself wrapped up in the sorrow of watching a friend work through personal demons. I wanted to be supportive but also needed to find a way to set healthy boundaries. Every friend has their unique challenges that they are facing. I try to be the best friend I can be within my limited abilities.  These friends remain in my life and I consider them “true friends”. What always seem to happen despite differences and challenges is that I feel compelled to be there for them as much as they would and have shown they would be there for me.  

This last year has been a wonderful celebration of friendships for me on the stream. I got to spend time with friends who I had not seen in a long time, I got to watch another friend take some huge steps in recovery return to fishing again, I got to share in the growth of another friend’s guide business and I made new friends though social media. I have also friends that I only got to meet and see at events but will be excited about seeing again.

We create these circles of friends in other parts of our lives I know. The friendships I have within the tenkara community are ones that I truly value. They nurture me and give me a place to be nurturing to others.  I learn from these relationships in ways that these friends may never realize.

At the time that I started writing this blogpost it was all about celebrating the friends that I have made along the way. But alas… I have one less “friend” today than when I started writing this.  The ending of that connection changed when I saw that tenkara as a commonality was not enough. It was a difference not so much over political point of view but over the issue of integrity to the truth.  Through that person’s cognitive dissonance, they revealed that they were not the person who valued some basic human rights or the value of justice. Perhaps this relationship was not as strong as I had hoped it would have become.  Maybe it wasn’t there to begin with. I am okay without this person in my life. It’s not my job to correct them or make them see their ethical errors.

With the above stated I want to doubly take a moment here to thank my friends. They are fine people who have made my life better through my kinship with them in Tenkara. For fear of leaving anyone out I will just say that if you are reading this and we have spoken that you are very likely on that list. You probably already know through our interactions either in person or on line. If I follow you on social media, have had a conversation with you or had the privilege of fishing with you then you know. If we have never met I always have room in my life for one more friend. One more kindred spirit.

Thanks you friends!

I took the liberty of pulling some photos from different places including your social media walls. What a great group of people.

The month of June rushed by so fast that I was not able to even find time to write a blog entry for the month. This is not to say that I didn’t have things on mind though. “Water under the bridge” is the term I believe.  For here we are in July and I have still been keeping myself very busy.  Busy in the best of ways I think. That kind of busy where you feel good about the things that you are creating and accomplishing.  Being busy though can create a sense of urgency and can make us rush things better approached with patience.

One of the challenges most every blog author has is to have content that people can learn from. More importantly though is having content that people want to read. I don’t like to wax philosophical for the sake of it and each of the drafts I started for June were frankly a bit too contrived and forced. I like finding inspiration for my writing in my real-life experiences of becoming aware of something or finding something that truly moves me to write. Ideas and thoughts seem to take some time to ferment into clarity.

Speaking of fermentation... a good part of the last several weeks I have been dabbling in the world of microbiology.  More specifically yeasts and sourdough starters. My interest was piqued after reading that yeasts can be found in so many places in the wild and that these same yeasts can be used for making sourdough starters.  So, I did some backyard microbiology experimenting and made a starter from the yeast I took off an aspen tree in my backyard. If you have ever looked closely enough at an aspen tree, then you might have noticed a fine dust that the tree bark holds on to. This is a wild yeast! I cultivated this with a flour and water “emulsion” and made a bread starter.


 There is a lot to be learned when creating a good loaf of bread. It is not as easy as just throwing ingredients into a jar. It is a slow and attentive nurturing process. Like caring for a garden, keeping a yeast alive and thriving required a connection to the process. It is a very visceral effect for me. The key tenant of making sourdough is patience. Each step required patience and an attention to detail. At times there is a desire to rush the process, or to “do something” when you are best to just let things be. I have made this mistake a few times now in different ways. It is still the same mistake of rushing to fulfill my goal and have gratification. Do you do this when you are fishing? I know I do sometimes.

Much like developing a good starter for making good bread we need to develop our attention to and practice of patience. We need to have focus and we need to be connected to the process. We also need to remember not to rush things and not to try an add anything that isn’t needed and allow ourselves to just be a part of the experience. There is process we each need to find for how we approach a stream.

Learn to go slow and do not forget or skip steps in our process. When we allow ourselves the discipline to just watch and let things process we often have better outcomes.  Don’t rush the water and start casting. Read the water and understand the flow. Position yourself so that you aren't scaring away fish and are presenting the best way possible for the steam. Don’t get your feet wet if you don't need to. Stay out of the water unless you need to and if you do want to get closer, cast to the area you are going to stand before going in. Sometimes that is exactly where a fish might be feeding.

