Legendary piscator Vincent Marinaro landing a trout at Letort Spring Run, 1950’s -- a mint copy of Vincent Marinaro’s fishing classic In the Ring of the Rise now sells for up to $400.
June 27, 1992, 10am
Letort Spring – Carlisle, PA
Entered the stream near city park and baseball fields. Stream was silty. Lots of trout, all cruising, no risers, difficult fishing. Silt makes wading difficult. Beautiful native browns.
This is my first entry in the fly fishing journal. Like most beginners I don’t have much to say about the subject. My field of knowledge is limited by my lack of experience. There are two noteworthy lessons here. I chose an access point that was readily accessible, also known in most endeavors as the easy route. The easy route can yield smaller rewards. This can be expressed in a mini-max chart that has been used for decades in business management.
Given four possible scenarios based on effort expended and reward gained – you generally try to achieve the maximum reward with the minimum effort. This is called the “mini-max” or more commonly known as conserving your energy. In the scenario at Letort Spring I did so many things wrong I fell into the fourth quadrant – outputting maximum effort for the absolute minimum reward. It is interesting how often we unwittingly find ourselves in the fourth quadrant.
Letort Spring – Carlisle, PA
Entered the stream near city park and baseball fields. Stream was silty. Lots of trout, all cruising, no risers, difficult fishing. Silt makes wading difficult. Beautiful native browns.
This is my first entry in the fly fishing journal. Like most beginners I don’t have much to say about the subject. My field of knowledge is limited by my lack of experience. There are two noteworthy lessons here. I chose an access point that was readily accessible, also known in most endeavors as the easy route. The easy route can yield smaller rewards. This can be expressed in a mini-max chart that has been used for decades in business management.
Given four possible scenarios based on effort expended and reward gained – you generally try to achieve the maximum reward with the minimum effort. This is called the “mini-max” or more commonly known as conserving your energy. In the scenario at Letort Spring I did so many things wrong I fell into the fourth quadrant – outputting maximum effort for the absolute minimum reward. It is interesting how often we unwittingly find ourselves in the fourth quadrant.
The first problem is my choice of Letort Spring. This is a legendary trout stream, I had read about it in many fly fishing books and the legends of American fly fishing honed their craft here. Vince Marinaro and Joe Humphreys discovered these streams long ago and understood them to be the equivalent of the famed “chalk streams” of England where fly fishing was born. The streams have large underground limestone springs that controls the pH of the waters and helps breed lots of food for trout to feed upon. The limestone springs also control water temperatures making it ideal for trout in the cold winters and hot Pennsylvania summers.
Having only a few years of serious fly fishing under my belt, tackling this stream is the equivalent of a first-year Hebrew student attempting to translate the Dead Sea Scrolls. I was woefully under-prepared for the challenge and so focused on the one single-minded goal of catching a trout, I ignored all preparation and patience necessary to the task.
When I said the stream was silty what I really meant is that I hastily waded into the water, stirred up a bunch of sand, silt and mud – scaring off any trout within casting distance and making the stream unfishable for at least 20 mintues. The desire to get into the water (a common affliction of flyfishermen) spoiled any chance at catching a fish.
If I had sat and observed the stream for only two or three minutes before casting, I might have found a nice spot to comfortably cast to a cruising trout. The chances are good that the trout would have still ignored my offering, but at least I would have allowed even a fleeting chance at catching a fish.
Most beginning flyfishermen lack the virtue of patience. Yet patience is the most essential quality to be a successful fisherman. St. Augustine once said “The reward of patience is patience.” Patience, most people feel is over-rated. Everything about our modern life flies in the face of patience being a virtue. Every gadget you buy, every program you download, every service you are willing to fork over hard earned cash for is generally a shortcut to eliminating your need for patience. In those moments when I attempt to imitate some sort of sage prelate, I lay that St. Augustine quote on my son Graham and his reply is “Kids don’t have patience so the reward of patience is no reward.”
At the time of my first trip to the Letort Spring Run I’d not yet read this aphorism of St. Augustine. Neither did I have an inkling that my odds of catching a trout would have been better had I sat Indian style on the edge of the stream chanting mantras and breathing through my third eye and waiting for a trout to leap from the water into my lap.
That I chose this particular stream to begin my fly fishing journal will be laughable to any experienced flyfishers. It is the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest in the annals of American flyfishing. Flyfishers literally travel from around the globe to test their skills by making a pilgrimage to fish here. This trip would stick in my craw for months, years -- in fact for over a decade -- until after multiple cross-country flights, hang-overs, $500 in legal fees, a trip to Wal-mart to repair a hole burnt in my waders and prayers to all the known gods in the pantheon of fishing deities, I was able to conquer this stream on my own terms. But, more on that later...
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