Co-authored by Dennis Patrick Slattery and Roger Barnes
Originally published in the San Antonio Express-News on October 26, 2022
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing
that it is not fish they are after.
—Henry David Thoreau
We have been fishing for rainbow trout in the Missouri Ozarks for 30 years. It is an annual pilgrimage from San Antonio to a rural fishing lodge in southwest Missouri, 1600 miles round trip. We recently returned from our pilgrimage with reflections to share.
Over these three decades our friendship has strengthened on each excursion to the point that we now admit the week together is not about fly rods, reels, dry flies and nymphs. Nor is it about the fish we hook.
So, if the trip is not primarily about the mechanics of fishing, then what is the through line of this adventure? We now realize that fishing has become a rich metaphor for what matters in our lives.
It is about camaraderie and friendship, undertaken in one of the most ancient of human activities, the journey, and what we discover each time we enter this vessel of adventure.
In our younger days we fished early in the morning, then again late in the afternoon for hours on end. No longer. Our time on the stream has shortened considerably.
Our pilgrimage has assumed a more contemplative, less active rhythm where the fish play a smaller role than they once did. Emphasis has shifted comfortably from the fish and the size of the catches to our shared friendship.
Catching three fish per day, not eight, is more than satisfying. Something more valuable is caught now in the nets of our imaginations, like a return to the value of an ordinary day and the treasures which invite a sustained feeling of gratitude.
Preparing and enjoying our meals together in the house we rent has become a sacred ritual.
Now, it is about sitting on the porch and feeling dusk descend. We enjoy hearing the crickets and other critters that stir in the thickening shadows, creating a chorus of sounds as the day curls into its own darkness.
Our time of stepping out of the regular rhythms of our lives allows for remembrances and giving story form to memories of previous trips and to our lives more broadly.
Now in our 70s, we fish for stories to pull from the deep waters of memory. The stories allow their shiny, colorful hues, like those of the trout jumping into sunlight, to illuminate our present identity.
We have become more conscious of the reality that where the water runs most swiftly, and especially in the shadows of the stream, is where the invisible trout are clustered.
It has become our way of reconnecting to the natural order, with its own wondrous rhythms and shadings.
Our fishing excursions bring much of our individual lives to the surface. Our life events are for a moment fixed in the telling, which is itself one of the richest elements in a long and sustained friendship.
Our fly lines have, over time, morphed into our story lines. We read more now on our outings and fish less. It has become a shift in awareness where we now sense there are bigger fish to fry.
It is a time for rich conversations about what we have read or films we’ve watched. We are now, at our age, casting our attention at the meaning of life itself. These trips are the occasions for taking stock of the bigger questions that life poses.
A shift in our collective attitude is itself a migration from quantity to quality, an important observation to consider because it includes the very journey of life itself in its constant flow, eddies and currents that attend our lives.
What we now grasp is the importance of connecting our stories. They are the mythic underpinnings of our lives, offering us coherence, cohesion and camaraderie.
But, to be clear about the trout we do catch: yes, we take them home and we eat ‘em!