By being patient and focused we condition our minds to be more present and we hone our technique for fishing tenkara. Our minds may still push and nag at us. We might hear our minds telling us to change out our fly, we may retrieve our line too quickly or we may forget our ceiling or back cast and find our flies catching trees. The more we are awake to these irritating inclinations to speed up or make changes too quickly the more we can be connected to our fishing moments.

We all have those days on the water where we just can’t seem to cast or maybe even set a hook. When this happens, we need to stop and do nothing for a minute.  Give ourselves as much time as we need to get back to our center of focus.  I have found though that by doing nothing sometimes my mind comes back to the present moment and I can carry on forward from there.  Slowing down actually allows our brain to switch over and process less from a reactionary approach but rather from an active and mindfully assertive way.

Bonus Content! 
So what have I been busy with?
A lot of time these last few weeks has been spent in my shop.  I have had several sales on spools and have begun working on creating upgraded tenkara rod handles. The work has been satisfying creatively and I enjoy the challenge.  I think it is important to keep on growing and to keep on learning. Sometimes problems are best approached as if they were puzzles. I had to figure out how to remove a cork handle from a rod without damaging the rod. Then I had to figure out the design process and how to make those designs ideas happen. Along the way I had a few false starts but eventually I found my way to a practical process. Each challenge I met though required me to slow down and let my brain nurture an idea.

So far, I am happy with the rod handles that I have made, and my imagination has become ignited. Only through nurturing our processes and allowing ideas to ferment can we start to see the answers we need to the questions that arise. I really love getting lost in my work and I can get over excited about ideas. Each step of creating anything has starts, stops and restarts. 

While I have now applied this idea of nurturing to sourdough starter, tenkara fishing and woodworking, it is obvious that it applies to our lives overall as well.  Too often we get lost in our day to day work and responsibilities.  Stress takes over and our minds can slip into a mode of “fight or flight”.  The answer again is to stop everything and center ourselves. Put things on pause and just allow time to pass. You may also find that your situation is calling out loudly for you to do something in the way of nurturing yourself.

Our lives are bombarded with to-do lists and expectations for what life is supposed to look like. If we become imprisoned by those things we may notice that life isn’t fun or happy.  We all can find happiness. It does take patience, practice and attention to detail.

If you have a rod that is in need of a new handle let me know and we can talk about keeping that favorite rod in use with a whole new look that is personalized.

In this month's post I hope to talk again about putting what you "need" ahead of the things you "think you need or want." For this though it is important for me to preface and establish that I am in no way telling you not to buy those things that bring you happiness. It is okay to want things and it is okay to own things. I am however suggesting a mindfulness and caution not to get caught up in consumerism of things you don’t need or that don’t fulfill your personal happiness.

 < I carry all I really need in a single Mountain Hardware bag that I picked up at a garage sale. The bag has room in it for water bottle, stove and more. I keep my waders, shoes and other essentials like snacks, lunch stove pots and coffee for tailgate brewing.


Make no mistake, this isn't just for tenkara gear.
This post while written for your tenkara gear also applies to the rest of your life and possessions too. Having a relationship with our things and seeing if those are rewarding relationships or burdens is what it all boils down to. Then there is also an element of vanity ownership and consumption that we also should check ourselves on. The more we practice this, the more money we will actually have to spend on experiences rather than stuff.

I'm guilty and you are guilty.
Every one of us is susceptible to adding things when we don’t need to. There is a feeling of requirement when we get something new that it is almost like permission to expand our possessions even further.  When we get new waders we think about our old boots. “Do these boots look shoddy on the new waders?” This is just one small example. It also applies to rods and packs, cars, boats, camping gear, etc, etc. I am a sucker for garage sales, camping gear, bags and boxes.

We want things that we don't need.
There is a very real phenomenon that plagues us as a consumer society. It is called the “Diderot Effect”. The basic premise is that when we get something nice it seems to overwhelm or make the less nice things we own seem shoddy. This idea then enforces the idea that we need an upgrade across the board. Diderot is an interesting story that I found very familiar and could see in many parts of my own consumerism.

Avoiding Status Image Purchasing
We all have seen how Western fly fishing can be a “status” sport. I could only chuckle to myself at a recent Orvis fly fishing 101 event that I dropped in on the other day. The instructor was giving a solid presentation on keeping things simple. He then killed it for me by pointing out the vests and other accoutrements that they could later aspire to purchase and fill with things he openly stated they would never need.  I restrained myself but wanted to shout out “....OR YOU COULD LOOK AT TENKARA AND SAVE YOURSELF A HELL OF A LOT OF MONEY!”  

Tenkara runs a risk of slipping into this realm as well as commercialism hits it. My fingers are crossed this doesn’t happen. However, recently there have been some incredibly expensive tenkara rods released… I am of the mindset of spending my money more on experiences than on things, so these rods will likely never be in my possession for use.

Use Cautionary Consumerism
Consumerism is so normalized here in the U.S.A. and other developed countries. Consumption and purchasing of things we don’t need is now almost expected at times. If there is a buck to be made someone will make that thing and try and convince you that you can’t live without it.

There are people who make a living  as creative marketers who are working hard to convince us that we need even more still.  Certainly we have products that actually do help or that are innovations and improvements. I would suggest though that we should examine cautiously to avoid the fads and impulse purchases of “the next greatest thing”.   There is nothing wrong with waiting out and purchasing something later once it has been developed and to see firsthand if that item is right for you.
Our money goes out of our bank accounts fast enough without us spontaneously and addictively spending it on things that will just be put in a closet, drawer, box or garage.

The Exercise of Enough
One of the best exercises you can do to keep yourself from falling into Diderot effect is to just take stock and value what we do have. Look at your current equipment and assess its condition. Go ahead and lay it all out. How leaky are those waders? Can they be patched or resealed? How many rods do you own but never use? Why are you keeping them? How many more years do you think you can get out of your pack or boots?  How many packs and boots do you own? Can you justify owning two of the same kind of item that serves the same purpose?

Once we can look at our gear this way, we can start to appreciate what we already have and begin to realistically assess what we really have compared to what we NEED instead of WANT and we can identify what we really need to replace.


Why do I own this and what does it add to my comfort or experience?
Are you a fashionista? How important are name brands to you? Why? Much of this boil down to the investment of your hard-earned money on equipment that may not actually be any better than the less expensive products available. Certainly, there are product that do outperform others. Does their quality outweigh their cost of investment? What hidden costs do they have? I used to purchase wading boots that had interchangeable soles. Then as I matured (in my fishing and outlook?) I decided that I was happier with less expensive water shoes with good tread that could fit over my waders instead.

This comes down I suppose to your own wants for your experience. I love keeping things simple and utility in nature.  We can find that balance when we slow down to look at the stuff we are buying and why we are buying it.

Get yourself to where you don’t need to add anything.
To simplify everything above, look at your stuff and decide if you own it or it owns you. Is your relationship with your things one that you don’t have to feel embarrassed about or that you can look at without regrets for spending money on? Keep what you really need, decide what if those things you are keeping as a luxury are the kinds of things that add to or improve your experience or if they are just weight and stuff you feel compelled to carry.  I will admit that I am not 100% on this process myself but it is a big part of my mindset. I ask myself regularly if things that I have with me are needs or wants? I ask myself if items are practical to have to the point that they make my life easier than carrying them along in the first place? You can always test yourself by leaving the item behind once and seeing how much you really do “need” it or just “want” it. Just remind yourself once you are at a comfortable place and zone for yourself to not add anything.

"One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that."

~ Joseph Campbell




     As humans we have watched the patterns of the seasons and marked them systematically on our calendars. However, the reality of them is something more gradual. Spring can come early or late. It is seldom something that physically arrives like a train. Instead it morphs from one condition to another in subtle ways. While we can see the changes happening they seem to happen in small moments of presence and realization.  Every location on the planet gets to experience the season in time with the collaboration of Earth tilt, geography, weather patterns and more.

Fishing streams flow with the seasons too.  Streams slow down in the winter, gather ice and go to sleep. Then comes the spring and everything that comes with it. The streams slowly begin to melt out, build up current and start to sneak against the banks. The temperatures of the melt off keep the water just cool enough that the fish stay deep and stay sluggish for a while longer, conserving their energy for just a little longer and letting the food come to them instead of wasting energy on pursuit. Of course, the warmer seasons bring ideal feeding and thriving conditions that we connect to as our happiest days on the water.

The cycling spectrum of the seasons, when you pay attention and look at them closely, can act often as a compass for us in our lives. How many of us hunker in for the winter and tie flies, dream of the spring and summer months? Winter is a season of biding my time, resting, reflecting and sitting in preparation and planning for the oncoming year.  It is not surprising that I get prematurely enthusiastic every year by the melting of the snow and watching the renewal date for fishing licenses approach. Colorado has a way of kicking me  with beautiful clear spring like days that get dashed by slush storms and stubborn, stasis minded fish.

As I walked out into my yard today I noticed that once again I was watching the slushy spring snow storms blanketing everything in white, weighing down tree limbs and would melt away by noon. This process of the season has had the effect of watering areas of grass and garden sparking patches of chlorophyll greened grass, sprouts of plant matter and foolish blooms on trees.

The signs of the season are there for us if we slow down to their speed and recognize ourselves in them. Nature and the seasons have a way of reminding us that we must be present with what is in front of us and not lost in the illusion of what we imagine we want. We fool ourselves and are like the blooms of the aforementioned trees. We can't get ahead of the seasons without being hit by them. When we do, nature will surely remind us.

We all get that spring fever I think and we all jump the gun in life in other things too. Rather than waiting for the season to come. We push our lives and projects forward and sometimes in foolish directions to get there.  The season has its own plans and way. Just a few weeks after renewing our licenses here in Colorado, we get to watch the streams wash out almost overnight into raging muddy slop that washes through and away the stream bottom and channels that we thought we were committing to memory for a sure thing hole in the spring.

By later spring we are better though and maybe find ourselves on track and our biggest challenge is trying to decide where to fish or how to sidestep a patch of poison ivy. Our vehicles are loaded and ready. We are prepared for any free moment that presents itself to bolt and be lost in the settled new runs. We start to see fish rising again and we reaffirm our needs to keep to the techniques we seem to have forgotten slightly as we remove our flies and lines from surrounding trees or toss a sloppy cast that scares fish to the depths.

When we overlap and compare the seasons to our lives we see ourselves clearly and form a better relationship to nature and how our lives fit into that bigger picture. There is a synchronicity that we need to find and match to the reality before us. And it is not so difficult to do. We need only stop what we are doing and become present to the reality of experience before us. We can listen to what our intuition is telling us. We become better at this through practice in listening to ourselves and respecting that inner wisdom that rises. 

I believe strongly in looking to metaphor as way to understand the world we are in and where I am in relation to it. We must respect the seasons of the year and recognize the seasons of our inner lives. Our minds function very easily with metaphors and can use the abstract of them to process relative patterns to help us understand our place, role and what we need to do and when.

Recently I found myself out of sync with the seasons of my own life and making quick decisions that would have pulled me in way over my head. While my intentions were good they were not in time with the season of where I was personally and as a result I ignored the conditions and took steps in directions I didn't really want to go. We all do this at some point in our lives and it is important to remember that it is okay to step backwards and wait or to take a different path. 

It is fortunate that we are not alone. We have friends and can build a community that works together to help each other.  It is important to keep coming back to our center again and again. We can step back quickly as needed with frustration and without shame.

I suppose if there is one thing we can do other than to watch and sync ourselves with the seasons is to listen also to the people around us. Make real time to get together face to face if you can and listen to their thoughts, ideas and perspective. When we rely too much on our own minds, ideas and agendas we can head in the wrong direction  People in our community are an integral part of our world. Like the trees, grass and other plant life they can help us recognize the season.

Fishing teaches us patience, attention and perseverance. I will be renewing my license soon and preparing for the spring fishing all in good time but also “on time”.  I know that I am going to continue to practice tuning into and listening to the wisdom the seasons are communicating to me. I am going to let the seasons be my guide and make my changes and steps slowly. Life isn't a race but a series of transitions.

Happy Spring!

The Want or Need Test
I find great satisfaction in not owning more than I need and even more satisfaction from making some of the things I need.  The question I ask is always “Do I WANT it or do I NEED it?”

“Need items” always get preferential priority. They are easily identified as necessities to accomplish a job or to fulfill a need. (that is why they are called "needs" right?)

“Want items” get tucked away in my head until they disappear or maybe, on rare occasion, wander into the “Need list" again by accident or perseverance.  Yes, we can want things but I always come back to the question of "Why?"
The "why" is going to tell you a lot about your relationship to the things you own.

"Final filter" are the questions “Can I get it affordably?” followed by “Could I make one?” and finally “Do I really want to make one?”

Once it has cleared all of these, I get started with the brainstorming process which really is the beginning of the fun for me. From here I will either buy the item if available affordably or I will look at how I can make my own suitable version of the thing.  Some things are better just to buy and other things are really fun to make.

To Buy or To D.I.Y.?
There is something very nice about making something unique and not always feeling that you must spend a lot of money.  I find that I value things that I have made myself differently than those things that I have purchased. The items that I have made are a part of me. They came into being from my brain and hands using the materials that I gathered or discovered.

The D.I.Y. approach many not be your thing and I do understand how easy it is often to just buy the thing you want.  I believe that when we do make those purchases we should do so with thoughtfulness. Evaluate the practicality of an item that is already made and compare it to the quality you think you can do on your own design. "Can you make one as good or better?" Maybe you are like me though and just want to see if you can just do it?

My latest D.I.Y. Projects...Fly Tying Stations
The last few months I have been playing around with different ideas for fly tying stations.  Along the way I made a new one for myself plus one for a friend.  These D.I.Y. fly tying stations were both very affordable, practical and most of all functional. The materials kind of presented themselves to me. Taking my time along the way I was able to really think about unique features and what I wanted the esthetic of my finished products to look like.

There was no fancy or complicated joinery needed beyond attaching the clamp piece to the end of the base. Just some long wood screws worked wonderfully. It is important to pre-drill your screw holes to prevent splitting. 

I took a few more steps and added some tool holes.  Using my drill press and a Forster bit I created round sections where some small plastic containers I own could be inserted snugly.  Two of these hold my hooks and one of them is for putting my finished flies into. I tacked on some simple cork footings on the underside to keep the base safe on all surfaces.  I have a small Japanese tea box that I use to hold my spools, tools and small packet of feathers. The whole thing broken down takes up an amazingly small amount of space and is easy to travel with.

The Chips and Dip Fly Tying Station
My most recent fly tying station out of my workshop I found at a thrift store. I frequently browse the “wood” item section a thrift stores looking for cutting boards, bowls and discarded Eastern red cedar plaques with quaint passages decoupaged on them, etc.  This chips and dip dish stood out to me. It was sturdy, and I could immediately see a vise attached to it; a place for thread spools and tools. 

With a little planning and measuring I was able to lay out the different sized holes that I would drill for the tools and the spool posts. As I mentioned this one is for a friend who said she wanted a set up that would hold her vise, tools and threads. I think it turned out wonderfully and I will be keeping my eyes open for this and other similar wooden serving bowls.

 In closing, I want to say thanks to all my readers and all of the great feedback you give me.  I am very interested in seeing your ideas and D.I.Y. projects too.  I can feel the spring coming and see new snow in the mountain weather forecast which is good news for our Colorado streams...(Knock on wood!)  Should you think now that you might be interested in diving into D.I.Y.  I have added some additional thoughts below.

This little parable has probably been borrowed, adapted and rewritten countless times. The lesson holds truth though and I think my rewriting is just as apropos when it comes to the subject of being a fly-tier.  As students we sometimes mistake “quantity” for “mastery.”  We are likely to ignore the path under us while we follow the myth of the end result. The following are some of my latest musings on the process of creativity. Apply them and I promise you will enjoy your path on your way to your destination.

Applying Art Theory to our flies
My formal schooling is as an artist. I can sketch and draw from memory, paint well and have a visual eye for color theory.  I realized early on that the art of fly tying is very much a conduit for personal expression. Every fly tier goes through their process of wanting to create “the perfect fly”.  We also feel the need to explore different kinds of flies and materials along the way.  All of us slop our way through and leave a hundred “bad” flies in our wake. Please make those hundred bad flies and don’t look back. If you aren’t making mistakes you aren’t learning.

Give yourself permission to be messy and create bad flies.
Creativity is there for all of us to explore. I remember first learning to tie. I didn’t have a teacher, but I had enthusiasm. I just dove in and begin playing with techniques. Like all artistic skills, it is a messy process full of expletives from broken threads and unwinding hackles. You are going to make a lot of ugly flies and mistakes. The trick is to identify your mistakes along the way and make changes as you go.  To the best of my knowledge, there are no recorded savants in fly tying. We all learn by doing and hone our skills. So, it is important to give ourselves permission to play a bit, experiment and create bad flies.

Learn from others but guard against dogmatic ideas and notions
Along our tying process we learn little tricks, bad habits and what works best for each of us individually.  I am always open to suggestions of ways to do things, but I am put off by those who want to express their dogmatic arguments of how something is supposed to look or be done. If I see someone struggling I ask them if they want advice before just giving it to them. I don’t wish to impose myself on their learning process unless they want my help. I hope that others will respect my process of learning as well.

Don’t compare to others, instead find inspirations that you can apply.   
Often as learning tiers we make the mistake of holding our work up to others more experienced in tying.  If as an artist you had just start painting, would you hold your work up to someone who has had years more experience and beat yourself up for not painting as well?  Accept your work where it is at currently. Don’t copy but instead be inspired by other’s work.  While we would like to believe that there is some perfect standard, we should be striving for that from with ourselves.  Your fly designs will improve over time and will stand in their own authenticity.

Creativity and the theory of less.  
It is a myth that creativity comes from having unlimited choices. Creativity comes from intentionally limiting yourself. Having virtually unlimited choices is a Western idea… We can find quite a lot of practicality and creativity doing things with the few choices we intentionally give ourselves.  See for yourself in your next fly tying session how many different variations of flies you can make by limiting your selection of materials. Variety will rise and thrive in your work and it will be a kind of variety that is organic and personalized.

Fall in love with your work.
Having fewer choices will push you to look closer and make choices that are much more focused in every step. We learn the subtleties of our designs. Having limitation creates focus to detail that lets us fall in love with our work.  Each hook you put in your vise is a clean slate for you to improve your technique and develop an understanding of your work and design.

Every January people seem to jump in and make resolutions of all kinds. Usually to only find that the strength of their resolve is not what they think it was. I believe that identifying your motivations is the key to any life change. Motivating yourself to make changes in your life is and should be a slow but steady process. Forming new habits and patterns for our lives requires more dedication than just a pronouncement. It takes having a foundation and a map for getting to where you want to go. Perhaps it also takes a compass to help guide you on your path.

I have been juggling this issue in my own life for quite a while now and recently stumbled onto a book that has presented such a map and compass.  I share this philosophy with you today in hopes that you too will be able to apply it in your own life in a meaningful way and discover your own potential and happiness.

I have a tradition of each year picking a word or idea to be my inspiration for the year.  This year the word found me in a book I happened to pick up at a bookstore. The word is “Ikigai”.

Ikigai translates roughly as “the happiness of always being busy.” Let’s pause here on the word “busy”.  This philosophy is not about filling your life with meaningless tasks or overwhelming work.
Ikigai is about finding your life’s purpose and stepping into that place where you can reside and be productive, happy and at peace.  Breaking the characters down literally translates to “life – to be worthwhile – Armor (to be first into battle or taking initiative as a leader) – and finally, beautiful or elegant”   

The book I mention is called “IKIGAI –the Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life” by Hector Garcia and Francesc  Miralles.  While the book looks at longevity at times a being the motivation for seeking your ikigai, for myself that is not as relevant as the literal map it provides in a very easy to understand Venn diagram.  Ikigai is not one thing but many things coming together to give our lives meaning , value, context, direction, happiness and peace.

Four intersecting  circles show how each of these areas work together to not just help you identify your ikigai but also once you understand your ikigai help you to see how your ikigai fits into and affects other places in your life.  This is not quite as simple as filling in the blanks but it has served me as a way to ask myself some questions and to analyze my own life in a way that I can identify imbalances and weaknesses that have been blocking areas of joy and happiness.

One way to identify the core of your own ikigai lies is to look at those activities that you do that you get utterly lost in. Those things that make time stop existing in your mind and that your mind finds most contentment. The ikigai we all likely share as anglers is time on the river fishing. We can find ourselves lost in the action to the point that we forget to eat a lunch some days. Any time we find ourselves lost in peace and joy is a good indicator that you are working through your own ikigai.

 As I mentioned before the book seems to have some focus of appealing to westerners seeking longevity in life but the message and lessons of ikigai are still at the center of that. I believe it is a western ideal that puts the destination ahead of the path. This said there is a lot to be gained in reading about these areas of the book as well. Ikigai can have positive influences as well on all aspects of your life. It encompasses living with intent, passion and a mission to serve the world with your existence.

I hope to discuss my own process of exploring my own ikigai along the way in this new year. Ikigai is not so much what we do but how and why we do it. The journey of seeking and living into your ikigai is exciting and mind opening.   I have already started the year off pretty well by picking up my practice of meditation and improved diet.  I am examining how I live, make a living and interact with the world. I am able to look at my many facets of self, the projects that I want to work on and the people I want to be an active part of a community with.

It is important to start any journey by removing all distractions that can arise and take you down those old paths that havn't served you or your life. With the exception of announcing this post I am not participating on Facebook or social media. Instead I am revisiting the things in my life that make me feel whole and engaged with my world.

I can recommend this book highly as a great insightful way to approach making your life better and more meaningful. The information inside follows examining the lives of people in Japan who live to be 100 years old or more. This involves not just the lifestyle they live but the diet and mindful awareness of thier lives. 

I wish you all a very Happy New Year!

October fishing is bittersweet. I am never sure if my latest outing is going to be my last for the season before I pack it in and call it a year.  This last week I was lucky enough after a long weekend of work to get a Monday afternoon to fly up the hill and get some fishing time in.

While fishing the creek of choice on Monday I was able to slow down to appreciate the simple stuff around me. The leaves on the trees had turned golden and the air temperature was holding in at a very comfortable sunny 70 degrees.  The water was clear and the flow was very fish-able with delightful aerated pockets.  

I was thinking about the imminent ending of the season for me. This shifted to thinking about work I had ahead of me, wondered about people, life and my personal challenges.  I felt the familiar anxiety that I deal with on a daily basis building up. Suddenly, I am not paying attention to my fishing as I like to while lost in the distraction of my mind  my cast sticks my fly into a tree.

I pulled my rod in and tried to wiggle the line free. That didn't work so I decided to pull the line and risk the break.  The line and fly finally sprang free from the branch, but not without getting itself into a rat’s nest of a knot.  Still holding in my expletives, I could see this was a nasty one.  I set my rod under my armpit and took a look at the mess.  All I could do was sit there by the water’s edge and take a deep sigh.

The furled line I use gets a lot of comments from others because it is rainbow colored. It is my own creation of sorts. A line I stumbled on at a garage sale that turned out to work really well for tenkara. The line variegates through the colors of the rainbow again and again in about one foot color sections.   It is very visible in most lighting conditions and casts as well as most of the other furled lines I have tried. At this point though, my rainbow line was in garbled heap.  

I have considered knots as an analogy before. We can see the similarity of the way a knot binds on itself the same way that all of the things in our lives can kind of bind on each other. I have pondered before that knots are best carefully untangled by pulling outward from the mess instead of pulling the bindings tighter. You must slow down and decide carefully what you are going to untangle first. If you pull too hard on one part of a knot, you cinch down tighter on another part. Knots come undone when we slowly pull them apart at the easiest points first. Often times this makes the difficult parts easier to untangle. Life can be like that too.

The knots in our lives seem to happen when the things in our lives bind up too much on each other. The demands of life sometimes pull too hard on every part of us. Our fears, obligations, relationships, hopes, ideas, challenges, projects and desires start to wrap around each other.  We see how our lives get tangled with these different concerns and thoughts that we have.  We find our life line spinning out of control and balling itself up.

One advantage my rainbow line has is that you can tell the different parts of the line from each other.  Single toned lines get into knots and it is difficult if not impossible to see what part is attached to what other part of the knot.  With the rainbow line I could see that certain parts of the mess were related and more easily untangled. These clues of color actually make the knot more understandable. You can see each color in relationship to the other parts of the mess.

If only the knots of our lives could be as easy to decipher. To this I suppose we could try.  If our fears could be one color, our hopes another and our relationships, troubles and cares each have their own color, then we could see that knot as less daunting and stressful. We could pull apart the colors and let them untangle from the places that they were binding on and allow us to untangle faster. Perhaps they would open up solutions to other entanglements?

The lesson I experienced goes a little deeper still. Even figuring in the color clues, some knots are just too tight to undo. What we have to sometime do is separate the tangle as best we can then analyze what can be salvaged and what can be sacrificed.

As I looked at my line I was able to see that in pulling apart and decoding the colors I had inadvertently pulled a knot that was not going to come apart. Looking at what remained I decided to not spend 15-30 minutes of my fishing time trying to save the line.  We have to make the decision sometimes to just cut the knot out and try to fix what remains.  I took out my nippers and cut the free ends of the tight knot and was able to find my line now in two pieces with a very small section where the problem had been.  A simple splice and the line was still usable. Sure, it had a splice point, but it was functional and was a reminder of the struggle.

When we try to undo those tangled lines in our lives sometimes we find that there are knots that we just can’t undo. We need to learn when to take and spend time working on them and when to just cut those impossible issues away and splice the good parts together again. The chaotic knot goes away and is replaced by one that is good enough to hold things together. It is in some ways a stronger knot that will not interfere too much with the function of the line. The splice becomes a reminder of the struggle we faced and got past and we find ourselves back on the stream…casting again.

Recently at the Tenkara Summit 2018 Yvon Chouinard made a statement that has been wearing on me heavily. It wears on me heavily because I am sure that I am guilty of it. I am guilty of keeping fish out of water too long. 

Yvon basically stated that if you keep a fish out of water for more than 20 seconds that you have reduced the trout's ability to survive by 80%. I am going to take Yvon at his word on this. I will also keep looking for the scientific studies to support his claim.  I have read that you can keep a fish out longer but why don't we just all consider 20 seconds as being too long?

We must learn to be gentle
As someone who catches and releases his fish 98% percent of the time I started to think back to times that I am sure that I stressed a fish too much. I know early on I probably man handled the fish I caught. Learning to be gentle is very important step we must practice and teach younger fishermen. We have all probably stressed at least one fish out beyond levels of good conscience.  I realize that I may be preaching to the choir on this however it has taken me a long time to really grasp the reality of the importance of doing catch and release correctly. A slippery fish can accidentally be squeezed in our haste.

Fish need us to be mindful.
Since the Summit I have taken to really paying attention to this. I have become VERY mindful of the time I am exposing a fish to air. I am also being much more conscious about how long I play a fish and how I hold a fish. A few people and articles suggested that we hold our own breath while the fish is out of the water and consider this too. I don't know about you but I would rather focus on getting the fly out of the fish's mouth than try to have a game of see how long I can hold my breath.

Changing the definition of "Caught".
Maybe we need to look at how we define a "catch". This year I decided to adopt the philosophy of my friend Mark Cole. He and his wife Judy are just the greatest fishing couple you will ever meet. Mark has decided for himself that if a fish takes your fly and then shakes free it is as good as getting a fish to hand. This is not to say that he doesn't get fish to hand himself. Another friend has a 3 second rule that he uses. If you play a fish for 3 seconds it is as good as caught. We can perhaps stop being so stringent in our definition of success in fishing and remember that we fish to be outdoors and to connect with nature in a very unique way.

How important is that photo?
Catch and release folks love to get a quick shot of themselves and the fish. I used to take a lot of fish pictures but have since cut back to one or two fish at the most on any given day on the stream. I realized that it was partially my own ego I was feeding with the photos. Showing off on facebook is a poor reason to collect photos of fish. Maybe we should look at just being with ourselves in those moments. The experience of catching a good fish can never be captured in a single photo.  That moment is yours. You should decide how badly you need to share proof. Best suggested way to get a photo is to not be the one who has to take it. If you have a fishing buddy there, let them take a quick shot for you if it is not too much trouble and they are ready.

Being prepared for the catch is everything.
Knowing what you are going to do once you bring the fish in is important. Premeditate this and have your tools at the ready. Maybe the first step is as we bring a fish near the shore or near to us that we let the fish just swim near us and rest.  We can then decide what to do next. Get your net only after the fish is close enough to you to catch in the net. There is much to be said about nets and the potential damage they do at another time). They are still the most acceptable way to figuratively "land" a fish. I cringe now at early pictures I have taken of fish sucking air while sitting on the bank in blades of grass. There is no need to put a fish on the land unless you have resigned yourself to keep it for consumption.

Try to keep the fish in the water until you can no longer get the fly out.
If you get the fish into a net there is little reason to take it out and handle it. There is also little reason to take the fish and net out of the water. You can remove the fly while the fish is still in the net and submerged. Often I have had a fly release itself in the net.  If you don't get the fly out of the fish's mouth easily on the first attempt keep the fish in your net. Let the net just float in water and act like a little aquarium. Get out your hemostat or needle nose pliers and take the fish out of the water just far enough to get to it's mouth and throat. Hopefully you have already stopped using barbed hooks for your flies and the removal of the fly from the throat will happen very fast.

When a fish "deep throats" your fly.
Sometimes a fish just hits a fly and starts to swallow it faster than they can realize it is not a real bug. When this happens you will have to make a judgement call. If you can't get the fly out quickly enough you may just have to leave it in there and cut the line. The second choice is to sacrifice the fish. Consider sacrificing the fish only if it is appropriate. Don't waste the fish for nothing. Eat it yourself or give it to someone you know who likes trout. My mother in law will take any fish you have to sacrifice. This situation may be the dark side of fishing but if you see bleeding it is a good sign that the fish cannot be saved. When you have dedicated yourself to catch and release fishing this may be a wake up call to slow down and give this all more thought. Maybe to compensate for every fish you have to sacrifice you can decide to make a charitable donation to Trout Unlimited or your favorite wildlife fund.

This all comes down to is mindfulness and having the best practice established for how you are going to treat the fish you catch. For those of us who have chosen to practice catch and release as a way to assure that there are fish to catch tomorrow it is important to fulfill that reasoning with good fish release techniques otherwise we might as well keep every fish we catch anyhow. I look forward to insights from my readers in the comments and I will update this post with some studies when I can get them to support some of the claims here in this post.